Lucas cabin

[Laurie Verge]

Thank you, Bill, for adding this because I'm a firm believer in the Maryland planters' role in at least the earlier kidnap scheme. And yes, the Come Retribution triumvirate is one of the few scholars to give credence to this. I would love to find a money trail emanating from the likes of Dr. William Queen, Barnes Compton, Col. Samuel Cox, various members of the Mudd family, the Watsons of Cliffton, etc. -- and that's just in Charles County. There's just too much coincidence to me that the kidnap scheme and Booth take form at the same time that the new Maryland state constitution outlawing slavery goes into effect in November of 1864.

Our Surratt House exhibit on Southern Maryland in the Civil War speaks to this and also to the psychological warfare placed on the people down here via such means as the USCT training camp known as Camp Stanton at Benedict on the Patuxent River. Forces there could go directly into plantations in Prince George's Charles, and St. Mary's County that laid along the Patuxent.

Having the huge POW camp known as Point Lookout at the tip of St. Mary's County didn't help either. Watching Confederate prisoners suffer while in the heart of Southern sympathizers was another form of the Union getting on Southern Maryland nerves. But, as they say, all is fair in love and war.... It's just that the history books don't adequately portray all sides of the war.

And it's often the sidebars such as this that explain other actions -- such as devising or participating in a plot to kidnap or kill the President of the United States.