The Lincoln Conspirators at Fort Jefferson

[Dave Taylor]

(12-03-2024 02:26 PM)Steve Wrote:  Dave, how detailed were the burial records of the people buried at Bird Key? As in, how sure can we be that it was actually O'Laughlin's body which was disinterred and sent to Maryland?

You bring up an excellent point, Steve. The records surrounding the burials at Fort Jefferson are poor. For the longest time, I was unsure which of the keys O'Laughlen was buried on due to conflicting information in secondary sources. Over the history of the fort, burials had taken place on practically all of the keys of the Dry Tortugas. After the yellow fever epidemic in 1864, most of the remaining burial space at Hospital/Sand Key was used up. Some burials occurred as far as East Key, and in 1866, there were plans underway to transform a part of Loggerhead Key into a National Cemetery, but this order was rescinded.

I'm indebted to the research of Bob Summers, who went through the records of Fort Jefferson and found that in 1873, the commander of the fort attempted to compile some sort of official list of burials in the Dry Tortugas. This was in response to another yellow fever epidemic that had claimed the lives of more soldiers and a request by the commander for headstones for his men. Michael O'Laughlen's name is included on the master list of burials from 1867, though he is mistakenly listed as a soldier. Of course, in 1873 O'Laughlen was no longer buried in the Dry Tortugas since we have the orders and confirmation that he was exhumed and transported to Baltimore.

It is certainly possible that a different body was mistakenly sent home in 1870 by mistake. However, my own belief is that they got the right man. We know from later reports that most of the deaths in 1867 were given some sort of makeshift gravestone in the form of a headboard. While the commander in 1873 complained about the faded nature of these makeshift headstones, I think the fact that O'Laughlen was removed only three years after his death makes it likely that some semblance of a grave identifier was present in 1870. At that time, the institutional memory would have been better than it was another three years later. During the 1867 yellow fever epidemic, the fort was garrisoned by the 5th U.S. Artillery. They were replaced by the 3rd U.S. Artillery in January 1869. The 3rd Artillery stayed until November of 1872 when they were replaced by the 1st U.S. Artillery. While the 3rd U.S. Artillery had not been there when O'Laughlen died, I feel that they were in a better position to know where he was buried since they had spent some time guarding the other conspirators. In addition, while those digging up O'Laughlen only took a peak at the body, I would assume that the O'Laughlen family conducted some form of private identification of their own when O'Laughlen arrived in Baltimore (much in the same way the Booths identified JWB in 1869).

The document surrounding the exhumation of O'Laughlen seems pretty clear that those in the Dry Tortugas believed they had the right man. Exhumation was somewhat common then, anyway. Just a year earlier, the bodies of Dr. Joseph Sim Smith and his son Henry had been disinterred and sent back to New York for reburial. Had the O'Laughlens waited much longer, however, the result would have been quite different. As the commander noted in 1873, "The graves [on Bird Key] are scattered about, without regular arrangement, and almost hidden by a dense growth of bay cedar. Three or four coffins were found uncovered. Occasionally Coffins are washed out to sea during a heavy blow. There is no cemetery at the Post deserving the name; and this is probably the only Post in the U.S. where a deceased Soldier cannot have decent interment."

In the end, rather than spending resources trying to establish a National Cemetery in the Dry Tortugas, the bodies of the men who died in the 1873 yellow fever epidemic were exhumed and transported to Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola, Florida. Not long thereafter, Fort Jefferson was disbanded as a manned fortification.

Thanks for a great question!