What are you reading now?

[L Verge]

"I'm interested in Booth's religious, racial, and ideological thinking. I don't believe it is sufficient just to say he was drinking, angry, a frustrated actor, or otherwise psychologically screwed up. All that may be true, but he also was driven by ideas, hatreds, and an agenda for reinvigorating the South. "

Don, I think that 98% of the serious students of the Lincoln assassination who have worked over the past forty years would agree wholeheartedly with your above statement. James O. Hall used to surmise that it was the Confederacy itself that started the theory that Booth was the "crazy actor" in order to distance themselves from any association with him after the murder.

As for Mary Surratt's ability to convert others to her faith, that is certainly true. So far as we know, however, she failed to convert her husband and her youngest brother. I have had great-grandchildren tell me that Mr. Surratt hated the Catholic Church. Brother Archibald Jenkins is in an unmarked grave at the rear of a Methodist graveyard about three miles from Surratt House.

We cannot prove where Mr. Surratt is buried. We know that she paid $50 for a mahogany coffin, arm bands for the pall bearers, etc., but we don't know where he was buried. The same descendants told me that he was buried on Jenkins' lands that are now under runways at Joint Base Andrews. Some have speculated that he is buried in St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in nearby Piscataway. The church had a fire, however, and records that include his 1862 death date were destroyed. If he never converted to Catholicism, he would have been buried outside the cemetery gates, however. The burial receipts do not mention his grave site.

I'm going to really throw a ringer in here: I know that Asia reported that Wilkes was of the Catholic faith, but has anyone seen the actual letter to see whether she used Catholic with a capital "C" or "catholic" with a little "c?" With a little "c," my Episcopal priests have told me that it is a general term meaning universal believers in God made man. And that's the extent of my theology for the day.