Booth's Words

[L Verge]

First, if we assume (and yes, I'm using that dirty word) that Booth was being "driven" at first by powers above him (i.e. Confederate hierarchy, Maryland planters, or New York crowd), it is possible that he had chaffed all along at the thought of just kidnapping Lincoln - a man that he detested so much that he preferred him dead. The time to put Plan B (the one he preferred) into operation was after the fall of Richmond.

As for his lying in his writings, you know I disagree. Embellishing, yes; lying, no. His flowery verse is certainly not unusual for the times either. Booth was no country bumpkin who could barely compose a sentence. He was a master of Shakespeare and the theater arts as well as being typical of Victorian writers of his day. George Alfred Townsend and David Miller DeWitt are two such writers that have that same flare (almost nauseating to our modern standards).

Regarding Surratt's claim that the kidnap attempt en route to Campbell Hospital actually occurred, I believe that he is the only one to mention the stopping of a carriage and supposedly seeing Salmon Chase inside. Most historians dispute that there even was a carriage.

Supposedly the gang was waiting and Booth went ahead to the hospital and found out from another actor that the President was not coming. He then rode back and the men dispersed. Wasn't that when Weichmann reported seeing some of them very agitated at the boardinghouse? If there had been a carriage with Chase in it, wouldn't he or his driver have reported being set upon by "highwaymen?"