Unwanted Facts, blah, blah, blah

[JMadonna]

(12-07-2018 01:31 PM)GustD45 Wrote:  

(12-06-2018 05:12 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  

(11-28-2018 12:05 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Since the computer informed me that the original title to this thread was too long (imagine that!) and I could not post the following there, I have taken the liberty of shortening the title. Hopefully Roger can merge the two threads into one.

Mr. Griffith - Once again, please cite your sources (primary ones preferred) for many of these off-the-wall statements that you make. I am especially interested in reading the exact information on the mysterious letter found floating in a harbor or the similar paper that survived in a saloon fireplace. Most of your other statements don't even deserve a response, imo.

With as many times as I have caught you in rather egregious errors and mischaracterizations, I am getting to the point where I rarely bother to respond to your replies, as you might have noticed, although I still try to read them.

By the way, you have almost never cited primary sources the few times you have even bothered to cite sources. Usually your replies consist of a bunch of dismissive rhetoric mixed with appeals to authority.

Just a few days ago, in the thread on Vaughan Shelton's book Mask for Treason, you emphatically announced that the documentation on the field glasses was ironclad, and you cited a few sources to back up your claim. But, once again, as with several other issues, when I checked your sources and did more reading on the issue, I discovered that your representation of the state of the evidence was erroneous, simply erroneous, and that you had failed to mention the enormous problems with the evidence on the field glasses (possibly because you were simply not aware of them).

The sources on the field glasses, far from being ironclad and straightforward, are riddled with contradictions and problematic statements, not to mention the fact that the guy to whom Mary Surratt allegedly gave the field glasses pointedly refused to identify them as the ones he saw when he was shown what were alleged to be Booth's field glasses in the John Surratt trial, and he noted distinct differences between the ones he saw and the ones entered into evidence at the trial.

Firstly in defense of the lady you should not cast aspersions upon her intelligence or abilities. Laurie is much more knowledgeable and, as stated in other posts, is quite sick of your line of argument.

As to your argument you are attaching much importance to the field glasses. The Military Commission did not have the field glasses so Mr. Lloyd did not have to identify them. Two years later at Surratt's trial Lloyd did not feel he could accurately identify the field glasses, but the prosecution pressed the issue. Once again I believe you are reading too much into something that isn't there.

This entire discussion on field glasses is superfluous. They were just a ruse to get Mary Surratt to scout the road for soldiers on the way to the tavern. (Which she did)