Notes on Booth's Diary

[L Verge]

It was two o'clock at night when I posted my thoughts above that M C on the diary page is likely short for Machodoc Creek. Now that it's daylight, I will expound on that thought.

That is the landmark that Thomas Jones had told them to steer towards because it would bring them within a short distance of Mrs. Quesenberry's home. Booth was careful not to mention names in his diary, so I don't think he would have even come close to writing anything that would harm a member of the underground.

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More thoughts on the diary: Jerry asked about it being studied under black light. Decades ago, a spurious claim was made that the "missing pages" had turned up in the hands of an Americana dealer. Along with others, including then-Vice President Walter Mondale, James O. Hall secured the help of the NPS and the FBI labs to examine the little, 1864 memorandum book (that we call the diary). A variety of other samples known to have been written by Booth were also examined.

The FBI photographed everything in the book under a variety of special lights and determined that the entries and the samples had all been written by Booth. They also determined that a lot more pages were missing than the reported eighteen that have gone down in history. Everything from January 1, 1864, through June 10, 1864 were either torn or cut out - likely by Booth because they were past engagements that he no longer needed. After that, only four pages and a part of another are missing.

Booth's so-called diary begins on the June 11, 1864, page. The last of his first entry and a hand-drawn calendar occupy all of the page beginning June 14. There is nothing on the page for June 17 and the page beginning June 20. He picked up writing again on the page dated June 23, but re-dated that page to "Friday 21." The writing continues down to the bottom of the page beginning June 29. It ends there. The next page missing covers July 17-22, then part of the page for August 10-15 is missing as are two consecutive pages covering August 22-September 2, and finally a page for November 8-13, 1864.

As for the spurious missing pages: In the late-1970s, an Americana dealer by the name of Joseph Lynch claimed to have found them in materials that he had obtained from a Stanton descendant. However, he would not make them available for inspection in their original form -- only a transcript.
James O. Hall and Richard Sloan met with Lynch in a hotel room in White Plains, New York in 1977, and retrieved a copy of the transcript. Dr. Hall then proceeded to analyze it over an extended length of time and, with the help of others in the field, determined that the entries contained a number of historical errors - some so clear that the average good historian of the era will spot them.

The analysis is very lengthy and is contained in the James O. Hall Research Center at Surratt House Museum. However, a seven-page synopsis of some of the alleged entries was carried in the October 1994 Surratt Courier and included in one of the three volume set of newsletter articles turned into book form as of this date.