The Reason Lincoln Had to Die

[mikegriffith1]

(12-17-2018 04:42 PM)Dave Taylor Wrote:  

(12-16-2018 10:23 AM)Gene C Wrote:  I can't tell you who, when, or why there are page missing from Booth's diary.
I don't have any facts to substantiate a theory.
I also can't tell you who, when or why it was taken apart and put back together in the manner you indicate.
Thank you for sharing that it was taken apart, that was new information to me.

I believe it's irresponsible to denigrate Edwin Stanton based upon the selective, sometimes misleading information and speculation you have furnished.

Gene et al.,

The Booth's diary was never taken apart and put back together. The FBI report says nothing of the kind. What does appear in the FBI report on "Page 4" of the official findings is a typo where the report's author accidentally put the wrong date when talking about how impressions of earlier and later writings can be seen on the blank pages. However, in the paragraph before this one the author put the correct date showing that it was a mistake later on. Looking for a conspiracy, Mr. Thomas created an elaborate and convoluted theory about the diary being taken apart, rewritten in Booth's handwriting, and then put back together. It's nonsense. Anyone with access to photographs of the diary can see the impressions laid out in the FBI report. Taking the later typo into account, everything matches as it should and no complicated tampering occurred. The laminating that exists on the pages near the spine of the book (and on the edges of the pages) was done by the well meaning park service workers in the 1940s or so. This action was taken to help preserve the diary and keep it intact. We would not use such a method today for preservation, but it was very commonplace then.

When and how the missing pages were removed will always be a subject of discussion, but the most likely scenario in my mind is that Booth removed them himself. As I tell people on the Booth tour, the large section of pages removed from the diary are from Jan - June of 1864. During that period of time, Booth was still acting and likely used the book for memorandum, keeping track of the cities he visited and his nightly earnings. When, during the escape, Booth discovered his letter to the National Intelligencer had not been published and that this small book was one of the few things left to him to write his thoughts in, it seems very probable he removed these unrelated sheets himself in order to start his manifesto on the first page.

Lastly, I've seen one individual on here try to prove it wasn't Booth at the Garretts' because the Garrett family talked about seeing "Mr. Boyd" writing in a black book and John Wilkes Booth's diary was red. I laughed when I read that because Booth's diary is a black book. The outside cover is black. It is only the inside that has the red leather.

One, the inside covers are clearly red. Red is the only color anyone would see if they saw someone writing in the diary, unless the writer were writing it in while holding it upright.

And are you certain that the first picture is of Booth's diary? I ask because the flap or tab seen extending from the right side of the diary in the second picture does not appear in the first picture.

Two, the Garretts saw the man writing on a date that came after Booth's last entry in his diary. Where is that entry?

Three, if someone did not take the diary apart, what's with all the obvious glue?

Four, how do you explain the shifted sections and the surgically removed pages?

Five, why do one of Booth's sentences end in mid-sentence?

Six, Congressman Butler made the point that the War Department’s prosecutors did not even inform the members of the military commission that they had Booth’s diary. Indeed, Butler noted that when Lieutenant Colonel Everton Conger, the man who supposedly found the diary on Booth’s body, testified at the conspiracy trial, the prosecutors carefully phrased their questions so that Conger’s answers contained no reference to the diary. Said Butler,

Why was not Lieutenant Colonel Conger allowed to go on and state what had been found on Booth's body? The questions were carefully put to him so that he should not tell about this book. He identified a knife, pair of pistols, holster, tobacco pipe cartridge, and a bill of exchange, etc., but he was nowhere asked, "were these all the articles that were found on Booth?” If he had been asked that question, he would have answered that he took Booth's diary from his pocket. (Alexandria Gazette and Virginia Advertiser, March 27, 1867)

Well, now, isn't that interesting? Why do you suppose Holt and Bingham did not even want the military judges to know they had Booth's diary?

[Eva Elisabeth]

And 7th, when will you kindly reply to this:
https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussi...l#pid74749
?!

[Gene C]

If Dave says the diary was not taken apart, that's good enough for me.

Anyone familiar with Dave's "Boothie Barn" and other activities he is involved with is aware of quality of writing and research he does.
He is trust worthy.
https://boothiebarn.com/2012/03/04/hello-world/

[Eva Elisabeth]

(12-29-2018 04:03 PM)Gene C Wrote:  If Dave says the diary was not taken apart, that's good enough for me.

Anyone familiar with Dave's "Boothie Barn" and other activities he is involved with is aware of quality of writing and research he does.
He is trust worthy.
https://boothiebarn.com/2012/03/04/hello-world/

I second Gene.

[AussieMick]

(12-29-2018 02:21 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  Well, now, isn't that interesting? Why do you suppose Holt and Bingham did not even want the military judges to know they had Booth's diary?

I'm not going to 'suppose' anything. But two possibilities are that (ignoring your unsubstantiated supposition that they "did not even want") they forgot about it or didnt think it important.

[L Verge]

Since the diary is on public display at Ford's Theatre, Mr. G., have you analyzed it through its protective casing? Have you made any inquiries to the NPS rangers? Have you bothered to read the FBI report (since you claim things that are not in it)? Do you understand that that report was prepared at the request of several prominent historians in the assassination field -- and that, very importantly, the Vice President of the United States Walter Mondale is the one who saw to the examination being done and was satisfied with the methods used and the results?

Of course, I'm sure that your theory extends to VP Mondale being in on the secret conspiracy to continue to fool the world into thinking that Booth escaped. Maybe that's why we keep losing key players in the current administration; the President finds out that they believe Stanton masterminded the whole thing, so out they go...

AussieMick is quite correct, imo, that the diary was not important to the government's case against the conspirators who were on trial in that military court. Booth was dead and out of the picture.

[mikegriffith1]

(12-29-2018 08:39 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Since the diary is on public display at Ford's Theatre, Mr. G., have you analyzed it through its protective casing? Have you made any inquiries to the NPS rangers? Have you bothered to read the FBI report (since you claim things that are not in it)? Do you understand that that report was prepared at the request of several prominent historians in the assassination field -- and that, very importantly, the Vice President of the United States Walter Mondale is the one who saw to the examination being done and was satisfied with the methods used and the results?

Of course, I'm sure that your theory extends to VP Mondale being in on the secret conspiracy to continue to fool the world into thinking that Booth escaped. Maybe that's why we keep losing key players in the current administration; the President finds out that they believe Stanton masterminded the whole thing, so out they go...

AussieMick is quite correct, imo, that the diary was not important to the government's case against the conspirators who were on trial in that military court. Booth was dead and out of the picture.

The diary "was not important to the government's case"? This is just laughable. Do you have any idea how many scholars have stated that Holt and Bingham most certainly should have entered the diary into evidence at the trial? In the near future, I will be citing just some of the scholars who have said so.

Tell me: Were Booth's pipe, spur, and compass "important to the government's case"? Yet, those items were entered into evidence. But not the diary. Not the diary wherein Booth revealed that he did not consider killing Lincoln until the day of the murder. Not the diary wherein Booth said he was thinking about returning to Washington because he believed he could at least partly clear his name. Not the diary that contained not one word about Johnson or Seward. Not the diary wherein Booth denied having anything to do with the attack on Seward. Nah, who needed to know this crucial information, right?

By the way, when Butler challenged Bingham about the suppression of the diary, even the dishonest and rabid Bingham did not float the laughable claim that the diary was irrelevant to the government's case--rather, he said they withheld it because they did not want the public to read Booth's "glorification" of his deed. Butler correctly pointed out that this was a lame excuse, and that Booth's defense of his crime would have had no effect on "a patriotic and intelligent people."

Have I read the FBI report on the diary? Are you serious? If you'll recall, I'm the one who told you where you could find it online.

What things have I claimed about the report that are not in the report? Can you give me an example? I trust you're not talking about the point that I clarified regarding when the editing was done. I've stated several times that the report does not "say" that the editing was done after the War Department obtained the diary, but that my argument is that the editing that the report describes must have been done after the War Department had the diary, that there is no conceivable or rational reason that anyone would have done that kind of editing to their own diary.

As for the color of the diary, humm, that's interesting. I said it was red because Guttridge and Neff said it was red. Come to find out that they're not the only ones who've said it was red:

* Rebecca Brooks at Civil War Saga says it was red:

When John Wilkes Booth fled Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865 and was killed on a farm in Virginia two weeks later, officers found a red leather diary on his body. (http://civilwarsaga.com/the-diary-of-joh...es-booth/)

* Professor Doug Linder says it was red:

Colonel Everton Conger removed a small red appointment book from Booth's body. (http://famous-trials.com/lincoln/2156-boothdiary)

* The New World Encyclopedia says it was red:

A small red book, which was actually an 1864 appointment book kept as a diary, was found on the body of John Wilkes Booth on April 26, 1865. (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entr...kes_Booth)

Finally, if the diary was "not important," why did Holt and Bingham go so far as to conceal its existence even from the military tribunal's judges? When they called Conger to the stand to testify, why did they carefully phrase their questions to him so that he would not mention the diary in his answers? Hey? People hide things for a reason.

[Gene C]

(12-31-2018 07:35 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  The diary "was not important to the government's case"? This is just laughable. Do you have any idea how many scholars have stated that Holt and Bingham most certainly should have entered the diary into evidence at the trial? In the near future, I will be citing just some of the scholars who have said so.

As usual, you insult someone's response, but never really address their response. You ask a lot of questions and just give us a lot of information, most if not all, does not address the issue at hand. "This is just laughable"

So getting back on subject, where in your post above do you tell us about the content of the diary that was important or would have helped the prosecution in the trial of the eight conspirators?

[Rob Wick]

Quote: Professor Doug Linder says it was red:

Colonel Everton Conger removed a small red appointment book from Booth's body. (http://famous-trials.com/lincoln/2156-boothdiary)

Oh for the love of God. In looking over Professor Linder's site, it is not a necessarily bad site, but there are some issues with it. First and foremost there are no citations to any comments made. Professor Linder's site is not made for scholars or researchers. Rather, it is made for hobbyists or buffs who want to read something about various trials throughout history. I daresay that if Professor Linder received a paper from a graduate student like this, he would flunk him or her.

Linder is also wrong about what he writes. Conger never testified in either the Surratt Trial or the Impeachment Investigation as to the color of the diary. Especially given the amount of attention given to it in the Impeachment Investigation, not once did Conger mention the color. So unless you can provide the documentation as to where Linder gets his information, once again, you are wrong.

Plus, as to the evidentiary value of the diary during the conspirator's trial. John Wilkes Booth was not on trial here. The diary did not mention any one of the conspirators on trial. During my newspaper days I covered numerous criminal and civil trials and I can imagine what a good defense lawyer would have said if the prosecution would have tried to introduce a dead man's diary into evidence. Hearsay, anyone?

Best
Rob

[Susan Higginbotham]

Not only was the diary not helpful to the government's case against the eight people on trial, it could have been used to the defense's advantage to argue that Booth's failure to mention them showed that they were not part of the assassination conspiracy.

[L Verge]

(12-31-2018 11:23 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote: Professor Doug Linder says it was red:

Colonel Everton Conger removed a small red appointment book from Booth's body. (http://famous-trials.com/lincoln/2156-boothdiary)

Oh for the love of God. In looking over Professor Linder's site, it is not a necessarily bad site, but there are some issues with it. First and foremost there are no citations to any comments made. Professor Linder's site is not made for scholars or researchers. Rather, it is made for hobbyists or buffs who want to read something about various trials throughout history. I daresay that if Professor Linder received a paper from a graduate student like this, he would flunk him or her.

Linder is also wrong about what he writes. Conger never testified in either the Surratt Trial or the Impeachment Investigation as to the color of the diary. Especially given the amount of attention given to it in the Impeachment Investigation, not once did Conger mention the color. So unless you can provide the documentation as to where Linder gets his information, once again, you are wrong.

Plus, as to the evidentiary value of the diary during the conspirator's trial. John Wilkes Booth was not on trial here. The diary did not mention any one of the conspirators on trial. During my newspaper days I covered numerous criminal and civil trials and I can imagine what a good defense lawyer would have said if the prosecution would have tried to introduce a dead man's diary into evidence. Hearsay, anyone?

Best
Rob

From Professor Linder's own introduction to his website:

"I see my primary audience as high school, college, and law school instructors and students. Sure, I also hope the site will serve as a useful starting point for the serious scholar working on a major book or paper. But the site does not pretend to be archival in the traditional sense."

---

(12-31-2018 02:43 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(12-31-2018 11:23 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

Quote: Professor Doug Linder says it was red:

Colonel Everton Conger removed a small red appointment book from Booth's body. (http://famous-trials.com/lincoln/2156-boothdiary)

Oh for the love of God. In looking over Professor Linder's site, it is not a necessarily bad site, but there are some issues with it. First and foremost there are no citations to any comments made. Professor Linder's site is not made for scholars or researchers. Rather, it is made for hobbyists or buffs who want to read something about various trials throughout history. I daresay that if Professor Linder received a paper from a graduate student like this, he would flunk him or her.

Linder is also wrong about what he writes. Conger never testified in either the Surratt Trial or the Impeachment Investigation as to the color of the diary. Especially given the amount of attention given to it in the Impeachment Investigation, not once did Conger mention the color. So unless you can provide the documentation as to where Linder gets his information, once again, you are wrong.

Plus, as to the evidentiary value of the diary during the conspirator's trial. John Wilkes Booth was not on trial here. The diary did not mention any one of the conspirators on trial. During my newspaper days I covered numerous criminal and civil trials and I can imagine what a good defense lawyer would have said if the prosecution would have tried to introduce a dead man's diary into evidence. Hearsay, anyone?

Best
Rob

From Professor Linder's own introduction to his website:

"I see my primary audience as high school, college, and law school instructors and students. Sure, I also hope the site will serve as a useful starting point for the serious scholar working on a major book or paper. But the site does not pretend to be archival in the traditional sense."

I also thought that Professor Linder's name sounded familiar to me in another venue. Remember about twenty years ago when the term "eugenics" was a fairly big topic in the field of sociology and biology? If not, look it up. Linder was one of those supporting the idea, I believe.

[Steve]

For reference, this is the post from Mike that Dave Taylor was referring to when he posted the images of the Booth diary above:

(11-27-2018 07:50 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  * The Garretts said they saw the man named Boyd writing in a small black book. Traditionalists have claimed that this is further evidence that Boyd was really Booth and that the Garretts saw Booth writing in his diary. However, Booth’s diary was red, and his last entry was two days before the Garretts said they saw Boyd writing in his black book.

and this is from Mike's reply to Dave above:

(12-29-2018 02:21 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  One, the inside covers are clearly red. Red is the only color anyone would see if they saw someone writing in the diary, unless the writer were writing it in while holding it upright.

And are you certain that the first picture is of Booth's diary? I ask because the flap or tab seen extending from the right side of the diary in the second picture does not appear in the first picture.

Both images Dave posted come from the Library of Congress. Here's a link to the first image:

https://www.loc.gov/item/2010630704/

If you look at the sides of the book in the first image, you can see that the flap is folded over onto the front and this photograph is of the back of the diary while it's closed.

If one of the Garretts saw Booth remove a black book from his pocket and put it down on a table or such to start writing they would describe it as black. Booth likely would've wanted to keep a little distance while he was writing. Especially to prevent the Garretts from reading information that might prove who he really was, ie not a soldier named "Boyd". So, they might not have been even able to see the red inside covers if they had been so inclined to describe the diary's color by such.

[mikegriffith1]

(12-31-2018 09:04 AM)Gene C Wrote:  

(12-31-2018 07:35 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  The diary "was not important to the government's case"? This is just laughable. Do you have any idea how many scholars have stated that Holt and Bingham most certainly should have entered the diary into evidence at the trial? In the near future, I will be citing just some of the scholars who have said so.

As usual, you insult someone's response, but never really address their response. You ask a lot of questions and just give us a lot of information, most if not all, does not address the issue at hand. "This is just laughable"

So getting back on subject, where in your post above do you tell us about the content of the diary that was important or would have helped the prosecution in the trial of the eight conspirators?

First off, as other scholars have noted and as Butler noted in his exchange with Bingham, in a military trial, the prosecution is obligated to present all the evidence, not just the evidence that favors their case. As many scholars have noted, Booth's statement in the diary that he did not consider killing Lincoln until the day of the assassination would have cast serious doubt on the case against Mary Surratt.

Booth's allusion to Seward's stabbing and his denial of responsibility for it certainly could have caused a stir. That denial makes total sense in hindsight. No one ever heard Booth say a word about Seward before April 14, and we have only two highly suspect second/third-hand accounts that he told Powell to kill Seward that day.

Booth's statement that he was thinking about returning to Washington to clear his name and that he felt he could partly clear his name if he returned became the focus of much debate after the diary was revealed. One perfectly logical interpretation of this statement is that Booth acted on behalf of certain powerful figures in Washington and that he could at least party clear his name by exposing them.

For anyone who is not blinded by Emperor's New Clothes allegiance to the War Department's version of events, it is not hard to see why Stanton and Holt et al suppressed the diary: It contained information that raised troubling questions and that cast doubt on the case against Mary Surratt. That's why they didn't even risk informing the judges on the military commission that they had the diary.

I notice you did not attempt to explain why anyone would have innocently edited Booth's diary in the way documented in the 1977 FBI report on the diary. Nobody surgically removes selected pages and shifts sections of text from one part to the other.

Even back when the diary was first released, people could see that a number of the missing pages clearly had had writing on them when they were torn out. Butler pointed this out in his exchange with Bingham, and Bingham never explained it. Butler could see that the 18 missing pages that had been detected had writing on their remaining edges. So obviously, the explanation that Booth tore out the pages to write notes to people won't work.

Finally, I notice you also declined to address the point that the Garretts saw Boyd (Booth in your version) writing in a black diary three days after the last entry in Booth's diary. If Boyd was Booth, where are those entries in Booth's extant diary? According to your theory, they should be there, but they're not. Why is that?

[L Verge]

Mr. G. - Please go back and read the mountains of responses that you have received to the majority of your theories and propositions, and you will see that a wide variety of learned folks here have given you responses that are well-thought-out and based on documented facts. You seem to ignore them because it takes the air out of your sails, and then you switch over to some other tangent for a while.

Re your statements above: Most learned scholars who do not have a sympathetic bend for Mrs. Surratt would point out to you that, even if Booth only decided to murder Lincoln on that specific day, Mrs. Surratt was still doing his bidding by the early afternoon - and that bidding was what led to her conviction and death, not what had been done previously, but what she did that day. You can blame it on Weichmann and Lloyd, but their testimonies supplemented each other's and I have never read where they had a chance to get together and "practice" their corroborating stories.

Also, knowing Booth's proclivity to go for the theatrical as well as his rabid hatred for the man and the Union that he perceived to have destroyed the country that he cherished, it is also plausible that he wished to return to Washington to mount a bully pulpit and show how he tried to save the country from the evil forces that had or would overtake it. I do not believe that he would or could point to specific ringleaders (if any existed) who had planned and financed an assassination plot and secured him as the hired killer.

You still are not paying attention to the 1977 FBI Report. It does not state what you keep posting. This is more of the flim-flam that I suspect you are inserting into good history. Also, more than 18 pages are missing, but perhaps what Booth was writing at Garrett's is still in the remaining pages? Maybe a last-minute thought for his personal "memorial?"

[Gene C]

Most, if not all of your comments have been debunked in prior comments and threads, a few that you have started, especially about the diary.

I see no reason to chase you around in circles regarding this, especially when you have been shown to distort, take out of context, and misrepresent the findings of the FBI report you posted.

If Booth did not die at Garrett's, why did he not try to clear his name, comment on the missing pages of his diary, the identity of the body on the Montauk, Mrs. Surratt's innocence, his escape in a hot air balloon from a Pinkerton detective, by writing a letter to the editor of a leading compassionate southern newspaper several years after his escape?