Decapitation of the Union

[John Fazio]

Laurie, Meade, Eva, Susan, et al.:

1. Was the cut-out of Booth's signature taken from the August 13, 1864, hotel register also a fraud?

2. We do not know exactly when Booth's erysipelas first manifested symptoms sufficient to incapacitate him. Observe that he is said to have had his meeting in Barnum's with Arnold and O'Laughlen some time during the first two weeks of August and then spent time putting his affairs in order elsewhere. The 13th is not out of reach on that account.

3. I see no relevance in the Munson letter. Nor in the fact that Booth did not stay in Room 22 on June 10 and 29. We are talking about where he stayed on August 13, not June 10 and 29.

4. An engagement in Meadville? Why not. Perhaps he was doing a favor for his friend John Ellsler of the Cleveland Academy of Music, who, with Booth, had substantial investments in the western Pennsylvania oil regions.


We should be careful not to reject tradition too quickly and too easily. Truth is often stranger than fiction. I read and listened for years to skeptics of the Barlow-Gordon meeting on the field of Gettysburg, until I looked for and found six sources to confirm it, proving the naysayers wrong again.

John