Why was Booth admitted into the presidential box?

[Susan Higginbotham]

The first part of Clara's statement--"Nearly one hour before the commission of the deed, the assassin came to the door of the box and looked in, to take a survey of the position of its occupants. It was supposed at the time that it was either a mistake or the exercise of impertinent curiosity. The circumstance attracted no particular attention at the time"--doesn't read like an eyewitness account to me, especially with the passive language of the second and third sentence. Even allowing for the greater formality of 19th-century language, I would expect Clara to say something like, "I supposed at the time that it was either the exercise of impertinent curiosity. The circumstance did not concern me at the time," if she had actually witnessed Booth make a trial run.

The second part of her account does sound to me like the product of her own observations, though I too suspect she was embroidering her account to protect her fiance.