(10-13-2018 08:46 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  I would ask...if the body on the Montauk were not Booth's, why would it have a fracture of the fibula in the same spot as the real Booth did?

How do we know that Dr. May was not correct when he said that the injured leg was the right leg? When Dr. May's son, who was also a doctor, was asked about his father's statement that the the right leg was the injured leg, he said that if that was what his father said, then "that would undoubtedly mean that it was the right leg that was broken" (http://library.indstate.edu/rbsc/neff/PD...tion.pdf). Does it not seem odd that when Holt took Dr. May's statement on April 27, Holt did not ask him anything about the leg injury?

How do we know that Dr. Barnes did not intend to describe the right leg? How do we know that he did not commit the doctor's-left-patient's-right error that others here have suggested is both understandable and somewhat frequent? How do we know that Barnes, a senior figure in the government, did not purposely misreport which leg was injured?

Does the photo of the broken ankle show the foot so we can tell which leg it was? Oh, that's right: for some reason, not a single photo was taken of any of the injuries. In fact, according to some defenders of the traditional story, no photo was taken of the face either, nor even of the body in profile from a distance. Post-mortem photos were quite common by the mid-1800s. But, we're supposed to believe that in the crime of the century, in the most important case that the officials on that boat would ever be involved with, they did not allow a single photo to be taken of the body because the body looked so unlike Booth. Or, a photo was taken (which I believe is the case), but it soon disappeared (obviously, because the photo would have shown that the body was not Booth).

Finally, when Lt. Baker had the body for several hours, would it not have been a fairly simple matter to break the left ankle? We should keep in mind that Luther Baker was one of Lafayette Baker's two handpicked henchmen to accompany the search party, and that, as historian Allan Nevins noted, Lafayette Baker was "a notorious fabricator of evidence in trials" (The War for the Union, 1971, p. 334).

Mike , I do think that you need to provide a reason why so many people would have been willing to, and knowingly, take the very risky course of claiming the body as being Booth when it wasnt him. Even if a few were dupes and only following the assertions of others, there must have been some that did it knowingly and criminally. Why would they do that?

The risk of being caught out would have been enormous ... why? and for what? As a reward him for killing Lincoln? To enable Booth to live a life in Canada or overseas or out West? Hoping he'd keep quiet and not be dobbed in (exposed) ? Hope that your co-conspirators could lie convincingly and keep their nerve? Plan to have him killed somewhere quiet? (Again, high risk and high chance of him not going quietly).

(10-24-2018 05:08 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(10-23-2018 08:49 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  * Historians who have quoted Munroe to support the traditional version have been extremely selective in quoting him. They usually do not allow the reader to know that Munroe was a tall teller of tales and that much of his testimony contradicts the traditional version on key points.

* Munroe was the Forrest Gump of the Lincoln assassination. This guy was just about everywhere.

I agree with Mike on this point. Remarkably, Seaton Munroe also claimed he was at Ford's Theatre just as Laura Keene was leaving the State Box. Munroe stated:

"Making a motion to arrest her progress, I begged her to tell me if Mr. Lincoln was still alive. "God only knows!" she gasped, stopping for a moment's rest. The memory of that apparition will never leave me. Attired, as I had so often seen her, in the costume of her part in "Our American Cousin," her hair and dress were in disorder, and not only was her gown soaked in Lincoln's blood, but her hands, and even her cheeks where her fingers had strayed, were bedaubed with the sorry stains!"

Based on what was said by others regarding the small amount of bleeding/oozing from the President's wound in the box, the blood on Keene's dress was most likely Rathbone's, not Lincoln's. I actually wonder if Seaton Munroe may have embellished or even created his story about meeting up with Keene. As far as I know Munroe's reminiscences were not published until 1896.

I agree with Mike and Roger's sentiments that we should treat Seaton Munroe's account skeptically, especially with its description of Keene after she left the box and the differing account of Booth's body's condition from Dr. May. Seaton was the brother of marine Capt. Frank Munroe who was in charge of the detail guarding the prisoners and could have gained access to the body/proceedings through his brother; or Seaton could have crafted a later account inserting himself there based on what Frank had told him. Though, I don't see how not trusting the veracity of Seaton's account really changes anything in regards to the identification of the body. Here's a link to Munroe's article for anybody that's interested:

https://archive.org/details/recollection...r/page/430

Three points: one about the 1869 identification, one about the JWB initials and the other tattoos on the hands, and one about the known scars on Booth’s body that nobody mentioned seeing on the body on the Montauk.

The 1869 Identification

It turns out that when the man in the barn's body was exhumed in DC and reburied in Baltimore in 1869, three of the witnesses who were allowed to see the body before it was reburied said the body's teeth had only one filling, but Booth was known to have had at least two fillings. Theodore Roscoe discusses this in The Web of Conspiracy, pp. 528-530.

Because of the greatly decayed condition of the body, Joseph Booth saw the need for dental identification. Miss Chapman recalled that the first thing that Joseph Booth said was that if the body was his brother, “it has but one plugged tooth in its head” (Roscoe, p. 529).

The undertaker, John Weaver, had brought the body to Weaver's funeral home in Baltimore and had also brought a dental chart that was supposed to be Booth’s. When Weaver produced the dental chart and the mouth of the body was examined, only one filling was found therein:

Quote:Mr. Weaver produced a dentist’s chart. Joseph Booth handed it to Charles Bishop. Bishop went to the corpse, drew down the lower jaw, “inserted his fingers and took out the plugged tooth.” It was shown to the witnesses present. (Roscoe, p. 529)

Booth’s biographer, Francis Wilson, sought to explain this problem with the explanation that Booth had had a second filling done shortly before the assassination and that Joseph Booth was unaware of this. Okay, then why was only one filling found in the body’s mouth? “Plugged” teeth, i.e., teeth with fillings, were very easy to spot.

Could this be why Dr. Merrill, Booth's dentist, apparently failed to ID the body on the Montauk on the night of the autopsy? Could this be why there is no official record of his being there that night, why there is no report by him in the records, and why his testimony was not taken by Holt that night, even though there is indeed evidence that Merrill came to the ship that night? Republican newspapers at the time falsely reported that Dr. Merrill had identified the body as Booth based on his teeth, and many books that espouse the traditional story repeat this claim, but there is no official record that even says Merrill was there, much less that he identified the body as Booth.

A logical deduction from all this is that Merrill came, saw that there was only one filled tooth, explained that he had personally done a second filling in Booth’s teeth, saw (as did May and L. Gardner) that the body looked nothing like Booth, and declined to ID the body as Booth. I agree that there is evidence that Merrill was on the ship that night, but there is no trace of his presence or his identification in any of the official records on the autopsy. You can bet that if he had identified the body as Booth, especially based on dental evidence, Holt et al would have made sure the world knew it.

The JWB Initials and the Other Tattoos on the Hands

I do not believe Seaton Munroe knew Booth well. I certainly do not believe his claim that he dined with Booth on the night of the assassination. But Munroe might just have been telling the truth when he said that Dawson told Holt that the JWB initials were written between “the thumb and the forefinger.” Why? Because two credible witnesses, both of whom wrote to the War Department before the autopsy occurred, said that Booth had a tattoo—either his initials or a cross—near one of his thumbs.

J. L. McPhail, the Provost-Marshal General of Maryland, wrote to Stanton on the day Booth was allegedly shot. McPhail was writing from Baltimore, Booth’s home town. He informed Stanton that Booth had a tattoo of a small cross “between the forefinger and thumb” on his left hand, and he added that “across the same hand” there were “several spots” (Official Records, Washington: GPO, 1894, series 1, volume 46, part 3, p. 963, available at https://books.google.com/books?id=YNc4AQ...q&f=true).

H. C. Young of Cincinnati wrote to Stanton before Booth had even been captured. Young explained that he was a loyal citizen, that he had known Booth for years, and that he was anxious to help identify the “villain Booth.” Young said that he was not sure which hand bore the initials but that they were “near the thumb.” Young also mentioned seeing scars on Booth’s “arms and body” and a scar that was either on the side of his head or on his forehead near the hairline. Said Young,

Quote:I have known him well for several years, and have attended on him while sick at the Burnett House in this city about one year ago last month. If I remember right he has several scars on his arms and body and one either on the side of his head or on the forehead at the edge of the hair, all of which, he has told me, he received in stage fights, except one. . . . I also think and am pretty sure that he has the initials J.W.B. in India ink on one of his hands near the thumb. (Roscoe, p. 417)

Yet, not one of the people on the Montauk that night saw a tattooed cross or three-letter initials near the thumb or between the thumb and the forefinger. In addition, the decades-belated witnesses who claimed to have seen the JWB initials, even though they were “pale” and were so small that you had to take a closer look to read them, said nothing about seeing a cross near the thumb and spots “across the same hand.”

None of Booth’s Scars Seen on the Body on the Montauk

Young’s reference to scars on Booth’s arms and body and on the side of his face is corroborated by numerous witnesses and is strong evidence against the claim that Booth’s body was the body examined on the Montauk. Booth did indeed have scars on his arms and body and a scar on his temple near his hairline, yet not one of these scars was mentioned by any of the people who saw the body on the Montauk. They should have at least seen one of the following scars, if the body had been Booth:

* As a child, Booth suffered “a large cut” on his head that had to be stitched (Alford, Fortune’s Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth, p. 15). (As a child, I suffered a cut on my head that required three stitches, and even all these years later that scar is still visible.)

* Booth once accidentally stabbed himself with a dagger on stage at Ford’s Theater while playing Romeo (Roscoe, pp. 417-418).

* Booth also stabbed himself severely under his right arm in Albany while playing Pescara (Alford, pp. 103-104; Roscoe, pp. 417-418). He did this when he accidentally fell on a dagger and “cut away the muscles for some three inches under his right arm,” and this wound was so severe that Booth could not perform for several days (Alford, pp. 103-104).

* In another stage mishap, a fellow actor “brought down his sword across Booth’s forehead, cutting one eyebrow cleanly through” (Alford, pp. 155-156).

* Booth also received a scar on the side of his face, near his hairline, when Henrietta Irving attacked him (Alford, p. 107; Roscoe, pp. 417-418). This scar should have been noticeable. Alford says that when Irving attacked Booth, she used “a dirk [dagger], cutting his face badly” (Alford, p. 107).

* On another occasion, Booth suffered a knife cut when he intervened in a fight (Alford, pp. 171-172).

Why did the identification witnesses on the Montauk, including the two autopsy doctors, say nothing about any of these scars, not even the scar on the side of the face or the one under the right arm? Why did the belated post-mortem witnesses—who claimed they saw the small, “pale” JWB initials—say nothing about any of these scars? Why? Because those scars were not on the body that they viewed, because they were not looking at the body of John Wilkes Booth.

On the off chance that anyone is interested, I have taken the information in my previous reply and used it as part of a new article on Booth's fate:

Vanishing Evidence: Three Problems with the Claim that John Wilkes Booth Was Killed in 1865
http://miketgriffith.com/files/boothescaped2.pdf

Just on those theatrical mishaps ... I guess that's why these days actors now use "pretend" weapons. The number of actors who were injured must have resulted in a massive call for understudies. Its a wonder that so few people were killed. Or maybe Booth was just very unlucky.

Interesting to note you listed W C Jameson as one of the sources for your article.
He has written many books about lost mines and treasure hunting.
I have read his book almost 20 years ago, Return of the Assassin. About all I remember is I consider it one of the worst books on the Lincoln Assassination I have ever read.

(10-25-2018 09:44 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  Mike , I do think that you need to provide a reason why so many people would have been willing to, and knowingly, take the very risky course of claiming the body as being Booth when it wasnt him. Even if a few were dupes and only following the assertions of others, there must have been some that did it knowingly and criminally. Why would they do that?

The risk of being caught out would have been enormous ... why? and for what? As a reward him for killing Lincoln? To enable Booth to live a life in Canada or overseas or out West? Hoping he'd keep quiet and not be dobbed in (exposed) ? Hope that your co-conspirators could lie convincingly and keep their nerve? Plan to have him killed somewhere quiet? (Again, high risk and high chance of him not going quietly).

I do not get this argument at all. What "risk" was there? How were they at "risk" of "being caught" when they were being asked--or coerced--to ID the body as Booty by the likes of Holt and Baker, i.e., the Judge Advocate General of the United States and the head of the National Detective Police?

You need to keep in mind that several of these "witnesses," such as Montauk crew members Crowninshield and Collins, probably not only did not know Booth but had never laid eyes on him, and were simply tagged on the spot to "identify" the body as Booth.

Holt knew that some of Booth's accomplices were below deck and also on the nearby Saugus. He could have quickly and easily summoned them to view the body. But, for obvious reasons, he declined to do so. Similarly, many theater workers who had known Booth for years could have been summoned to view the body, but they were not called either.

Dawson, the hotel clerk, admitted that he was only as familiar with Booth as he was with other guests at the hotel, i.e., only casually and briefly. He was clearly trying to be a team player: Not only was he the one and only ID witness who told Holt that day that he had seen the initials on the body when he had viewed the body a short time earlier on the boat, but he was the only non-medical witness who told Holt that he noticed the scar on the neck that day. Wow! Super Witness!

Is it not very baffling, then, that this sharp-eyed clerk failed to notice the scar on the side of the face, the scar under the right arm, and the eyebrow scar, as well as the other scars that should have been on the body if the body was Booth? This is not to mention the fact that Dawson must have said nothing about the initials to any of the people who were hovering around the body when he viewed it, because nobody else whom Holt interviewed that day knew anything about any initials on the body.

Two of the other "witnesses" were Lafayette Baker henchmen Luther Baker, who had run off with the body for hours, and Everton Conger, who had dashed back to Washington to make sure he got credit to secure a large chunk of the huge reward being offered. I mean, really?

(10-30-2018 07:22 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Interesting to note you listed W C Jameson as one of the sources for your article.
He has written many books about lost mines and treasure hunting.
I have read his book almost 20 years ago, Return of the Assassin. About all I remember is I consider it one of the worst books on the Lincoln Assassination I have ever read.

I agree, Gene. Here is an example of how Jameson tries to deceive his readers. Jameson states, "William Hanchett, in his book The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, stated, 'One thing is certain: the shot that killed [the man in the barn] had not been fired by the emotionally unbalanced trooper.'

But if you look in the late Dr. Hanchett's book it is apparent that he states this in the section of his book where he presents a condensation of the Eisenschiml thesis. So Dr. Hanchett is presenting Eisenschiml's views of what the conspiracy theorists wanted others to believe, not his own, when he made the statement Jameson uses.

In an earlier reply, someone cited William Pegram’s 1913 article “An Historic Identification: John Wilkes Booth—What Became of Him?” and presented it as evidence that the body examined at the 1869 viewing was in fact Booth. But even a casual look at Pegram’s article reveals some serious problems with his claims, and in fact suggests that he fabricated his supposed identification or that the body he viewed was not Booth, or both.

For example, Pegram claimed that the body’s left foot was housed in a make-shift shoe that was made from the foot of the boot that Dr. Mudd cut from Booth’s leg (p. 328). Uh, no, Pegram could not have seen any such thing. The boot that Mudd cut and removed from Booth’s leg can be viewed at the Ford’s Theater National Historic Site. Here’s a picture of it: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010630742/. Here’s a closeup: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.04758/. You will see that the foot of the boot is not missing.

Pegram said that both the left ankle and the left knee were disjointed (p. 328). Neither Dr. Mudd, Dr. Barnes, nor Dr. Woodward said anything about the left knee being disjointed, and it seems hard to believe that they all would have failed to notice a disjointed knee.

Pegram said that the body’s teeth were examined and that only one filling was found (p. 328). Well, that’s a big problem, because Booth had two fillings.

Finally, incredibly, Pegram claimed that the hair on the body’s head “had grown probably nearly a foot in length” (p. 328)! Sorry, but science tells us that that could not have been Booth’s body because hair does not grow after death. New cells must be created for hair to grow, but cell growth stops very quickly after death. There is no way on this planet that any corpse’s hair would have grown “nearly a foot” by that time, or by any time. I quote from a BBC article that debunks the old myth that fingernails and hair keep growing after you die:

Quote:In order for fingernails to grow, new cells need to be produced and this can’t happen without glucose. Fingernails grow by an average of 0.1 mm per day, a rate which slows as we age. A layer of tissue beneath the base of the nail called the germinal matrix is responsible for producing the vast majority of the cells which form the newest-growing part of the fingernail. The new cells push the older ones forwards, making the nail appear to lengthen from the tip. Death puts a stop to the supply of glucose, and therefore to fingernail growth.

A similar process occurs for hair. Each hair sits within a follicle that drives its growth. At the base of the follicle is the hair matrix, a group of cells that divide to produce the new cells that make hair strands longer. These cells divide very rapidly, but only when supplied with energy. This comes from the burning of glucose, which requires the presence of oxygen. Once the heart stops pumping oxygen round the body in the blood, the energy supply dries up, and so does the cell division that drives hair growth. (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130526...ter-death)

In rare cases, depending on the nature of the death, hair and nails can grow a tiny, tiny, tiny bit, perhaps a fraction of an inch, but that’s it. In most cases, there is zero growth after death. Even an inch of post-mortem hair growth is impossible, much less 10-12 inches. Anyone can Google this subject and find hundreds of articles that explain the science behind this fact.

The Pegram article is a perfect example of how some defenders of the traditional story are prone to uncritically accept accounts that say what they want to hear. Steers cites Pegram as a witness. Did Steers ever read Pegram’s account? He dismisses the accounts of Basil Moxley, Joseph Ziegen, and William Kenzie, but he has no problem citing Pegram as a credible witness.

Concerning my query about deliberately mis-identifying the body ....

Mike, you write :
"I do not get this argument at all. What "risk" was there? How were they at "risk" of "being caught" when they were being asked--or coerced--to ID the body as Booty by the likes of Holt and Baker, i.e., the Judge Advocate General of the United States and the head of the National Detective Police? "

What risk was there? Sorry, I thought that was obvious ... and I have raised it before but you've ignored it ...
That Booth (probably one of the most 'famous' men at that time) would turn up in Canada or out West or where-ever. He wasnt known as being a recluse.
I'd call that a huge risk.

Out west for sure, Finis Bates has him in Texas and Enid, OK
Ray Neff has him in India.

His non co-conspirator, John Surratt, was seen in Canada, England, Italy and Egypt.
Intentionally mis-identifying Booth's body carries huge consequences.

There is a slight problem, Otto Eisenschiml devotes an entire chapter in his book, In the Shadow of Lincoln's Death, that it was most likely John Wilkes Booth who was shot and killed at the Garrett farm, but Eisenschiml does leave himself a little wiggle room.

"In all probability, and giving due weight to all aspects of the case, Herold felt certain that it was Booth, and no one else, who had been shot" p.65

"Pending further developments, the contenders for the orthodox theory have by far the better case, although it does not stand proven" p.87.

(10-30-2018 10:56 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  In an earlier reply, someone cited William Pegram’s 1913 article “An Historic Identification: John Wilkes Booth—What Became of Him?” and presented it as evidence that the body examined at the 1869 viewing was in fact Booth. But even a casual look at Pegram’s article reveals some serious problems with his claims, and in fact suggests that he fabricated his supposed identification or that the body he viewed was not Booth, or both.

For example, Pegram claimed that the body’s left foot was housed in a make-shift shoe that was made from the foot of the boot that Dr. Mudd cut from Booth’s leg (p. 328). Uh, no, Pegram could not have seen any such thing. The boot that Mudd cut and removed from Booth’s leg can be viewed at the Ford’s Theater National Historic Site. Here’s a picture of it: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010630742/. Here’s a closeup: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.04758/. You will see that the foot of the boot is not missing.

Pegram said that both the left ankle and the left knee were disjointed (p. 328). Neither Dr. Mudd, Dr. Barnes, nor Dr. Woodward said anything about the left knee being disjointed, and it seems hard to believe that they all would have failed to notice a disjointed knee.

Pegram said that the body’s teeth were examined and that only one filling was found (p. 328). Well, that’s a big problem, because Booth had two fillings.

Finally, incredibly, Pegram claimed that the hair on the body’s head “had grown probably nearly a foot in length” (p. 328)! Sorry, but science tells us that that could not have been Booth’s body because hair does not grow after death. New cells must be created for hair to grow, but cell growth stops very quickly after death. There is no way on this planet that any corpse’s hair would have grown “nearly a foot” by that time, or by any time. I quote from a BBC article that debunks the old myth that fingernails and hair keep growing after you die:

Quote:In order for fingernails to grow, new cells need to be produced and this can’t happen without glucose. Fingernails grow by an average of 0.1 mm per day, a rate which slows as we age. A layer of tissue beneath the base of the nail called the germinal matrix is responsible for producing the vast majority of the cells which form the newest-growing part of the fingernail. The new cells push the older ones forwards, making the nail appear to lengthen from the tip. Death puts a stop to the supply of glucose, and therefore to fingernail growth.

A similar process occurs for hair. Each hair sits within a follicle that drives its growth. At the base of the follicle is the hair matrix, a group of cells that divide to produce the new cells that make hair strands longer. These cells divide very rapidly, but only when supplied with energy. This comes from the burning of glucose, which requires the presence of oxygen. Once the heart stops pumping oxygen round the body in the blood, the energy supply dries up, and so does the cell division that drives hair growth. (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130526...ter-death)

In rare cases, depending on the nature of the death, hair and nails can grow a tiny, tiny, tiny bit, perhaps a fraction of an inch, but that’s it. In most cases, there is zero growth after death. Even an inch of post-mortem hair growth is impossible, much less 10-12 inches. Anyone can Google this subject and find hundreds of articles that explain the science behind this fact.

The Pegram article is a perfect example of how some defenders of the traditional story are prone to uncritically accept accounts that say what they want to hear. Steers cites Pegram as a witness. Did Steers ever read Pegram’s account? He dismisses the accounts of Basil Moxley, Joseph Ziegen, and William Kenzie, but he has no problem citing Pegram as a credible witness.

As usual, you have not offered your source for the statement that Booth had two fillings...

Moving right along, I believe I learned enough in biology and also from a family member who owned a funeral home that the hair and nails may not grow, but that the skin in which they "live" starts to recede (shrink, whatever) so that the hair and nails appear to be longer - again, not significantly, but it would appear as growth to the uneducated.

And finally, do you know anything in the world about the reputable authors/historians that you are "libeling" in your statements? Dr. Steers will be speaking on one of your favorite books, Dark Union, at the Surratt conference in April. Why don't you register for it? Ed will be participating in our Authors' Hour as well as speaking, so you will have plenty of time to argue with him. It will be a learning experience -- and we can invite our other learned guest speakers to join in. And, I am not being sarcastic here...

---

(10-30-2018 05:33 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  Concerning my query about deliberately mis-identifying the body ....

Mike, you write :
"I do not get this argument at all. What "risk" was there? How were they at "risk" of "being caught" when they were being asked--or coerced--to ID the body as Booty by the likes of Holt and Baker, i.e., the Judge Advocate General of the United States and the head of the National Detective Police? "

What risk was there? Sorry, I thought that was obvious ... and I have raised it before but you've ignored it ...
That Booth (probably one of the most 'famous' men at that time) would turn up in Canada or out West or where-ever. He wasnt known as being a recluse.
I'd call that a huge risk.

AussieMick - I have made that same point numerous times in discussing the Booth escaped theory. JWB had too great an ego to go quietly into Henry David Thoreau mode for the rest of his life.

I have also used a quote from a former curator at Ford's Theatre, Frank Hebblethwaite, in regards to a "secret government cover-up:" Frank would remind folks (especially those who were not from the D.C. area) that "it's impossible to keep a secret in Washington for two minutes, let alone 150+ years!"

(10-31-2018 10:19 AM)L Verge Wrote:  [quote='mikegriffith1' pid='73633' dateline='1540911378']
In an earlier reply, someone cited William Pegram’s 1913 article “An Historic Identification: John Wilkes Booth—What Became of Him?” and presented it as evidence that the body examined at the 1869 viewing was in fact Booth. But even a casual look at Pegram’s article reveals some serious problems with his claims, and in fact suggests that he fabricated his supposed identification or that the body he viewed was not Booth, or both.

For example, Pegram claimed that the body’s left foot was housed in a make-shift shoe that was made from the foot of the boot that Dr. Mudd cut from Booth’s leg (p. 328). Uh, no, Pegram could not have seen any such thing. The boot that Mudd cut and removed from Booth’s leg can be viewed at the Ford’s Theater National Historic Site. Here’s a picture of it: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010630742/. Here’s a closeup: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/highsm.04758/. You will see that the foot of the boot is not missing.

Pegram said that both the left ankle and the left knee were disjointed (p. 328). Neither Dr. Mudd, Dr. Barnes, nor Dr. Woodward said anything about the left knee being disjointed, and it seems hard to believe that they all would have failed to notice a disjointed knee.

Pegram said that the body’s teeth were examined and that only one filling was found (p. 328). Well, that’s a big problem, because Booth had two fillings.

Finally, incredibly, Pegram claimed that the hair on the body’s head “had grown probably nearly a foot in length” (p. 328)! Sorry, but science tells us that that could not have been Booth’s body because hair does not grow after death. New cells must be created for hair to grow, but cell growth stops very quickly after death. There is no way on this planet that any corpse’s hair would have grown “nearly a foot” by that time, or by any time. I quote from a BBC article that debunks the old myth that fingernails and hair keep growing after you die:

Quote:In order for fingernails to grow, new cells need to be produced and this can’t happen without glucose. Fingernails grow by an average of 0.1 mm per day, a rate which slows as we age. A layer of tissue beneath the base of the nail called the germinal matrix is responsible for producing the vast majority of the cells which form the newest-growing part of the fingernail. The new cells push the older ones forwards, making the nail appear to lengthen from the tip. Death puts a stop to the supply of glucose, and therefore to fingernail growth.

A similar process occurs for hair. Each hair sits within a follicle that drives its growth. At the base of the follicle is the hair matrix, a group of cells that divide to produce the new cells that make hair strands longer. These cells divide very rapidly, but only when supplied with energy. This comes from the burning of glucose, which requires the presence of oxygen. Once the heart stops pumping oxygen round the body in the blood, the energy supply dries up, and so does the cell division that drives hair growth. (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130526...ter-death)

In rare cases, depending on the nature of the death, hair and nails can grow a tiny, tiny, tiny bit, perhaps a fraction of an inch, but that’s it. In most cases, there is zero growth after death. Even an inch of post-mortem hair growth is impossible, much less 10-12 inches. Anyone can Google this subject and find hundreds of articles that explain the science behind this fact.

The Pegram article is a perfect example of how some defenders of the traditional story are prone to uncritically accept accounts that say what they want to hear. Steers cites Pegram as a witness. Did Steers ever read Pegram’s account? He dismisses the accounts of Basil Moxley, Joseph Ziegen, and William Kenzie, but he has no problem citing Pegram as a credible witness.

Quote:As usual, you have not offered your source for the statement that Booth had two fillings...

Huh? You need a "source" on the fact that Booth had two fillings?! His first biographer, Francis Wilson, noted that he had two fillings, and that the second one was done shortly before the assassination (John Wilkes Booth: Fact and Fiction of Lincoln's Assassination,, pp. 292-294; Roscoe, pp. 529-531).

(10-31-2018 10:19 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Moving right along, I believe I learned enough in biology and also from a family member who owned a funeral home that the hair and nails may not grow, but that the skin in which they "live" starts to recede (shrink, whatever) so that the hair and nails appear to be longer - again, not significantly, but it would appear as growth to the uneducated.

Oh my goodness. This is beyond absurd. If you use Google or Yahoo or Bing to research this issue in online medical sources, you will find that skin recession only creates the appearance of very slight growth. Skin recession might make it seem like hair or nails grew a fraction of an inch, but that's it--certainly nowhere near 12 inches. The article that I cited and linked mentions this fact. I guess you did not bother to read the whole article.

Obviously, the hair that Pegram saw on the body was visibly longer--he said "nearly a foot" longer--than Booth's hair, and so he explained this markedly longer hair by appealing to the old wives' tale (widely believed in his day) that hair and nails keep growing after you die.

(10-31-2018 10:19 AM)L Verge Wrote:  And finally, do you know anything in the world about the reputable authors/historians that you are "libeling" in your statements? Dr. Steers will be speaking on one of your favorite books, Dark Union, at the Surratt conference in April. Why don't you register for it? Ed will be participating in our Authors' Hour as well as speaking, so you will have plenty of time to argue with him. It will be a learning experience -- and we can invite our other learned guest speakers to join in. And, I am not being sarcastic here...

And I am not being sarcastic when I say that you need to get a dictionary and look up the definition of "libel." This is just absurd. Expressing the view that some scholars have uncritically accepted evidence because that evidence supports their view is not even on the edge of what constitutes "libel."

You have said far worse about every single scholar and author who disagrees with the traditional story, but I would never make the silly claim that you have "libeled" them.

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(10-30-2018 05:33 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  Concerning my query about deliberately mis-identifying the body ....

Mike, you write :
"I do not get this argument at all. What "risk" was there? How were they at "risk" of "being caught" when they were being asked--or coerced--to ID the body as Booty by the likes of Holt and Baker, i.e., the Judge Advocate General of the United States and the head of the National Detective Police? "

What risk was there? Sorry, I thought that was obvious ... and I have raised it before but you've ignored it ...
That Booth (probably one of the most 'famous' men at that time) would turn up in Canada or out West or where-ever. He wasnt known as being a recluse.
I'd call that a huge risk.

This is not the argument you made. We were talking about the witnesses on the Montauk. Go back and read my reply and your reply that preceded it. We were not talking about Booth. Now you have shifted the goal posts by half the length of the field.

As for Booth, yes, I would agree that there was some risk for him, since he was well known. But the theory that I advance, as opposed to the theory that you advance, posits that the Radical conspirators agreed ahead of time to let Booth escape, and there is ample evidence that he did.

Once Booth escaped the Maryland-Virginia area, he could rather easily have lived under an assumed name and could have either kept his face clean-shaven or grown a hefty beard, in addition to changing his hair style and length. Staying clean-shaven or growing a large beard would have altered his appearance substantially. Plus, it's not like people back then had ready access to photos of Booth, especially in rural areas.

(10-30-2018 05:33 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  AussieMick - I have made that same point numerous times in discussing the Booth escaped theory. JWB had too great an ego to go quietly into Henry David Thoreau mode for the rest of his life.

This is just arm-chair psycho analysis. A more reasonable scenario is that Booth had accomplished his great deed and would have had no desire to be executed. So he would have gladly decided to live under an assumed name and enjoy the rest of his life as he saw fit.

None of your speculation about Booth's mindset does anything to address the medical fact that bodies do not magically become unrecognizable and grow freckles in 10 days or less, and dead bodies do not grow "nearly a foot" of hair.

(10-30-2018 05:33 PM)AussieMick Wrote:  I have also used a quote from a former curator at Ford's Theatre, Frank Hebblethwaite, in regards to a "secret government cover-up:" Frank would remind folks (especially those who were not from the D.C. area) that "it's impossible to keep a secret in Washington for two minutes, let alone 150+ years!"

Sorry, but this is demonstrably erroneous. How many years did the government conceal the fact that the body on the Montauk was heavily freckled? (Answer: 25 years) How many years did the government conceal the fact that Dr. May's first statement upon seeing the body was that it bore no resemblance to Booth and that he could not believe it was Booth? (Answer: 25 years) When do you think the government would have revealed this information if Dr. May had not done so in 1887, 25 years after the fact?

Or, if Lafayette Baker had not revealed in 1867 that the War Department had Booth's diary, when do you suppose the War Department would have disclosed that fact? I think we both know the answer to that question. If Baker had not revealed it, we might never have learned of it, since Holt had the diary and locked it in his safe.

Are you aware of the new information on the Lincoln assassination that Dr. Robert Arnold uncovered in the National Archives? How many years passed before Dr. Arnold found that information? At least 150 years.

Or, let us look at modern cover-ups that were not uncovered until decades later. Off the top of my head, I can think of Operation Paperclip, Operation Northwoods, the Hoover-Ladd FBI memos on the fact that Army Intelligence had clear foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, the CIA documents that revealed that someone was impersonating Oswald in Mexico City months before the assassination, and on and on we could go. Sometimes--not always, but sometimes--governments can keep secrets, and can keep them for decades or longer.

Here is a partial list of medical websites that document the fact that a living body is not going to become unrecognizable and grow freckles after no more than 10 days under circumstances even close to those of Booth’s flight, and that a corpse will not undergo such radical changes in less than 24 hours either.

Many of the links—by no means all, but many—deal with the effects of livor mortis, since that seems to be the most common explanation that traditionalists float to explain the fact that the face of the body on the Montauk was heavily freckled. You will see that not a single one of these sources mentions such a phenomenon. You will also see that the discoloration follows the laws of gravity, so that if the body is lying on its back, the discoloration that will occur will show up on the parts of the body closest to the ground, which means that this discoloration will not show up on the face unless the body was lying on its front for at least several hours after death. Furthermore, even laymen can tell the difference between blotches of discoloration and freckles. These links include many pictures of livor mortis, and you will see that not one of them shows what any rational person would describe as “freckles.”

Also, note that “tardieu spots” only occur in cases where the person suffered death by hanging, strangulation, or suffocation.

http://www.iupui.edu/~pathol/autopsy/main/11/11.htm

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/med...vor-mortis

https://www.amboss.com/us/knowledge/Post...in_changes

https://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/chm1020...208/02.php

https://www.aftermath.com/content/worker...omposition

http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/the-ra...orpse.html

https://aboutforensics.co.uk/decomposition/

http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/rigor-...idity.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15749353

http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/f...ortem.html

https://www.everplans.com/articles/how-i...-or-movies

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21254701

http://www.exploreforensics.co.uk/identi...ictim.html

You will see that there is simply no scientific basis for the theory that "Booth's" body could have undergone such a radical change in appearance that it not only grew freckles on its face but (1) that when L. Gardner and those around him first saw the body "we were all struck by the lack of any resemblance to Booth" and (2) that when Dr. May first saw it "to my great astonishment" he saw "a body in whose lineaments [distinctive features, especially of the face] there was to me no resemblance of the man I had known in life! My surprise was so great that I at once said to General Barnes, 'There is no resemblance in that corpse to Booth, nor can I believe it to be that of him.'"

Not on this planet.