Grant and Lincoln's invitation

[loetar44]

(10-09-2014 05:24 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Like I said I am really "stretching" here. But could it be possible Julia either saw the mysterious stranger asking for her husband or one (or more) of the 3 men who testified at the trial told her about the incident if she didn't personally see it? Could this have caused Julia to suddenly feel fear and want to leave town as soon as possible?

Roger, I think it is certainly possible that "it all started here”. During his trial the prosecution claimed that O'Laughlin had been given the task of killing General Grant, but he was (as we all know) acquitted. I re-read some passages of Benn Pitman’s “The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators”.

(1) DAVID STANTON (for the prosecution — May 16): I have seen that man with the black moustache before, [pointing to the accused,Michael O'Laughlin.] I saw him on the 13th of April, the night before the assassination, at the house of the Secretary of War.I saw him pass in the door, and take a position on one side of the hal. –––– He did not ask for anyone else besides the Secretary, nor did he explain why he was there. –––– General Grant was in the parlor. He and the Secretary were being serenaded. O'Laughlin could see General Grant from his position. –––– He was dressed in a suit of black ; dress-coat, vest and pants, and his hat, which was a black slouch hat, I think, he had in his hand. The hall was very well lit up; the parlor, where General Grant was sitting, was also lit up, and I was directly in front of him when I addressed him. He was inside of the door, about ten feet,standing next to the library door.

(2) Major KILBURN KNOX (for the prosecution — May 16): I was at the house of the Secretary of War, in this city, on the evening of the 13th of April last, and saw there a man whom I recognize among the prisoners. There he is,[pointing to the accused, Michael O'Laughlin.] . –––– There was a band playing at the house, and on the steps were General Grant, Mrs. Grant, the Secretary', General Barnes and his wife, Mr. Knapp and his wife, Miss Lucy Stanton, and two or three small children . –––– I got down on the step, I think, next to the last one, leaning against the railing, and this man [O'Laughlin] came up to me, after I had been there ten minutes probably, and said, " Is Stanton in ?" Said I, " I suppose you mean the Secretary?" He said, "Yes." –––– He then walked on to the other side of the steps, and walked inside of the hall, the alcove, and stood on the inside step. I saw him standing there, and I walked over to Mr. David Stanton and said, " Do you know that man ?" . –––– He did not say anything about General Grant. By that time, I think, the General had gone into the parlor . –––– He [O'Laughlin] stood on the side next to the library, and in that position he could have looked into the parlor, and seen who was in there, through the door . –––– The whole house was lighted up. –––– Secretary Stanton was on the left-hand side of the steps, talking to Mrs. Grant, and the man went up on the right-hand side past them, and went in and took a place on the left-hand side.

(3) Mr. JOHN C. HATTER (for the prosecution — May 16): 1 recognize that man, sitting back there, [pointing to the prisoner, O'Laughlin.] He is the man I saw at Secretary Stanton's house at about 9 o'clock, or after, on the night of the illumination, the 13th of April. I was standing on the steps looking at the illumination, and this man [O'Laughlin] approached me, and asked me if General Grant was in. I told him he was. He said he wished to see him. –––– When he spoke to me, he left the steps and walked away toward the treebox, talking as he went, but I did not understand what he was saying. He seemed to reflect over something, and came back; then he walked off, and I did not see him any more. The house was illuminated, and it was pretty light outside, too . –––– The Secretary was in the parlor with General Grant; they had not come out then ; there was nobody on the steps but me. Both doors were open, the front door and another door like the front entry, and the gas was fully lit all around.

My conclusion: David Stanton, Knox and Hatter all testified that they saw O'Laughlin on the steps of Stanton’s house. David Stanton testified that O'Laughlin could see Grant in the parlor, so if O'Laughlin could see Grant, Grant could see O'Laughlin. Both were not standing in the dark, but were “fully lit”. So I think Julia Grant did also see this “mysterious man”. But was Grant a murder target? Only Hatter testified that the man inquired about Grant; David Stanton and Knox testified that he inquired about Secretary Stanton and never mentioned Grant. Yet (in my opinion) Grant was such a major figure that it might have been more surprising if he had not been a target. I think both (Stanton and Grant) were a target, as were Seward, Johnson and of course Lincoln. Was O'Laughlin checking out the place for a possible attack on April 14? It was not proven and O'Laughlin's lawyer, Walter S. Scott, was able to show that his client was drinking with friends on the night of the murder and had made no attempt to seek out Grant. Remember that O’Laughlin had left Washington and had taken a job in Baltimore, but was back on April 13 with a few friends to observe the citywide illumination.

Back to Julia Grant. Maybe her fear for the life of her husband started indeed after (let’s call it so) this “O'Laughlin-incident”, maybe followed by a frightening dream, she kept for herself. And the next morning her fear (real or imagined) quickly grew after the knock on her hotel door, followed by an incident in the hotel’s dining room where she saw at lunch-hour the four “Mosby men” (as she called them) spying upon her. According to what Horace Porter wrote, Gen. Grant left the White House (shortly) after two o'clock and left the hotel for the railway station at about half-past 3 o'clock, without lunching. So their depart was indeed “hastily”. And on their way to the railway station followed the freeky incident with Booth at Pennsylvania Avenue, peering into the carriage …. How frightening must that all have been for the sensitive Julia (I suppose).

In his testimony at the trial at May 12, Grant made no mention of a plot on his life. But we also have the testionoy of HEZEKIAH METZ (for the prosecution — May 17), in the case against Atzerodt: We (the Metz family) were inquiring about the news, and a conversation came up about General Grant's being shot—for we had understood that he had been shot on the cars—when Atzerodt said, as I understood, " If the man that was to follow him had followed him, it was likely to be so." That Atzerodt did have said this in these words was denied by the two brothers Leaman, who gave their testimony for the defense on May 30: 1 then asked him (Atzerodt) if what we heard about General Grant was correct,that he was assassinated on the same night. He (Atzerodt) answered, "No, I don't know whether that is so or not; I don't suppose it is so; if it had been, I should have heard it." While we were at the dinner-table, my brother asked him the question again, whether General Grant was killed or not, and he said, " No, I don't suppose he was;if he was killed, he would have been killed probably by a man that got on the same car" —or the same train, I don’t remember which—" that Grant got on."

We also know (via the Grants) that a man boarded the same train as Grant did and tried to kill the General, but found the private car that the Grants were riding in locked and guarded by porters. Was this man O'Laughlin? We know that Booth and O'Laughlin looked quite similar. Was it O'Laughlin who spied upon Julia and followed the Grants to the railway station? Still lots of questions, we never may know! And last but not least: was Julia Grant’s fear real or imagined? This question is still intriguing me.

Sorry for this comprehensive response …… 