Thomas F. Harney

[BettyO]

Quote:I think JWB and company would have found greater respect in both North and South if they had done the conventional thing and joined the Confederate Army and killed Yankees in a straight forward way on the battlefield.

Arnold, OLaughlen and Powell served in the armed forces of the Confederacy.

Quote:I recall John Surratt attempted without success to join a Confederate veterans organization.

Probably so, if he signed an Oath of Allegiance; doing so made one persona non grata in any Confederate circle - even if one's heart wasn't in it when it was signed.... also one had to have verifiable proof of service; i.e. records. As Surratt was a courier, he may not have had such....

[HerbS]

John Surratt was a slick individual!

[BettyO]

Surratt and the others were to an extent slick; if somewhat naive....

I know for a fact that if your Confederate ancestor is on record as having signed an Oath, you are not, even today, able to join the SCV or the UDC....

[L Verge]

"I think JWB and company would have found greater respect in both North and South if they had done the conventional thing and joined the Confederate Army and killed Yankees in a straight forward way on the battlefield."

There are other ways to serve one's country in time of war than to don a uniform. Does anyone want to pick on the French Resistance during WWII?

My personal observation of what drove Booth and gang was not fighting the entire Union army. Their hatred was directed at Lincoln with Seward as a by-product because of his position of calling for a special election. Johnson, of course, was a necessity also in order to decapitate the constitutional heads of the government. I have never been convinced that Stanton or Grant were targets either.

[RJNorton]

(11-17-2014 08:38 AM)L Verge Wrote:  I have never been convinced that Stanton or Grant were targets either.

I wonder about this, too. I am curious to know how Stanton knew his doorbell was rung when it wasn't working.

[L Verge]

(11-17-2014 06:59 AM)HerbS Wrote:  John Surratt was a slick individual!

That's what it takes to be a good undercover man, Herb.

Am I a fan of John Surratt? No. I'm not a champion of his mother, nor Booth, nor any of them. However, I understand their feelings and their motives at that particular time in history. I also think that, under different circumstances, I would have been either friends or acquaintances of them -- yes, even George. In today's world, he might be fixing my car after some idiot backed into it!

[Gene C]

Laurie wrote, "That's what it takes to be a good undercover man, Herb."

This reminds me of a song....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iaR3WO71j4

[HerbS]

Gene,I remember that song.Laurie and BettyO -Thanks!

[John Fazio]

Laurie, Roger and anyone else who is not convinced that Stanton and Grant were not targets:

Here is the evidence I have that favors Stanton being a target:

1. He was mentioned as an intended victim in the many conversations between the Confederate operatives in Canada (the "Canadian Cabinet"), as reported by Montgomery, Dunham, Merritt and Von Steinacker at the trial.
2. When Davis learned of the assassination, he said: "...and if the same had been done to ...Secretary Stanton, the job would have been complete", which suggests that assassinating Stanton was part of the "job", which, because of the failure, was not complete. In his summation, Bingham interpreted the statement just so.
3. An anonymous report was sent to Stanton on May 15, 1865, advising him of a conspiracy to murder him, the President and Seward and that it was known to McClellan and Copperheads Belmont, Wood, Haswell and Larocque.
4.Britton Hill, a Stanton aide, conducted an investigation on April 15 and concluded that Stanton and Johnson were to have been killed.
5. A Lafayette Baker agent, one D. V. Coldazer, advised Baker, who in turn advised Eckert, that according to information he obtained in Boston, there was a plot to murder Lincoln, Seward, Stanton and Halleck. The latter left Washington for Richmond and may have, by so doing, saved himself.
6.David Homer Bates, Manager of the Telegraph Office, concluded that Johnson and Stanton were targeted.
7. Allan Pinkerton telegraphed Stanton on April 15, requesting that he exercise extreme caution for his safety.
8. Three witnesses at the trial testified that O'Laughlen was at Stanton's home on the night of the 13th. Their testimony was corroborated by Atzerodt in one of his confessions.
9. The T.I.O.S. letter to Booth mentions that one assassin had been assigned to each member of Lincoln's Cabinet.
10. A cipher letter that came into the possession of Union intelligence stated that "The brute Stanton will also meet his deserts (sic) by a sure hand."
11. Thomas A. Jones wrote, in his book on Booth in 1893, that Stanton was an intended victim.
12. Stanton himself told of the skulking figure on his porch. He said he was in the back room playing with the children, which may account for why he didn't hear knocking, if the intruder knocked. As to how he knew the intruder rang the bell, he surmised it, inasmuch as the intruder was seen on the porch, but no bell was heard. Stanton's biographer, Frank A. Flower, stated categorically that the broken doorbell saved Stanton's life. The account also appeared in the New York Times and in Orville Hickman Browning's Diary. Steers is in accord.
13. According to Secretary of the Interior Usher, a man was found at Stanton's house hiding behind a tree box. He fled. Another person, unidentified, also told Stanton he had seen a man behind the tree box. Whether this was the same man who was on the porch cannot be known. "Suspicious persons...seen about the residence of Mr. Stanton..." was also reported by one Edwin Bates, a patron of Ford's Theatre on the fateful night.

None of the foregoing items is, by itself, in my opinion, sufficient to conclude that Stanton was targeted. But taken together, I believe they constitute a persuasive case, indeed I would say a very persuasive case, that Stanton was an intended victim on the 14th.

I will let you respond to this before I give you the evidence relating to Grant.

Once again I say, if anyone has evidence contradicting any of the above, please present it.

John


14. The account of the intruder on the porch receives some support from one Hudson Taylor, a bookseller in Washington who was a very good friend of Stanton's.
15.

[Rick Smith]

If Edwin Stanton was not a target, he sure should have been.

[HerbS]

I have a"letter to Lincoln"warning him of his assassination.Sender-unknown-postmarked-Dansville,NY.Tom Turner and I feel it is very"intriguing".John,at this juncture,I believe in speculation with great research.

[RJNorton]

John, I am using Eisenschiml's In the Shadow of Lincoln's Death for the broken doorbell story because I do not have the biography by Flower. Eisenschiml cites Flower in his footnote for the story. Does Flower give a footnote for the story?

Why would Stanton wait three years to tell this story (if true)?

Eisenschiml goes on to dispute Stanton's broken doorbell story by citing a gentleman named Sterling who said he went to Stanton's house to inform Stanton of the assassination, and the doorbell was working fine as Stanton's son immediately answered the door when it was rung. I should add that Eisenschiml's footnote for Sterling's story is "an unidentified article signed by James B. Morrow." Strange!

Eisenschiml writes, "Why, if Stanton's doorbell was not out of order, did he say that it was?"

[Linda Anderson]

(11-17-2014 04:17 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  John, I am using Eisenschiml's In the Shadow of Lincoln's Death for the broken doorbell story because I do not have the biography by Flower. Eisenschiml cites Flower in his footnote for the story. Does Flower give a footnote for the story?

Roger, Flower's book is available on Google Books. The doorbell story is on page 279. There are no footnotes.

http://books.google.com/books?id=V6pYAAA...ll&f=false

---

[L Verge]

(11-17-2014 04:02 PM)HerbS Wrote:  I have a"letter to Lincoln"warning him of his assassination.Sender-unknown-postmarked-Dansville,NY.Tom Turner and I feel it is very"intriguing".John,at this juncture,I believe in speculation with great research.

Ray Neff and Len Guttridge were trying to verify that Dansville, NY letter, Herb, about twenty years ago. I had a conversation with Guttridge at that time, and I remember querying him to make sure that the postmark was NY because there was also a Dansville, Maryland, up until the early-20th century. Did they ever contact you?

I agree that speculation should be the BEGINNING of good research. I just don't approve of some writers who phrase their final text to make it seem like there was research done - when there wasn't. Or the research didn't prove their point, but they let it ride, or skewed it, anyhow. I can tell you some good tales learned over my past forty years. And even the best of historians do it from time to time.

[HerbS]

Thank you Laurie!My info came from-"They have killed Papa Dead"by A.Pitch.I wonder how it can be confusing,when I saw the letter and postmark of Dansville,NY with my own eyes.All due respect to other historians and researchers.