Did Surratt and Slater know about Harney's Mission?

[John Fazio]

(04-18-2016 05:02 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  John, wasn't Richard M. Smoot's boat acquired specifically to be used in the kidnapping plan?

Roger:

The boat was described as a skiff, which is defined as a small, light sailboat or rowboat. Such a boat would appear to be suitable for transporting two or three men across the Potomac (i.e. Booth, Herold and Atzerodt, if he had decided to follow them, which was the original plan according to Smoot), but not a party of men and the President of the United States (assuming the conspirators could have managed the all-but-impossible feat of getting Lincoln that far). A boat can be acquired for any number of reasons, and one can give any reason he wishes to as to why he is acquiring a boat. Recall that Smoot said that Booth, Herold and Atzerodt were to have taken flight together after the assassination (which fits with the evidence indicating that Powell headed for Baltimore) and were to make their way to the seaboard where they would board a vessel that would take them to a country that had no extradition treaty with the U.S. (which fits with Herold's telling his friends in T.B. that the next time they heard from him, he would be in Spain with a barrel of money, and also fits with Ste. Marie's reference to Spain in his Affidavit). Recall, further, that Mary Surratt told Smoot on the day of the assassination that she was sure the skiff would be used that night. Conclusion: There is no evidence indicating the skiff was to be used incident to kidnapping, but good evidence that it was acquired and to be used incident to the assassination, i.e. by Booth, Herold and Atzerodt in their escape. Atzerodt, of course, decided that he was better off with friends and relatives on a farm near Baltimore than he was with Booth and Herold, due in part, no doubt, to his failure to assassinate Johnson.

John