Jim's post in an earlier thread about the benefits of books like O'Reilly got me thinking of an interesting topic for the board.

What are your favorite/most intriguing facts or oddities of the Lincoln assassination? I'll start with a few of mine:

1. Lincoln's body was autopsied and embalmed in the current White House room (the old Prince of Wales Room) where First Families since Truman have eaten their meals (the current family dining room.)

2. (As Jim noted) JWB lounged/napped in the very bed where Lincoln would later die in the Petersen House.

3. Robert Lincoln once saved the life of Edwin Booth by helping him off a train track just before a train arrived.

Heath

Good topic, Heath!

According to p. 280 of Theodore Roscoe's The Web of Conspiracy several American towns received word that the President had been assassinated BEFORE it happened. These cities included:

1. St. Joseph, Minnesota.
2. Manchester, New Hampshire
3. Middletown, New York

(11-09-2014 02:14 PM)Rhatkinson Wrote:  Jim's post in an earlier thread about the benefits of books like O'Reilly got me thinking of an interesting topic for the board.

What are your favorite/most intriguing facts or oddities of the Lincoln assassination? I'll start with a few of mine:

1. Lincoln's body was autopsied and embalmed in the current White House room (the old Prince of Wales Room) where First Families since Truman have eaten their meals (the current family dining room.)

2. (As Jim noted) JWB lounged/napped in the very bed where Lincoln would later die in the Petersen House.

3. Robert Lincoln once saved the life of Edwin Booth by helping him off a train track just before a train arrived.

Heath

Oops - vice versa on #3 Heath...

That "they" carried him out of the theater without anyone having previously thought about a destination.

The "timing" of Lewis Powell's re-visit to the Surratt boardinghouse at the exact same moment that the detectives were there. If he had come either earlier or later, could he have avoided being captured?

I read somewhere that Powell was not humming Jimmy Jones' hit song when he arrived.

(11-10-2014 04:52 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  The "timing" of Lewis Powell's re-visit to the Surratt boardinghouse at the exact same moment that the detectives were there. If he had come either earlier or later, could he have avoided being captured?

I read somewhere that Powell was not humming Jimmy Jones' hit song when he arrived.

That's either got to be the worst twist of fate or he was subconsciously handing himself in!

(11-09-2014 02:43 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Good topic, Heath!

According to p. 280 of Theodore Roscoe's The Web of Conspiracy several American towns received word that the President had been assassinated BEFORE it happened. These cities included:

1. St. Joseph, Minnesota.
2. Manchester, New Hampshire
3. Middletown, New York

This may sound odd today, but it wasn't back then considering all of the death threats he received before his inauguration and during his term in office. The Daily Pantagraph published in Bloomington, IL, on August 12, 1863 printed a rumor of Lincoln's death heard the day before.

(11-09-2014 02:14 PM)Rhatkinson Wrote:  2. (As Jim noted) JWB lounged/napped in the very bed where Lincoln would later die in the Petersen House.

Heath

Speaking of beds, I wonder if Luther Baker slept in the same bed in the Garrett sons' bedroom that Booth slept in on the night of April 24th. Baker had gone to the Garrett farm a couple of months after the assassination looking for Booth's field glasses and apparently spent the night there.

Baker testified in the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial that, "There was a little boy, about five or six years old, playing around, and on questioning him I learned that Booth gave the opera glass to his sister, Joanna Garrett, and that she had put it in her father's writing desk. Next morning I told the old gentleman what I knew about the opera glass, and that it must be produced."

Mrs. Garrett's sister, Lucinda Holloway, said in her account that, "Lieutenant Baker and Jack Garrett went up to my mother’s, which was about eight miles, and got them. They came back to Mr. Garrett’s about four o’clock in the evening, and spent the night and returned to Washington the next day.”

http://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussio...ld+glasses

Linda-Very odd to say the least!

That David Herold and George Atzerodt didn't necessarily think they would pay with their lives for their parts in the assassination. Davey Herold, on the ride back to Washington after his capture, wanted the $10.00 back he had given to either Will or Jack Garrett for transportation to Orange CH.
Atzerodt tried to reason that since he did not follow through with the attempt to kill Andrew Johnson, he had actually saved his life. He should therefore go free.

I know its role was different when it was first created and protection wouldn't be a a duty for decades to come, the "oddity" that Lincoln signed the Bill creating the Secret Service just hours before his assassination is indeed a strange coincidence. Not to mention that his bodyguard for the evening was missing at the time of President Lincoln's attack.

Andrew Johnson was a snake.

(11-10-2014 05:19 PM)HerbS Wrote:  Andrew Johnson was a snake.

Andrew Johnson was the only person who recognized what a great statesman he was. He is buried wrapped in the American flag with his head lying on a copy of the Constitution.

In all reality, Johnson didn't have a chance. Between his performance at the second inauguration and having to follow in the footsteps of AL with all the factions jockeying for control, He stepped into an untenable situation.

My mentor[Albert Castel] writes in his biography of Johnson"If Andy Johnson were a snake,he would hide in the grass,and bite the legs of children as they ran by".So,in reality to me,he was a snake in the grass.

I agree Herb. As we have seen, a lot of snakes succeed in politics (at least for a while). Whether he was a snake or slightly better or slightly worse, he viewed himself as a statesman. I bet that Johnson probably felt history would treat him better.