A little-known person

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-22-2021 05:38 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Regarding the tipster...Tom Bogar has researched actor John McCullough and determined he was not in Washington at the time of the assassination. Although it says that the tipster looked like McCullough, he also admits that he "never ascertained whether McCullough was in Washington at that time."

With respect to the identity of the tipster, Mike Kauffman writes, "It remains one of the great mysteries of the Lincoln assassination story." When a Lincoln assassination expert such as Mike Kauffman writes those words it shows the extreme difficulty of the task of naming such tipster.

Roger,

Do we have any law enforcement personnel as members of the Symposium? I would expect that Detective McDevitt would have been required, even in 1865, to write an in-depth, detailed report of how he was tipped off about the Surratt house. Given it's importance, especially at the time, surely that report was stored someplace. I wonder whether he named McCullough on a police report. It was someone who knew him, and someone he would have listened to. An actor who knew Booth would be a strong candidate for such an informant, or an undercover agent.