Identification of Booth's body

[Susan Higginbotham]

In working on Social Security disability cases, I read a lot of medical records, and it's not uncommon to see doctors or staff write down "right" when they actually mean "left," and vice versa.

[RJNorton]

(10-09-2018 11:47 AM)Warren Wrote:  I'm confused. If it wasn't Booth who was shot in the barn, then who was it?

Warren, one theory is that it was actually a man named James W. Boyd who was killed at Garrett's. The late Dr. William Hanchett deals with and debunks this theory in The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies.

I hope this link works:

CLICK HERE.

Also, On p. 17 of the Surratt Society publication entitled "The Body in the Barn," Lincoln assassination expert Mr. James O. Hall states that Boyd was murdered in his hometown, Jackson, Tennessee, on January 1, 1866.

[STS Lincolnite]

I am waaaay behind on my reading here, but I had a few minutes over a late lunch and took some time to read the most recent posts in this thread. Seems there will be lots to unpack when I get a chance to go back through the full thread - which I hope to have some time to do in a more thorough way at some point. But, that being said, I think I have already gained a good sense of what lies within. Even in what little I have read there are a number of things (particularly related to the body’s response to injury) that have spawned some inaccurate speculation. I don’t have time to address all of those items now, but, in the little time I do have, I did want quickly address one of the things that immediately stood out to me.

mikegriffith1 stated in a post above:
“A scar from a burn? Could this be one of the reasons that Lt. Baker took off with the body and kept it for some three hours—to burn a scar onto the back of the neck?”

I’m sorry to break it to you Mr. Griffith, but that is just not how scars work from a physiological standpoint.

A scar is essentially an area where tissue (of a more cross-linked, haphazard, fibrotic nature than normal tissue) develops in the area of an incompletely or ineffectively healed wound, burn, lesion, etc. The key here is that a scar is RESULTANT from, and a part of, an active healing process.

While one could burn the tissue, a dead body can’t form a scar of any type because there would and could not be an active healing process. It’s simply impossible.

I am in a bit of a salty mood today, so I think I will continue on a bit more (from atop my soapbox ). As I think about what I have read in this thread so far, I am reminded that no matter how hard we try we can't with absolute certainty know everything about the past. And also that questions in the practice of history are of great importance. But not all questions are created equal and not all questions need to be asked. The questions I quoted above are reminiscent of those often put forward by Otto Eisenschiml. While I think they are posed in good faith, their speculative nature, are in the end, damaging to the practice of history. They end up taking on a life all their own, when a little simple, balanced investigation might render the question itself unnecessary and thereby prevent or at least minimize speculation based inaccuracies and their inevitable propagation. And don’t even get me started on giving an answer to a question and attaching some great value to saying “it’s possible.” In the case above, the answer speculated upon in the question is not even possible. And in cases where something may in fact be possible, doesn’t mean it’s probable. It’s possible that a satellite might fall out of the atmosphere and strike me on the head in the next 30 seconds, but it’s certainly not probable.

[AussieMick]

Just to intrude on this discussion and add a general point (that many of you will be aware of). Occam's razor is a philosophical principle (which does not mean that it is perfect of course):

"Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. ... the one that requires the least speculation is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation. Occam's razor applies especially in the philosophy of science, but also more generally."

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

In modern terms it equates to "K.I.S.S." (which , again, I admit is not perfect)

[L Verge]

Scott - so nice to have you back posting; you are always a voice of reason! As an aside, when I first read that Eisenschiml (a scientist) considered himself an "Armchair Historian," it confirmed my suspicions.

Michael - Thanks for mentioning Occam's Razor. Mr. Hall told every researcher that he could to apply that principle when confused over facts. He also advised us to determine how many studies come out with very similar facts as opposed to only a few who arrive at a contrary opinion. If a good number of researchers all arrive at the same conclusion from their research, it is a safe bet that their conclusion is accurate, or very close to it.

[L Verge]

(10-09-2018 12:28 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(10-09-2018 11:47 AM)Warren Wrote:  I'm confused. If it wasn't Booth who was shot in the barn, then who was it?

Warren, one theory is that it was actually a man named James W. Boyd who was killed at Garrett's. The late Dr. William Hanchett deals with and debunks this theory in The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies.

I hope this link works:

CLICK HERE.

Also, On p. 17 of the Surratt Society publication entitled "The Body in the Barn," Lincoln assassination expert Mr. James O. Hall states that Boyd was murdered in his hometown, Jackson, Tennessee, on January 1, 1866.

Somewhere at the Hall Research Center there is a photo of the real James W. Boyd of Tennessee and also a notice that he was killed in 1866 by a horse thief.

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Steve for sending this material. Steve writes, "I saw the James W. Boyd posts on the forum. I was able to find a newspaper account of Boyd's murder from page 2 of the 10 Jan. 1866 edition of the Memphis Daily Avalanche, reporting on a story first published in the West Tennessee Whig of Jackson, Tennessee. Unfortunately, the West Tennessee Whig isn't available on any of the newspaper databases I use. So I decided to see if there were any published diaries from people living in Madison County, Tennessee that mentioned the murder, and I found one that did! Robert H. Cartmell mentioned the murder in his diary. And he specifically mentions that the James W. Boyd that was murdered in Tennessee was in the 6th Tenn. Infantry and had been a prisoner of war for over a year. The part about Boyd starts toward the end of the first page I'm sending and continues onto the top of the second page.

Here's a link to the Robert H. Cartmell diaries if anybody wants to explore an account of the civil war from that part of Tennessee:

http://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landi...5138coll39

[mikegriffith1]

I think Dr. Barnes’ observation that the scar on the body’s neck looked like a burn could be a significant clue. I think Dr. May recognized that Dr. Barnes’ observation was very problematic for identifying the body as Booth, and that he did what he could to explain the fact that the wound looked like a burn scar and not an incised scar. Dr. Barnes stated that Dr. May told him that the scar looked like a burn scar because the wound had reopened and had healed by granulation instead of adhesion. Dr. May repeated part of this claim in his sworn statement on April 27:

Quote:The scar looks as much like the effect of a burn as the cicatrix [scar] from a surgical operation.

But modern medicine tells us that burn scars look very different from incised scars, as most of us know from our own life experience. The following comes from an article titled “Burn Wound: How It Differs from Other Wounds” on a National Institute of Health website:

Quote:Burns or burn wounds are so much different from other wounds that a separate medical super-speciality has been designated to manage them. . . .

Heat not only damages skin locally but has many generalized effects on the body. These changes are specific to burn injury and are generally not encountered in wounds caused by other injuries.

There is generalized increase in capillary permeability due to heat effect and damage. This causes plasma to leak out from capillaries to interstitial spaces. Increased capillary permeability and resultant plasma leak persists till 48 hours and is maximum in first 8 hours. . . .

This generalized increase in capillary permeability is not seen in any other wound. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495387/)

The article goes on to note that second-degree superficial burns, such as the type you would get from holding a match flame next to a person’s skin just long enough to create the appearance of a wound, heal in five to seven days and leave virtually no scar:

Quote:Second-degree superficial burns heal from epithelium of hair follicle remnants, which are in plenty in the superficial dermis. Healing is complete within 5-7 days and is almost scar less.

Only severe burns leave large visible scars. Drs. Barnes and May would have known this, which is part of what made Dr. Barnes’ observation so problematic. When Barnes mentioned that the neck scar looked like a burn scar, Dr. May knew he had to either repudiate the scar as one caused by his surgery and face Baker and Eckert’s wrath or come up with an explanation for the scar’s appearance.

We need to keep in mind that Dr. May said that Booth reopened the wound about five days after he performed the surgery, which means the wound had, at the very least, 17 months to heal before May and Barnes saw it on the Montauk. So only a very recent modest/superficial burn would have had any chance of leaving “a large ugly-looking scar,” but even then, there would have been no signs of an incision and no appearance of months of granulation.

There’s no way that an incised wound that healed by granulation, much less by adhesion, would magically produce a scar that looked so obviously like a burn wound that Dr. Barnes felt compelled to mention it—and he not only mentioned it to Dr. May on the Montauk, but he mentioned it again in his testimony at the conspiracy trial. And note that Dr. Barnes was unequivocal in his description: He did not say that the scar “sort of” or “kind of” looked like a burn scar—he said it looked like a burn scar instead of an incised scar:

Quote:It looked like the scar of a burn, instead of an incision. . . . (The Conspiracy Trial for the Murder of the President, Ben Poore transcript, volume 2, p. 61)

Booth’s reopened wound would have had to heal by granulation. Dr. May knew that. After at least 17 months, the scar would have been impossible to distinguish from another granulation scar of similar size. So Dr. May’s claim that he recognized the scar as the one from Booth’s reopened wound is invalid.

Now, let us return to the tattooed initials “JWB” that Charles Dawson said he saw on the body’s left hand. In addition to the fact that nobody else mentioned seeing those initials, there is also the fact that Booth’s sister Asia and the provost marshal general of Baltimore, J. L. McPhail, said that the initials were on the right hand, not the left hand. In fact, McPhail added that there was a small tattooed cross and some tattooed dots on Booth’s left hand—and McPhail pointed this out in a letter to Stanton the day before the autopsy occurred (Official Records, Washington: GPO, 1894, series 1, volume 46, part 3, p. 963). But nobody saw the cross or the dots. Only Dawson said he saw the initials, but he said they were on the left hand. None of the doctors who examined the body said anything about any of these tattoos.

Finally, does anyone else find it to be an amazing, cosmic coincidence that two members of the Montauk’s crew, Charles Collins and William Crowninshield, claimed that they knew Booth and that they had known him for about six weeks? Wow, figure the odds! Just figure the odds that two crew members of the ship where they took the body would happen to have known Booth, and both for about six weeks! Really?

[Christine]

Wading in. Well more like tip toeing. On the subject of scars: My daughter has a burn scar on her forehead. When exposed to sunlight, even after 30 years, what is normally not too obvious becomes angry and bright. As for not being able to use scars for identification: when I was 8 my bike broke while I was riding it, and a bolt ripped my calf open. Nearly 50 years later my husband could still use that scar for identification purposes. Concerning the changed look of the body: last year our granddaughter died shortly after birth. I was able to hold her about 15 minutes after she was born. When I again held her 10 hours later she had already begun to bruise and discolor. She was still beautiful to me but at her burial 5 days later (even after embalming and the gentle care of the funeral directors) she looked so different.

[Warren]

Christine, that is heart-wrenching. I am so sorry for your loss.

[Steve]

Christine, I'd also like to express my condolences on the loss of your granddaughter.

[L Verge]

I thank you too for sharing and know that it took stamina to use your personal experience to reinforce a scientific and historical fact in this case. Having worked with you long distance before, I know that you are a very caring person and one who wants to make sure that history is told accurately.

Folks, Christine is the person who became interested in Frederick Aiken, Mrs. Surratt's lawyer, when she found out that James McAvoy (a favorite actor of her's - and now mine) would be portraying him in The Conspirator movie. Very few people even knew about Aiken ten years ago, but Christine went to work and flushed out a great bio as well as spurring the Surratt Society to raise funds to mark his grave in Oak Hill Cemetery in D.C.'s Georgetown. I believe that she is also the one who recommended the wonderful first sentence of his closing defense for Mrs. Surratt as the inscription on that gravestone.

Go here http://www.surrattmuseum.org/frederick-aiken-gravesite to learn more about the marking of his grave and also click on Finding Frederick to read the bio written by Christine.

[RJNorton]

Thanks to Steve for sending more Boyd-related material. Steve writes, "I found a couple of more documents in regards to James W Boyd to post to the forum. One is a letter written by Boyd on February 14, 1865 where he references an earlier letter that he wrote as a POW (that I haven't found yet) where he claimed the 20 Dec. 1862 Confederate raid on the Union supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi had been assisted by a Union Army officer secretly sympathetic to the Confederates. In this letter he offers to spy for the Union if he can be released as a paroled POW. He says that he wants to spy in order to earn money to help support his 7 children who have been dependent on charity following his wife's death and to get revenge for being court-martialed twice. (Presumably, that has something to do with his being cashiered out of the 6th Tennessee prior to joining the secret service scouts and then afterwards rejoining the 6th Tenn. as a captain.) Most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, he volunteered to spy in western Tennessee and parts of Kentucky west of the Tennessee river. He even uses his knowledge of that area and it's people as a selling point on why that would make him a good spy. As the notation made on the back of the letter makes clear, he's making this offer because he wants to go to Tennessee. Since he takes the oath of allegiance and is released the next day (Feb. 15, 1865), it looks like his offer was likely accepted. If he was a spy and William Rowark discovered/suspected it, that could be another possible motive for Boyd's murder on Jan. 01, 1866. Most importantly, he would be headed toward Tennessee after his Feb. release and be nowhere near Booth and his conspirators or anywhere near Washington or Maryland after Lincoln's assassination.

The letter comes from the National Archives, Record Group 94, Microfilm M797, Roll 135. From the Baker case files of the Turner-Baker papers, original case file no. 718B.

The second document I'm sending to post to the forum is a copy of Boyd's Oath of Allegiance.

[Warren]

Roger that is fascinating information and thanks for it.

Briefly, can you state how Boyd even came to be connected to the assassination plot at all? I guess what I'm asking is what is it that those promoting Booth's escape have that may prove he was involved in the plot to kill Lincoln? Best I can see is that he was a Confederate, he was released from prison by Stanton, and his initials are the same as Booth's. What else is there?

[RJNorton]

Warren, I believe the first time I read about Boyd was in the book entitled The Lincoln Conspiracy by David Balsiger and Charles Sellier. The book came out in the late 1970s. It's been such a long time since I read it that I do not recall too much. I think, according to these authors, Boyd was recruited by Edwin Stanton to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. But before Boyd could do this, Booth assassinated the President. Boyd, who bore a striking resemblance to Booth (according to the authors), then got scared and feared his name would be connected to Booth's plot. Boyd escaped Washington and somehow ended up in Garrett's barn. The government then told the country that Booth (although the remains were really Boyd's according to Balsiger and Sellier) had been captured, killed, returned to Washington, and identified aboard the Montauk.