The Reason Lincoln Had to Die

[Steve]

For reference, this is the post from Mike that Dave Taylor was referring to when he posted the images of the Booth diary above:

(11-27-2018 07:50 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  * The Garretts said they saw the man named Boyd writing in a small black book. Traditionalists have claimed that this is further evidence that Boyd was really Booth and that the Garretts saw Booth writing in his diary. However, Booth’s diary was red, and his last entry was two days before the Garretts said they saw Boyd writing in his black book.

and this is from Mike's reply to Dave above:

(12-29-2018 02:21 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  One, the inside covers are clearly red. Red is the only color anyone would see if they saw someone writing in the diary, unless the writer were writing it in while holding it upright.

And are you certain that the first picture is of Booth's diary? I ask because the flap or tab seen extending from the right side of the diary in the second picture does not appear in the first picture.

Both images Dave posted come from the Library of Congress. Here's a link to the first image:

https://www.loc.gov/item/2010630704/

If you look at the sides of the book in the first image, you can see that the flap is folded over onto the front and this photograph is of the back of the diary while it's closed.

If one of the Garretts saw Booth remove a black book from his pocket and put it down on a table or such to start writing they would describe it as black. Booth likely would've wanted to keep a little distance while he was writing. Especially to prevent the Garretts from reading information that might prove who he really was, ie not a soldier named "Boyd". So, they might not have been even able to see the red inside covers if they had been so inclined to describe the diary's color by such.