Booth's Gun Questions

[Wesley Harris]

Except for the story Joe described, there is no information on the origin of Booth's pistol. I've heard that story also but only from a source that would never provide me any documentation on it. Whether Booth owned its mate is also unknown.

We also don't know if the assassination Deringer was the weapon he was using at the pistol galleries he visited in the months leading up to the assassination. The Deringer was a very close range weapon. For shooting a cheating gambler across a card table, for example.

I've interviewed the world's #1 expert in Henry Deringer pistols and in his lifetime of collecting and writing about them, he has never seen one of the exact size of Booth's.