Decapitation of the Union

[Wild Bill]

I seriously doubt that anyone's scratches on a windowpane or any upright surface are going to match one's handwriting. So I am going to say something that will cause everyone to question my qualifications as an historian. After working on or with John Wilkes Booth for the past 15 years, Believe that a biographer develops a connection with his subject. This episode just FEELS like something Booth would do. He is a show-off from the word go. He loves to needle those whom he despises and act in a silly but daring way--almost as a dare to his opponents.

I have heard others in the Sutrratt Society say they feel like they live in the 19th century. Hell, I AM the 19th century, from my study of the Era of Andrew Jackson, the Old South, the Civil War and Reconstruction. I was so wrapped up in these things when I taught them in college, that I sometimes seemed to loose contact with the current world. Ask my wife--ask my former students. I spent 30 years shoeing and wrangling horses and mules the old fashioned, 19th century, cowboy way, just like Peter Trotter did at Bryantown for Booth and the one-eyed horse he bought from Dr. Mudd's neighbor, George Gardiner. I can tie a diamond hitch on a sawbuck of a pack animal, take a rope and construct a halter and bridle by hand--I even loaded a flat-bed truck with lumber and building supplies and tied them on with a diamond hitch. "I never saw that done before," the yardman said.

I do not force you to believe me about anything, but I know when I am correct, or as Barry Goldwater said in his slogan when he lost in his run for the presidency, "In your heart you know he is right." In my heart, I know that The Last Confederate Heroes is closer to right than wrong, and so am I. I feel it in my bones.

And I admit that it is totally irrational. But it is so, nonetheless. The Navajos did't call me "wild" for nutting'--I guarantee!

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Excuse my spelling. My eyesight thought and fingers do coordinate too well