"Stump the Yankee"

[BettyO]

I doubt that he left it at Mrs. Surratt's because he supposedly left Surratt's to go to NY with Booth following the collapse of the kidnapping plot on March 18. He'd have had his carpetbag with him when he went to NY and then subsequently back to DC and the Herndon House. That has always been a mystery to me. It's my opinion that he perhaps, not wanting to be encumbered with luggage (or "traps" in Victorian parlance), could very well have had the bag shipped up to Baltimore and the Branson House under another alias previous to the assassination. Unfortunately, I have never been able to find the contents of the Branson House when the residents and Branson family were searched and placed under arrest after the assassination.