(08-23-2012, 06:02 AM)BettyO Wrote: (08-23-2012, 05:10 AM)MaddieM Wrote: What if there was no higher authority. And just plain old ego involved on the part of JWB.
I've always thought that there WAS a "higher authority" - Powell in prison said that there was; i.e. someone high up in the Confederate hierarchy - and I think that "someone" was Judah P. Benjamin. Surratt worked for him; more than likely Powell as well, once he left Mosby's unit. Booth may have been persuasive and had illustrious connections - but so did Powell. He was second cousin to General John Brown Gordon.
I've just found this. Why would Johnson be implicated in the assassination?
Approximately 7 hours before shooting the President, Booth dropped by the Washington hotel which was Vice-President Andrew Johnson’s residence. Upon learning from the desk clerk that neither Johnson nor his private secretary, William A. Browning, was in the hotel, Booth wrote the following note: “Don’t wish to disturb you Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.”
Mary Todd Lincoln: “As sure, as you and I live, Johnson, had some hand, in all this…”
http://thinkorthwim.com/2007/04/18/johns...ssination/