Tom Bogar talks about Louis Carland a lot in Backstage. However, there is no picture. Tom describes the scene with Hess, Carland, and Gifford out on Tenth Street, and it's hard to really match this up with what Joseph Dye testified. Hess only asked for the time once, not three times. I wonder if Dye were simply mistaken in his memory or conceivably was remembering a totally separate incident involving other men. It seems unlikely (at least to me) that two different men would call "ten minutes past ten" to different groups in front of the theater.

Reed testified that Surratt wore "a round-crowned hat" and his "country suit" as "drab." Reed discribed the man he identified as Surratt as being "a light-complexioned man; his hair was rather singular like; it is not red or brown, but rather sandy; and as "rather delicate; he would not weigh over 140 pounds; he walks a little stooped."

Joseph Dye testified that the third man "wore one of those fashionable hats they wear in Washington -- round top and stiff brim" and "His coat was a kind of a dead color." He also call the man the "the smallest one" and later as "Not very large; about five feet six inches high. " he also calls him a "very neat gentleman, well dressed, and with a moustache."

James Humphrey describes Surratt as "sandy hair and a light goatee; his eyes were sunken; he was thin featured."

Charles Woods says "I shaved him clean all round the face, with the exception of where his moustache was. He had a slight
mustache at the time." and "the clothes he had on were rather light. I
cannot remember the particular kind of clothes, whether woollen, linen, or cotton."

For me, this sounds like all of these witnesses could be identifying the same man. Dye's testimony was almost exactly the same at both trials.

Did Susan Jackson ever speak of his physical appearance during her testimony?

If I were a spy, I would have created an alibi for myself. "Possibly" take a trip to another city, make sure I would be seen, wear something flashy. The real question is, Could he have gotten back to Washington in time to participate?

I still find his statement strange that he didn't hear the news until he read about it on Monday. He had to assume he would be implicated. The police were at his door within the first hour of the shooting.

(03-18-2017 05:38 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Tom Bogar talks about Louis Carland a lot in Backstage. However, there is no picture. Tom describes the scene with Hess, Carland, and Gifford out on Tenth Street, and it's hard to really match this up with what Joseph Dye testified. Hess only asked for the time once, not three times. I wonder if Dye were simply mistaken in his memory or conceivably was remembering a totally separate incident involving other men. It seems unlikely (at least to me) that two different men would call "ten minutes past ten" to different groups in front of the theater.

Or, as I suggested before, Dye was making up his testimony to suit the authorities...

David Keehn mentions Louis Carland in his great book on the Knights of the Golden Circle. He states that Samuel Chester specifically mentioned Carland belonging to the secret group. He also says that Carland, just a few weeks before, had upset some Union troops in D.C. by "wishing all Yankees dead."

Keehn also says that Carland had met with Booth and a group of men at the Waverly House shortly before the assassination and that one of the men may have been the head of the Baltimore KGC, James Byrnes (referred to as Tom Burns in some versions). He also says that Carland hid for three days following the assassination.

That puts a KGC spin on things...

I also want to state that I do not think John Surratt was wearing a Garibaldi jacket in Elmira. The two witnesses referred to it as a Canadian coat. The closest I can come to such a thing is what the Canadians called a blanket coat, but I don't think it was even that. Furthermore, there was a movement in Canada during the 1860s to align themselves more with the British Empire - not with the revolutionaries of Europe.

As for the Garibaldi jacket (also called a shirt), it was a very popular female fashion during the 1860s (thanks to the fashion-setting Empress Eugenie) because it was full cut and had large, commodious sleeves that narrowed to a wristband. It was very comfortable and could be adapted for day work dresses as well as dressier attire. I have searched a good number of sources trying to find reference to Garibaldis being worn by men as outerwear to no avail.

This may be a very small subject in the larger scope of Surratt's history, but it might also be key to understanding the Elmira men's comments on the clothing. Lincoln was accused of sneaking into D.C. in 1861 in female clothing; Jeff Davis was accused of fleeing in women's clothing; let's not have John Surratt dressed in female fashion.

Counsel Richard T. Merrick, resuming, said at the John Surratt-trial:

One other circumstance connected with these witnesses from Elmira is worthy of your considerations. They all testify to the peculiar kind of coat known as a Garibaldi jacket. You saw the pattern of it exhibited in court, buttoned round the throat, and plaited in the back and in the breast, with a belt around the waist—a coat a like unto which there is none in this room, and probably none in use in the city of Washington. They testify to seeing that identical coat on this man. We bring here from Canada the tailor who swears that he made this identical coat for this man in Canada, on the 9th of April, 1865. He swears that he made it for Surratt, and we find Surratt in that coat in Elmira. He then returns to Canada, and they prove by the agent of the hotel and the clerk who kept the register that when he came there he had on that identical coat.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

From the testimony of John J. Reeves:
.
.
.
Q. Did you ever make any clothes for him in Montreal ?
A. I did.
Q. State what garments you made for him.
A. I made a Garibaldi.
Q. "When was that ?
A. In April, 1865.
Q. Can you state what day of the month ?
A. Between the 8th and 9th.
Q. Describe it.
A. It was a Garibaldi of cloth; a pleated garment with the pleats in front; also in the back. The wristbands were plain, same as the shirt, with a belt round the body.
Q. What was the belt made of?
A. Of the same material.
Q. Describe how it buttons in front.
A. There are, I believe, about four buttons in front, and one in the belt.
Q. Do you recollect the color ?
A. It is of a cloth mixture.
Q. Have you any doubt that this is the gentleman that bought that coat ?
A. This is the gentleman that bought the coat.
.
.
.
.
Q. Do you recollect when he returned to Montreal, and where he went ?
A. I do.
Q. State about what time he returned and where he went.
A. He returned to Montreal, and came to me and said that the coat was too tight around the neck. I altered the coat and made it larger around the neck. I asked him where he was staying, he having commenced talking with me about one thing and another.
Q. About what date was that ?
A. In fact I could not say; somewhere between the 11th and the 18th.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Q. You can state, after looking at the entry, what it was John Harrison got, and when.
A. He got a Garibaldi of cloth. I measured him on the 7th day of April, and delivered it on Monday, the 9th.
The Court. The 9th would be Sunday.
Witness. It is Monday, the 9th, in my books.

(03-19-2017 08:55 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  Counsel Richard T. Merrick, resuming, said at the John Surratt-trial:

One other circumstance connected with these witnesses from Elmira is worthy of your considerations. They all testify to the peculiar kind of coat known as a Garibaldi jacket. You saw the pattern of it exhibited in court, buttoned round the throat, and plaited in the back and in the breast, with a belt around the waist—a coat a like unto which there is none in this room, and probably none in use in the city of Washington. They testify to seeing that identical coat on this man. We bring here from Canada the tailor who swears that he made this identical coat for this man in Canada, on the 9th of April, 1865. He swears that he made it for Surratt, and we find Surratt in that coat in Elmira. He then returns to Canada, and they prove by the agent of the hotel and the clerk who kept the register that when he came there he had on that identical coat.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

From the testimony of John J. Reeves:
.
.
.
Q. Did you ever make any clothes for him in Montreal ?
A. I did.
Q. State what garments you made for him.
A. I made a Garibaldi.
Q. "When was that ?
A. In April, 1865.
Q. Can you state what day of the month ?
A. Between the 8th and 9th.
Q. Describe it.
A. It was a Garibaldi of cloth; a pleated garment with the pleats in front; also in the back. The wristbands were plain, same as the shirt, with a belt round the body.
Q. What was the belt made of?
A. Of the same material.
Q. Describe how it buttons in front.
A. There are, I believe, about four buttons in front, and one in the belt.
Q. Do you recollect the color ?
A. It is of a cloth mixture.
Q. Have you any doubt that this is the gentleman that bought that coat ?
A. This is the gentleman that bought the coat.
.
.
.
.
Q. Do you recollect when he returned to Montreal, and where he went ?
A. I do.
Q. State about what time he returned and where he went.
A. He returned to Montreal, and came to me and said that the coat was too tight around the neck. I altered the coat and made it larger around the neck. I asked him where he was staying, he having commenced talking with me about one thing and another.
Q. About what date was that ?
A. In fact I could not say; somewhere between the 11th and the 18th.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Q. You can state, after looking at the entry, what it was John Harrison got, and when.
A. He got a Garibaldi of cloth. I measured him on the 7th day of April, and delivered it on Monday, the 9th.
The Court. The 9th would be Sunday.
Witness. It is Monday, the 9th, in my books.

My apologies, Kees. Evidently modern textile/clothing sources have overlooked the male version of the Garibaldi. I did check several devoted strictly to men's fashions of the 1860s. I would love to see a photo of the male version; wonder if it had the full sleeves (often referred to as bishop sleeves)?

I am still chewing on the topic of men wearing Garibaldi jackets, and I think I may have found a tidbit (a guess) here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=2GkAd0...3F&f=false

In summary for our topic, Garibaldi traveled throughout England in the fall of 1864, and the country went mad over him. From Staffordshire china statues to commemorative pieces and cheap souvenirs, everything was "Garibaldi." I still did not find mention of men's jackets being called that, but I'm taking a giant leap and suspecting that the British merchants in Canada got in on the fascination also and may have created something called a Garibaldi jacket for men (in very limited quantities, perhaps?). With his travels to Montreal, perhaps Surratt saw and wanted one of these jackets. Wonder if he used Confederate funds to purchase one?

---

In his book, The Last Lincoln Conspirator, Andrew Jampoler includes a very familiar photo of Surratt and says that he is wearing his Garibaldi jacket in the photo. The voluminous sleeves sure fit the description, but I see very little pleating in the front, and the photo is of Surratt in a seated position that does not show a belt at the waist.

Andy also has a very detailed description of Surratt's Elmira assignment and of the prison itself. Go here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=UYc8AA...et&f=false

W. Emerson Reck, in A. Lincoln: His Last 24 Hours, mentions a letter Sergeant Dye wrote to his father right after the assassination. The letter was printed in the April 25, 1865, Richmond Whig:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dear Father:

With sorrow I pen these lines. The death of President Lincoln has deeply affected me. And why shouldn’t it, when I might have saved his precious life?

I was standing in front of the theater when the two assassins were conversing. I heard part of their conversation. It was not sufficiently plain for an outsider to understand the true meaning of it; yet it apprised Sergeant Cooper and myself that they were anxious that the President should come out of his carriage which was standing just behind us. The second act would soon end, and they expected he would come out then. I stood awhile between them and the carriage, with my revolver ready, for I began to suspect them. The act ended but the President did not appear; so Booth went into the restaurant and took a drink … I was invited by my friend to have some oysters and went to a saloon around the corner, and had just gotten seated when a man came running in and said the President was shot.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In addition to the Richmond Whig, Reck mentions a second source for Dye's letter: Allen C. Clark, "Abraham Lincoln in the National Capitol," Journal of the Columbia Historic Association (Washington, D.C.: The Society, 1925), p. 98.

At the 1865 conspiracy trial, Dye identified Booth as the well-dressed man, but did not mention Surratt by name in his testimony.

(03-18-2017 04:49 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I don't have Michael Schein's book in front of me, but I need to review his research on that topic. How detailed is it?

John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away ---

excerpt ©2015 Michael Schein

A NEATLY DRESSED GENTLEMAN

Good Friday, April 14, 1865. Ford’s Theatre. Sometime between 9½ and 10 o’clock. Though after dark, a large lamp lights the front of the theatre. Union Sergeant Joseph M. Dye sits on the platform out front while his comrade in arms, Sergeant Robert H. Cooper, paces up and down the pavement. Together they had viewed the torchlight parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate a victorious end to the cursed War of Rebellion, then stopped at Ford’s on the walk back, hoping to catch a glimpse of their commander-in-chief. As a man will do while idling, Sergeant Dye begins to notice people.

First he sees the famous actor, John Wilkes Booth, out front of the theatre. Booth is conversing with a low, short, “villainous-looking” person. A neatly dressed gentleman joins Booth’s conversation. Intermission sends the theatre-goers rushing out. Dye hears Booth say “he will come now,” apparently referring to the President. Sergeant Dye eagerly searches for Mr. Lincoln’s unmistakable visage towering above the crowd, but in vain.

Booth and his companions disperse – Booth to Taltavul’s saloon for a quick shot, the villainous-looking man to examine the President’s carriage. Not long afterwards Booth comes out, fortified by a whiskey, and stands by the alley leading to the stage door. The neatly dressed gentleman steps to the front of the theatre, looks at the clock in the vestibule, calls the time, then spins on his heel and briskly marches up 10th Avenue towards H Street. A few minutes later the gentleman returns. He calls the time again; again he marches up towards H Street.

Feeling that something is awry, Sergeant Dye reaches into the breast pocket of his artillery jacket to unwrap the handkerchief from around his revolver. Dye watches closely as the gentleman returns to the front of Ford’s Theatre. As the mysterious man looks at the clock, the light shines clearly on his excited pale face. He calls the time once more – ten minutes past ten o’clock – then hurries away towards H Street. John Wilkes Booth walks directly into the theatre.

Sergeant Dye points out the gent’s strange behavior to Sergeant Cooper. Cooper shrugs his shoulders. “I’m hungry,” he says, and together they step into an oyster saloon. Their oysters are not yet delivered when a man bursts in to proclaim: "The President has been shot!"

At the trial of John H. Surratt for conspiracy in the murder of Abraham Lincoln, Sergeant Dye testifies about the neatly dressed gentleman who called the time:

Mr. Pierrepont (for the Government): Did you see that man distinctly?

Sergeant Dye: I did.

Q: Very distinctly?

A: I did very distinctly.

Q: Do you see him now?

A: I do. . . .

Q: Tell us where he is.

A: He sits there (pointing to the prisoner [John H. Surratt].)

Q: Is that the man?

A: It is. I have seen his face often since, while I have been sleeping – it was so exceedingly pale.

In all, eleven witnesses testify to seeing John H. Surratt in Washington on that terrible Good Friday, April 14, 1865, the day of the assassination.

Yet there is another version of the same events . . .

Thursday or Friday, April 13 or 14. Stewart & Ufford, Men’s Furnishings, a tidy shop located at Nos. 20 and 22 Lake Street, Elmira, New York, roughly two-hundred eighty miles from Washington. Some time around two o’clock – definitely after lunch – the shop’s very sober bookkeeper, town alderman Frank H. Atkinson, watches as a distinctive young gentleman engages in ten or twenty minutes of conversation with their cutter, Mr. Carroll. The gentleman is memorable for his unusual coat, buttoned up with a full row of buttons on the front, and a belt fastened about the waist. Mr. Carroll confirms this, and adds that the man came in twice – once on the 13th, and again on the 14th.

At his trial, John H. Surratt is instructed to rise.

Mr. Bradley (for the Defense): Is that the same man?

Mr. Atkinson: I have no doubt but that is the same man.

Mr. Bradley: Is that the man?

Mr. Carroll: That is the man.

Five witnesses testify to seeing John H. Surratt in Elmira at various times on April 13, 14 and 15. But what of the man calling time in front of Ford’s Theatre?

Mr. C.B. Hess, an actor, is pleased to be included in the evening’s entertainment on April 14. Though not in the cast of Our American Cousin, he’s been engaged to sing a patriotic song in honor of the President and the great Union victory at the conclusion of the show. Filled with the nervous energy that always precedes a performance, Mr. Hess steps from the stage door and sees Lewis Carland, a costumer and actor, and James J. Gifford, a stage carpenter, standing out front. Carland and Gifford had just come from the adjoining saloon, where they’d ducked in the side door just in time to catch a glimpse of Mr. Booth leaving by the front door. Mr. Hess asks the time. Mr. Carland walks to the front entrance, peers at the clock, then returns with the news that it is ten minutes past ten. Mr. Hess repeats, “Ten minutes past ten – I’ll be wanted in a few minutes,” and he ducks back in at the stage entrance. Not more than two minutes later he hears the report of a pistol, and suddenly all is chaos.

* * *
History is slippery like that. We want to know what really happened, but the evidence cannot always be reconciled. We want to know so badly that sometimes we fill in the gaps, consciously or unconsciously. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. The passage of time erodes memory. Documents are lost. False documents are created. Conspiracy theorists jump in to fill the voids created by honest uncertainty. Versions feed off of other versions. The more shocking the event, the more versions there are.

There was no more shocking event in the Nineteenth Century than the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. At the very height of Lincoln’s power, the moment of triumph after four years of bloody struggle, a blow was struck to decapitate the government of the United States. The grief that followed was deepened by the heights of the victory just won. On the night before the assassination, “Washington was all ablaze with glory. The very heavens seemed to have come down, and the stars twinkled in a sort of faded way, as if the solar system was out of order and the earth had become the great luminary.”

O, what an elevation! but alas, alas, what a fall! Our joy is suddenly turned into deepest sorrow. The emblem of freedom which recently floated so proudly over land and sea is draped with the emblems of mourning, and a nation in tears follow their beloved and honored chief to a patriot’s and martyr’s grave.

Literally overnight, the United States plunged from ecstasy into unfathomable and terrifying despair.

What can be known about this epoch-changing event? Who was responsible? Was there a conspiracy? If so, did it reach from the Confederate high command in Richmond to Washington? We want to know, we must know – and it is inconceivable that, perhaps, we cannot know everything about it.

This much can be known: the Lincoln assassination was part of a conspiracy to kill the key leaders of the American government – the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of State, and possibly also Union General Grant. Regardless of whether John H. Surratt was in Washington or Elmira on the night of the assassination, he was deeply involved in the plot against Lincoln and the government of the United States. What’s more, of all the conspirators, John Surratt was the one who was a bona fide Confederate secret agent, with ties to the highest levels of Confederate government. And of all the known conspirators involved in the crime of the century, Surratt was the only one who got away with it!

Who was John H. Surratt? To some he was a patriot, fighting to defend the Southern way of life, and the freedom bequeathed by the Declaration of Independence to secede from tyrannical government. To others, he was a spy and assassin, dedicated to preserving the unholy rule of the slaveholders at any cost, who would just as soon shoot a Yankee in the back as give him the time of day. To many of his supporters, Surratt was a courageous young man unjustly accused by vengeful victors of complicity in a crime of which he knew nothing; a Southern soldier who was hounded to the ends of the earth, then dragged back to stand trial based on the same perjured evidence that had unjustly condemned his mother to hang. To many of his detractors, he was as guilty as Booth of the assassination of the sainted Lincoln, a coward who had allowed his mother to swing on the gallows for his own crimes, who nonetheless escaped all punishment due to the protection of shadowy forces such as the Catholic Church.

Can it be possible that a boy barely twenty-one on the day Lincoln was shot could have shared Booth’s guilt, yet have gotten away with murder? Can it be believed that a Confederate spy is perhaps the missing link between the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the top command of the Confederacy right up to President Jefferson Davis? Can it be that a young man whose face was next to Booth’s atop the assassination “WANTED” posters and who once held the undivided attention of a deeply divided nation, could have been mostly forgotten by history? The Lincoln assassination, in Churchill’s felicitous phrase, “is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.” That key might be a forgotten young man, John Harrison Surratt, whose last name is pronounced “Sir Rat.”

IMO, Michael did an excellent summation of what history will continue to report about John Harrison Surratt, Jr. If we haven't determined the full truth after 152 years, it is very likely that we never will.

Nearly forty years ago, a grandchild of John Surratt told us that her grandfather burned a manuscript that he had intended on publishing about his escapades during the Civil War. He told his family that people were still alive who would be hurt by the revelations. If I ever meet up with him during the hereafter, I intend to choke the truth out of him! I understand why he did what he did, but I want to know all the details. And, I am much more concerned with who gave him his orders than I am as to whether or not he was in D.C. at the time of the assassination.

(03-18-2017 06:17 PM)brtmchl Wrote:  Did Susan Jackson ever speak of his physical appearance during her testimony?

Mike, long ago I think I read somewhere that Susan Jackson had her dates confused. In other words, what she described in her testimony did not really happen on April 14th. Rather it happened much earlier (maybe in late March or very early April). Now I have looked for this in several books and cannot find where I read it. Does anyone recall ever reading something like this?

(03-20-2017 04:44 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-18-2017 06:17 PM)brtmchl Wrote:  Did Susan Jackson ever speak of his physical appearance during her testimony?

Mike, long ago I think I read somewhere that Susan Jackson had her dates confused. In other words, what she described in her testimony did not really happen on April 14th. Rather it happened much earlier (maybe in late March or very early April). Now I have looked for this in several books and cannot find where I read it. Does anyone recall ever reading something like this?

Roger, this is new for me, never read about it. But I remember a sort of confirmation that John Surratt was in the Surratt boarding house on the 14th. I think it was Richard Smoot who wrote in his “The Unwritten History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln” (1908) that he visited the Surratt boarding house on April 12th because he wanted to see John Surratt about something. John was not there, but Mary Surratt told him that he would be there on the 14th.

(03-20-2017 04:44 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-18-2017 06:17 PM)brtmchl Wrote:  Did Susan Jackson ever speak of his physical appearance during her testimony?

Mike, long ago I think I read somewhere that Susan Jackson had her dates confused. In other words, what she described in her testimony did not really happen on April 14th. Rather it happened much earlier (maybe in late March or very early April). Now I have looked for this in several books and cannot find where I read it. Does anyone recall ever reading something like this?

Eliza Hawkins ("Aunt Rachel") contradicted Susan Jackson's testimony at John Surratt's trial (see vol. 1, p. 693-94). She stated that Susan told her the Tuesday after the assassination that she had last seen John two weeks before the assassination.

Nora Fitzpatrick also testified at that trial that Susan had seen John two weeks before the assassination (see vol. I, pp. 713-14).

Of course, both these two witnesses were predisposed in favor of the Surratt family and had a motive to lie, but it's also possible that Susan was genuinely confused.

(03-20-2017 08:13 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  but it's also possible that Susan was genuinely confused.

I know I am, and I wasn't even there

(03-20-2017 06:03 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  

(03-20-2017 04:44 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-18-2017 06:17 PM)brtmchl Wrote:  Did Susan Jackson ever speak of his physical appearance during her testimony?

Mike, long ago I think I read somewhere that Susan Jackson had her dates confused. In other words, what she described in her testimony did not really happen on April 14th. Rather it happened much earlier (maybe in late March or very early April). Now I have looked for this in several books and cannot find where I read it. Does anyone recall ever reading something like this?

Roger, this is new for me, never read about it. But I remember a sort of confirmation that John Surratt was in the Surratt boarding house on the 14th. I think it was Richard Smoot who wrote in his “The Unwritten History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln” (1908) that he visited the Surratt boarding house on April 12th because he wanted to see John Surratt about something. John was not there, but Mary Surratt told him that he would be there on the 14th.

Smoot did write those words, but when he returned on the 14th, he claimed that he was met by an agitated Mary Surratt, who hustled him away. He never saw her son -- and, on the 12th, Mary probably expected her son to be home in time for Easter (or what might occur shortly before the holiday!).

I also agree with Susan about Susan Jackson. She was a new employee, had only met John once, and had to be extremely excited by all of the federal "activity" around the boardinghouse, starting with the midnight intrusion by the authorities. Who knows what pressures were put upon her in both 1865 and 1867.