Mask For Treason

[mikegriffith1]

In going back and re-reading the accounts about the field glasses, I found that I somewhat misread one of the accounts, but I also found more problems than I identified in my previous reply.

The pronounced contradictions in the accounts about the field glasses, and the problematic assumptions about the field glasses in the traditional version, are exactly what you get when a story has been fabricated, when some people are willingly lying, and when other people are lying under duress and are trying to slip in truth here and there (and even trying to leave hints that their story is false).

According to the traditional story, for some inexplicable reason, Booth wrapped his small field glasses in paper and gave them to Mary Surratt to take to John Lloyd. Booth supposedly did this when he allegedly met with Mary Surratt at her boarding house at 2:30 PM on April 14, before Louis Weichmann took Surratt to Surrattsville to see Lloyd about a substantial debt. Weichmann claimed that Booth arrived at shortly before 2:30, that he had an “interview” with Mary Surratt, and that he gave her a package. But Thomas Bogar’s research suggests that Booth could not have been at Mrs. Surratt’s house at 2:30.

Bogar documents that Ford Theater employees James Maddox and William Ferguson saw Booth at around 2:45 “seated calmly at the prompter’s table, chatting quietly with Gifford, Spangler, and Spear” at the theater (Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination, p. 92).

Surratt’s boarding house was half a mile from Ford’s Theater. Allowing one minute for Booth to walk to his horse, untie the horse, and mount the horse before he left Mary Surratt’s house, if Booth had then ridden his horse at a normal trot (about 10 mph), he would have arrived at the theater no earlier than 2:34, and that’s assuming that he rode straight there and did not stop anywhere or to talk to anyone. Then, add time for him to tie his horse outside the theater and to enter the theater. Then, add time for him to find Gifford, Spangler, and Spear in the theater. Then, add time for the four of them to decide to sit down at the prompter’s table. Then, add time for the four of them to sit down and then converse at the table long enough that when Maddox and Ferguson noticed them, they were “seated calmly” and “chatting quietly” at the prompter’s table. That’s a mighty, mighty tight and unlikely time window.

Of course, all of this begs the question: Why on earth would Booth have taken precious time out of his pre-assassination timeframe to wrap his small field glasses, ride over to Mary Surratt’s house, have an “interview” with her, and give her the field glasses to take to Lloyd, when he could have simply carried the field glasses in his coat pocket and not have had to worry about the actions of others to retrieve the glasses later? The field glasses were small, so small that they were also described as “opera glasses.” They would have easily fit into one of Booth’s coat pockets or pants pockets.

Confederate conspiracy theorists, i.e., those who defend the military commission’s claim that the assassination plot was a Confederate plot, will say that Booth needed to tell Mary Surratt to tell Lloyd to have the “shooting irons” ready that night. But this tale has never made any sense. How do you get rifles “ready” for someone to take? This is fiction. Lloyd knew exactly where the rifles were in the tavern. He could have retrieved them from their hiding place in less than a minute, given his description of how and where they were hidden. If he had been super slow, it would have taken him all of two minutes to get the rifles from their hiding place.

The tale that Mary Surratt told Lloyd to have the rifles “ready” that night is based solely on Lloyd’s discredited—and substantially repudiated—testimony that Mary Surratt told him to get the rifles “ready” for someone to pick up that night. Again, how do you get rifles “ready” for someone to pick up?

Lloyd later admitted that he was threatened with death if he did not testify the way the prosecutors wanted him to testify. At the John Surratt trial, Lloyd back-peddled considerably and, among other things, said that he was not certain about what Mary Surratt told him about the riles. He also admitted that he was drunk the last two times he saw Mary Surratt before the assassination and that his drinking problem affected his memory.

The defense attorneys at the conspiracy trial firmly established that Mary Surratt went to see Lloyd to try to collect a substantial debt he owed her, because one of her creditors was pressing her for payment of a debt she owed the creditor and because she needed Lloyd to pay his debt to her so that she could pay her debt to her creditor. One of the judges at the military tribunal made the silly, inane suggestion that Mary could have done this by mail. Really? She had already been in contact with Lloyd about the debt. She went to see him precisely because he still had not paid her and because she was being pressed by a creditor. We all know that when someone who owes you money is not responding when you ask for the money by mail, the next logical step is to go see them in person to try to get the money.

In light of all of these issues, we should not be surprised to find glaring contradictions and problems in the accounts about the field glasses. Let us summarize them:

* The person who supposedly received the field glasses—Lloyd—testified at the John Surratt trial (1) that his impression was that the alleged Booth field glass entered into evidence was not the one he saw, (2) that the field glass he saw had the words “field glass” written in the top-center (whereas the alleged Booth field glass did not), (3) that the writing on the field glass that he saw was larger than the writing on the alleged Booth field glass, and (4) that the lettering was yellow (whereas the lettering on the alleged Booth field glasses was not).

* John Garrett said that the alleged Booth field glasses were not the field glasses he saw, and that he never saw field glasses in the Garrett house after “Booth” was allegedly shot in the Garrett’s barn (the Garretts initially said that the man’s name was Boyd, not Booth).

* Lt. Luther Baker, one of Lafayette Baker’s henchmen, supposedly found the field glasses in late July, eight weeks after Booth’s alleged death at the Garrett farm. However, as Deborah Warner, curator at the National Museum of American History, points out, Baker gave two different accounts of his alleged finding of the field glasses:

Luther Byron Baker, the detective who brought the field glasses from Virginia to Washington, testified in one place that he saw them "at the Garrett place, where Booth was captured," and in another that he and Mr. Garrett found them "about nine miles from Garrett's place," at the home of people who may have been their relatives. (http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2014/...sses.html)

* When Lt. Baker testified at the Johnson impeachment proceedings, he gave yet another version of finding the field glasses, a version that differed from his John Surratt trial testimony. At the John Surratt trial, Baker said that he “ascertained” from a little boy that he needed to ask Mr. Garrett about the field glasses, and that after he asked Mr. Garrett about them, he knew that the field glasses were not at the Garrett house and that, thanks to Mr. Garrett’s information, he found them nine miles away.

But at the impeachment trial, Baker said that the five-/six-year-old boy not only knew that “Booth” had given the field glasses to his older sister Joanna but that the field glasses were in the Mr. Garrett’s writing desk! Wow, has anyone ever known a five-/six-year-old boy who was so aware of goings-on around him, especially matters of this nature, and who could recall them some eight weeks later?! Really???

Anyway, Baker further told the impeachment trial that after speaking with the little boy, he talked with Mr. Garrett, that he then called in Joanna and demanded the field glasses, that Joanna then broke down and cried, that Mr. Garrett then spoke with her privately for a moment, and that Mr. Garrett then told him that the field glasses were nine miles away at a relative’s house. Baker said nothing about talking with Joanna in his testimony at the John Surratt trial. He did not even mention her.

* Recalling events 32 years later, Lucinda Holloway, Mr. Garrett’s sisters-in-law and the live-in teacher of his children, contradicted both of Baker’s accounts. She claimed that Baker confronted her, not Joanna, about the field glasses, and that she, not Mr. Garrett, was the one who told Baker where to find them. She also claimed that his happened a few days after the barn shooting, whereas Baker said he did not retrieve them until late July, some eight weeks later. Furthermore, Holloway said she found the field glasses on a bookcase, not in her father’s writing desk.

Additionally, Holloway said nothing about the field glasses being given to Joanna, nothing about Baker confronting Joanna, nothing about Joanna breaking down in tears, and nothing about Mr. Garrett taking Joanna aside to speak privately to her. As mentioned, Holloway claimed that Baker confronted her, not Joanna, and that she was the one, not Mr. Garrett, who told Baker where to find the field glasses.

The eight weeks between the shooting in the barn and Baker’s alleged retrieval of some field glasses was plenty of time for someone to plant field glasses at Holloway’s mother’s house nine miles away, assuming Baker even found them there. The Garretts were in a very vulnerable position and could have been easily persuaded—and probably were persuaded—to say whatever the War Department wanted them to say. At first, the Garretts said the man in the barn was named James Boyd, but later on they said he was Booth.

Did Lloyd really receive field glasses from Mary Surratt? I doubt it. I think Lloyd’s refusal to identify the alleged Booth field glasses as the ones he supposedly saw and handled was his way of pushing back against being forced to lie.

Did the Garretts really see “Boyd” with some field glasses? Well, it is possible that Boyd had some field glasses and that they were the ones the Garretts described. This would explain why John Garrett said that the field glasses he saw with “Booth” in his house were not the ones the War Department entered into evidence at the John Surratt trial. But it is also possible that the Garretts never saw any field glasses and that they said they saw some because they were coerced into saying so. If this is the case, John Garrett’s refusal to identify the alleged Booth field glasses was his way of pushing back against being forced to lie.

If the issue of the field glasses had been a crucial issue, and if all the accounts about them had been given at a single trial, the defense would have easily destroyed their value as evidence by pointing out the glaring holes in the accounts and by hammering home Lloyd’s description of the field glasses that he saw and handled vs. the alleged Booth field glasses.