My Journey on Lincoln's Assassination

[mikegriffith1]

(09-05-2018 08:30 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  Mike:

In my opinion, most of your conclusions are erroneous. My views, which are based on having read all or part of about 125 books on the assassination and attempted Assassinations on April 14, 1865, and countless articles and newspapers, are contained in my book Decapitating the Union: Jefferson Davis, Judah Benjamin and the Plot to Assassinate Lincoln, which is the product of five years of research and writing and which I hope you will add to your reading list. Briefly, and addressing each of your conclusions in order, they are:

1. Stanton was not involved. That is a thoroughly discredited theory. Even Eisenschiml acknowledged that there was not enough evidence to draw that conclusion.
2. Other War Department/Army Officials MAY have been involved, especially as regards the crossing of the Navy Yard Bridge by Booth and Herold, but there is no proof of the same and the evidence is weak.
3. Booth was shot to death in Garrett's barn by Boston Corbett, though he probably would have killed himself if Corbett hadn't beat him to it. He had previously said he would.
4. You are correct in concluding that the assassination was not a spur of the moment act, but had been planned for weeks, perhaps months, in advance,
5. Mary Surratt was almost certainly part of the assassination plot;
6. John Surratt was most certainly involved in Lincoln's murder;
7. Dr. Mudd was almost certainly part of the assassination plot;
8. Michael O'Laughlen was not innocent. He was part of the conspiracy and therefore, under the laws of conspiracy, should have received the same sentence that Mary Surratt, David Herold, George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell did. He was lucky to escape with his life, but his luck ran out in Ft. Jefferson, where he died of yellow fever.
9. Joseph Stewart was not in Ford's Theater to assure Booth's escape; he was just an overweight and shady lawyer with a bad reputation who lied to the Commissioners, probably for financial gain. He didn't get anywhere near Booth when he finally stepped into the alley;
10. Andrew Johnson was not bullied or tricked by Stanton; the Military Commission was created by Johnson pursuant to his Attorney General's ruling (James Speed). The failure to pardon Mary Surratt, pursuant to the vote of the Commissioners, was a matter between Johnson and Joseph Holt only; Stanton had nothing to do with it.

If you read my book you will find good arguments in support of all these conclusions. Then if you wish to discuss them with me, I am all ears.

John

John,

I do not believe that the theory of Stanton's involvement has been discredited. On the contrary, I believe that later document discoveries and additional research have strengthened the case for Stanton's involvement.

Eisenschiml never ceased to believe that Stanton was involved. He specified that he did not believe there was enough direct evidence of Stanton's guilt but that there was considerable circumstantial evidence of his guilt.

I find it very hard to imagine how any genuine Southerner could have believed that killing Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward would in any way help the South. I can believe that a greedy and immoral Southerner would take money to commit such horrendous crimes, in spite of the calamity they would surely bring on the South, but I cannot believe that anyone who was ideologically committed to the South would have been so utterly delusional as to think that killing the three biggest opponents of Radical Reconstruction would somehow help the South.

I think the claim that the Radicals and Lincoln were not very far apart on Reconstruction is demonstrably false. Just hours after Lincoln's death, a number of Radicals gathered in Washington and agreed that Lincoln’s murder was a “godsend to the country.” Let me quote what Rep. George Julian, a leading Radical in the House, said about the meeting:

Quote:I spent most of the afternoon in a political caucus, held for the purpose of considering the necessity for a new Cabinet and a line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr. Lincoln; and while everybody was shocked at his murder, the feeling was nearly universal that the accession of Johnson to the Presidency would prove a godsend to the country. Aside from Mr. Lincoln's known policy of tenderness to the Rebels, which now so jarred upon the feelings of the hour, his well-known views on the subject of reconstruction were as distasteful as possible to radical Republicans. In his last public utterance, only three days before his death, he had declared his adherence to the plan of reconstruction announced by him in December, 1863, which in the following year so stirred the ire of Wade and Winter Davis as an attempt of the Executive to usurp the powers of Congress. (Political Recollections 1840-1872, Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Company, 1884, pp. 255-256, emphasis added)

Historian Claude Bowers, who later served as President Franklin Roosevelt’s ambassador to Spain, discussed this meeting and how it was reported in the New York Tribune at the time:

Quote:That afternoon, within eight hours of Lincoln's death, a caucus of the Radicals was conferring on plans to rid the Government of the Lincoln influence. One of the participants, “who liked the radical tone,” was "intolerably disgusted" with the "profanity and obscenity.” There, among others, sat Ben Wade, Zack Chandler, and Wilkeson, correspondent of the New York Tribune, who proposed to put Greeley “on the war path.” In the discussion as reported, “the hostility for Lincoln's policy of conciliation and contempt for his weakness" was “undisguised,” and “the universal sentiment among radical men” was that "his death is a Godsend to our cause.” Moving with revolutionary celerity, these practical men had agreed to urge on Johnson the reconstruction of his Cabinet “to get rid of the last vestige of Lincolnism,” and Ben Butler was chosen for Secretary of State! (The Tragic Era: The Revolution After Lincoln, Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1920, p. 6, emphasis added)

Representative Julian made other comments that make it clear that the Radicals were not happy with Lincoln’s Reconstruction policy. He noted that the day after the Radical meeting on April 15, Senator Benjamin Wade and other Radicals on the Committee on the Conduct of the War met with President Andrew Johnson, and that Senator Wade expressed his confidence that with Johnson as president “there will be no problem now in running the government!”:

Quote:On the following day, in pursuance of a previous engagement, the Committee on the Conduct of the War met the President at his quarters in the Treasury Department. He received us with decided cordiality, and Mr. Wade said to him: ''Johnson, we have faith in you. By the gods, there will be no trouble now in running the government!" (Political Recollections 1840-1872, p. 257)

So clearly Senator Wade, one of the most vicious of the Radicals, believed that if Lincoln had not been murdered, there would have been “trouble” in “running the government.”

In commenting on Lincoln’s funeral, Representative Julian stated that Lincoln’s last statements on Reconstruction had been “far from assuring or satisfactory”:

Quote:The outpouring of the people at Mr. Lincoln's funeral was wholly unprecedented, and every possible arrangement was made by which they could manifest their grief for their murdered President; but their solicitude for the state of the country was too profound to be intermitted. What policy was now to be pursued? Mr. Lincoln's latest utterances had been far from assuring or satisfactory. (Political Recollections 1840-1872, p. 258)

“Far from assuring or satisfactory.” Thus, according to Julian, Lincoln’s last statements on Reconstruction were “far” from the Radicals’ views on the matter. The Radicals and Lincoln were not moving toward each other on Reconstruction. When he died, they were “far” apart on the subject.

Right now I think the case against Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd is very weak and based largely on perjury and incorrect inferences. However, I have not completely made up my mind about Mrs. Surratt and Mudd. I see some evidence that Mrs. Surratt and Mudd might have been involved in the kidnapping plot.

I think Dr. Robert Arnold makes a good case that Corbett could not have shot the man in the barn.

If the body brought to the USS Montauk had been Booth's, several autopsy photographs would have been taken, instead of just one photo that soon disappeared. People who knew Booth well were readily available to ID the body, but they were never summoned, even though some of them were on the ship. The people who ID'd the body as Booth did so from the "general appearance." When Dr. May saw the body, his first response was that it looked nothing like Booth and that he could not believe it was his body. The later ID, the one done when the body was moved, was done when the flesh had mostly decayed and when the Booth family had every incentive to keep Booth dead in the eyes of the world.

O'Laughlen had ample witnesses to document just about every minute of his activities that night and that he went nowhere near Stanton's house or any other high government official's house.

I believe that there is strong evidence that Lloyd and Weichmann lied repeatedly. Interestingly, both men later confided to a few people that they only said what they said because they were threatened with death. Weichmann, however, recovered from his bout of honesty and went on to write a book that repeated his false testimony.

I believe that Johnson most certainly was bullied and intimidated by Stanton in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. But I also believe that Johnson came to realize what a disgrace the military trial had been and that he came to see Stanton for what he was, especially when the same conman whom Holt and Bingham had used at the trial later conspired with two Radicals in the House to falsely implicate Johnson in Lincoln's murder.