Identification of Booth's body

[RJNorton]

(10-23-2018 03:41 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  As a longtime student of critical thinking, I am a big fan of Occam's Razor.

Therefore, Mike, what is your reply/explanation for Susan's question: why did the "fake" Booth not come out and surrender at the same time David Herold did?

[Gene C]

(10-23-2018 03:41 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  No, I do not believe I am misreading Conger's statement about the man in the barn's actions just before he was shot. Conger said that he heard something drop (which was apparently the crutch), that the man then "dropped his arm," "relaxed his muscles," and started walking toward the door, and that just a few seconds after that the shot rang out. That certainly sounds like someone who was surrendering.

I'll politely disagree with you Mike, it looks to me that Booth had no intention of surrendering.
Booth's final words to the Union soldiers, as they asked him to surrender, sounded to me more like the words of a second rate actor, in a second rate play, who is portraying the character of a rejected and wounded "hero" facing a martyr's death. If you read Booth's diary, he certainly envisioned himself that way.

[L Verge]

"Furthermore, I haven't even brought up the issue of the scars on Booth's body that nobody saw on the body on the Montauk that night. Theodore Roscoe, among others, discussed this issue. Booth had several scars from accidents and altercations over the years. Nobody on the Montauk that night saw a single one of them, a very odd omission given that the Montauk witnesses were able to spot "pale" characters on a hand that could not be read unless you took a closer look at them.

" And how about the tattoos on Booth's other hand, which consisted of a cross and some stars. If all these decades-belated witnesses amazingly noticed the small "pale" initials on the left hand, which could not be read unless you got a closer look at them, how is it that not a single person there or at the burial at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary noticed the cross and the stars on the body's other hand? "

I assume you are citing Roscoe here. First, Roscoe is still one of my favorite authors on the subject - even though he wrote nearly 70 years ago. Because some of his posits have been disproven in the ensuing years, however, I have stored away my copy. Please cite page or notes on the above from Roscoe - or any other source since we are now "learning" about cross and stars on the right hand. How did a right-handed boy manage to do that with his left hand?

Also, if you study Booth at any length, you learn of his other scar-producing episodes. But, how would those present on board the Montauk at this time find out about them? Despite what you are trying to get us to believe, there was enough clear evidence to identify Booth without having to go on an invasive "scar hunt."

Finally, (and other readers may want to click off at this point because I'm going to share another personal story...) have you, Mike, ever been with a dying person throughout the death watch and then for several hours after that with the body not being touched? I sat with my mother for two days as she went into a coma and lingered. Her facial features did not change one iota during that time, the changes came during her suffering.

In most cases, relatives would leave the corpse alone to be handled by funeral home personnel who came to take it. My mother died after just a few days in a nursing home, and when the funeral home was called, they did not have staff available to come right away. Therefore, I chose to stay with her. The nurses turned the AC on arctic blast, wrapped me in blankets, and I remained with her for about four hours. They also told me to expect to see movement within the body as muscles reacted to death and blood and bodily fluids moved to settling points. That all happened.

When the funeral attendants finally arrived, I was asked to leave the room. Given my knowledge of the Booth inquest and the "freckling" issue, I deliberately asked if her back and the back portions of her legs would show coagulated blood spots (and I likened them to freckles). I was told YES, but more bluish purple than a true "freckle brown."

Thanks to my mother's death, that closed any question of Booth's freckling in my mind. Since Booth's body was not handled carefully and in a timely fashion, I would say that (as that coagulated blood dried), it became more of a brown color. Sometimes I think that I eat, breathe, and sleep the Lincoln assassination story, but I have been able to learn quite a lot about today's world from learning the details of this 1865 event.

[AussieMick]

Without wanting to delay the response about why Booth/Boyd didnt surrender at the same time as Herold ...

I'd also point out that Conger appears to have had a great view and appreciation of what the man in the barn did immediately before being shot.

MikeGriffith1 wrote :
No, I do not believe I am misreading Conger's statement about the man in the barn's actions just before he was shot. Conger said that he heard something drop (which was apparently the crutch), that the man then "dropped his arm," "relaxed his muscles," and started walking toward the door, and that just a few seconds after that the shot rang out. That certainly sounds like someone who was surrendering.

relaxed his muscles ??? how did Conger know that ? ... 'walking toward the door' (this after dropping the crutch)?

I think its far more likely that the man was coughing and choking from the smoke and stumbling around . Especially if he dropped the crutch (why he'd do that we can only guess ... maybe the smoke and fire caused panic) its far more likely that , rather than 'walking' towards the door, he stumbled and even fell to his knees or was crawling before being shot (hence the angle of the bullet's travel). Surrendering ? Who knows?

I dont know about you but if I was Corbett I'd be reluctant to admit that I shot a man on his knees or crawling on the ground.

Now, as to why he didnt surrender at the same time as Herold ... I'm afraid we'll never know ...
But I'd say there are not many possibilities . In order, I'd opt for : -

#1 Being Booth, he knew he was going to hang if captured and preferred to die 'a hero's death' and (hopefully) quickly by being shot.

#2 He was confused and in a panic, desperately trying to stay free for another few hours whatever might happen next. Maybe hoping for miraculous rescue.

#3 He thought that he might be able to negotiate somehow ... and was wildly thinking , thinking, thinking ... maybe how to put up a defence as to why it wasnt he that had killed Lincoln.

#4 (Sorry ... IMO, its not very likely) It was not Booth. And he, whoever 'he' was, was terrified of being arrested and hanged for a crime he didnt commit.
The problems (and there are plenty) with #4 for me are ... why didnt he scream "You got the wrong guy!!!" or " I'm not Booth !!!" or even "What do you want me for? I aint done nothing !!!" Apparently (as far as I know), the only relevant comment/question by the man to this effect was "Who do you take me for?" ... He never denied (I think) being Booth.

[Steve Whitlock]

Someone asked me about my basis for saying that the bullet entered the man in the barn's neck at about a markedly downward angle. I have discussed the evidence of this in two posts in this thread. One source was the AFIP forensic review of the vertebrae, and the other source was Dr. Robert Arnold's analysis of the vertebrae and the wound descriptions.
[/quote]

Mike,

If you really want to get to the bottom of the Boyd vs Booth question you have, without exhuming a body, consider the news article that mentions someone removing a lock of hair from the John Wilkes Booth corpse. If someone still has that lock of hair, and if a piece has the root still attached, mtdna can be taken, to be compared with a living maternal descendant from the same line as Booth's mother.

Steve W.

[L Verge]

(10-23-2018 07:07 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Someone asked me about my basis for saying that the bullet entered the man in the barn's neck at about a markedly downward angle. I have discussed the evidence of this in two posts in this thread. One source was the AFIP forensic review of the vertebrae, and the other source was Dr. Robert Arnold's analysis of the vertebrae and the wound descriptions.

Mike,

If you really want to get to the bottom of the Boyd vs Booth question you have, without exhuming a body, consider the news article that mentions someone removing a lock of hair from the John Wilkes Booth corpse. If someone still has that lock of hair, and if a piece has the root still attached, mtdna can be taken, to be compared with a living maternal descendant from the same line as Booth's mother.

Steve W.
[/quote]

Lucinda Holloway clipped a lock of Booth's hair as she tried to comfort him during his last hours of extreme suffering (suffering which may have caused changes in his facial features?). It's been quite a few years, but that lock of hair was up for sale or auction within the past decade or so. It was in a gold, ornate (but small) frame of the Victorian era and had been passed down through the Garrett line until reaching a generation who saw no need to keep it. I have lost track of what happened to it, but someone on this forum must have a better memory than I.

The lock that Peddicord clipped was sold at auction a while back also. https://historical.ha.com/itm/political/...63-43282.s

Where is John Reznikoff when we need him? (P.S. Mr. Reznikoff is a well-known collector of celebrities' locks.)

[Steve Whitlock]

(10-23-2018 07:52 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(10-23-2018 07:07 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Someone asked me about my basis for saying that the bullet entered the man in the barn's neck at about a markedly downward angle. I have discussed the evidence of this in two posts in this thread. One source was the AFIP forensic review of the vertebrae, and the other source was Dr. Robert Arnold's analysis of the vertebrae and the wound descriptions.

Mike,

If you really want to get to the bottom of the Boyd vs Booth question you have, without exhuming a body, consider the news article that mentions someone removing a lock of hair from the John Wilkes Booth corpse. If someone still has that lock of hair, and if a piece has the root still attached, mtdna can be taken, to be compared with a living maternal descendant from the same line as Booth's mother.

Steve W.

Lucinda Holloway clipped a lock of Booth's hair as she tried to comfort him during his last hours of extreme suffering (suffering which may have caused changes in his facial features?). It's been quite a few years, but that lock of hair was up for sale or auction within the past decade or so. It was in a gold, ornate (but small) frame of the Victorian era and had been passed down through the Garrett line until reaching a generation who saw no need to keep it. I have lost track of what happened to it, but someone on this forum must have a better memory than I.
[/quote]

Thank you for the response and added information; however, I was referring to the 3 part news article posted in this thread that mentions a Dr. John M. B. Pedicord's account, which mentions taking a lock of Booth's hair. Either source would suffice, if it can be proven to have been taken from Booth.

Steve W.

[L Verge]

(10-23-2018 08:14 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  

(10-23-2018 07:52 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(10-23-2018 07:07 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Someone asked me about my basis for saying that the bullet entered the man in the barn's neck at about a markedly downward angle. I have discussed the evidence of this in two posts in this thread. One source was the AFIP forensic review of the vertebrae, and the other source was Dr. Robert Arnold's analysis of the vertebrae and the wound descriptions.

Mike,

If you really want to get to the bottom of the Boyd vs Booth question you have, without exhuming a body, consider the news article that mentions someone removing a lock of hair from the John Wilkes Booth corpse. If someone still has that lock of hair, and if a piece has the root still attached, mtdna can be taken, to be compared with a living maternal descendant from the same line as Booth's mother.

Steve W.

Lucinda Holloway clipped a lock of Booth's hair as she tried to comfort him during his last hours of extreme suffering (suffering which may have caused changes in his facial features?). It's been quite a few years, but that lock of hair was up for sale or auction within the past decade or so. It was in a gold, ornate (but small) frame of the Victorian era and had been passed down through the Garrett line until reaching a generation who saw no need to keep it. I have lost track of what happened to it, but someone on this forum must have a better memory than I.

Thank you for the response and added information; however, I was referring to the 3 part news article posted in this thread that mentions a Dr. John M. B. Pedicord's account, which mentions taking a lock of Booth's hair. Either source would suffice, if it can be proven to have been taken from Booth.

Steve W.
[/quote]

You and I were of the same mind re: the Peddicord lock. I was searching for it when you posted the above, and I went back and edited my response in order to provide a link to the Peddicord information. The lock that Peddicord clipped was sold at auction a while back also. https://historical.ha.com/itm/political/...63-43282.s

[AussieMick]

From what I read on the internet, its not essential to have the root of the hair (although much more preferable) to conduct successful DNA testing.

But as to whether hair's DNA can be analysed depends on how long it has been exposed to heat, water, sunlight, and oxygen.

"Detective and criminal investigation films are somewhat misleading especially when the police pick up the hair sample with a pair of tweezers for DNA analysis. Hair that is cut or shed does not unfortunately contain any nuclear DNA. For hair DNA testing to be successful the hairs must have the hair follicle attached. Most serious and responsible DNA testing companies will discourage strongly using a sample of cut or shed hair for paternity testing and most other tests.

Cut hair samples are not of course entirely useless- they in fact do just fine for a very specific type of test known as the MtDNA test. The MtDNA test (Mitochondrial DNA test) is used to determine whether two people share the same maternal line and given the low rate of mutation in the type of DNA, this test is rather accurate. However, this is the only type of hair DNA test you can have carried out unless you can specifically see a white ball attached to the end of the hair (this little ball would be the hair root)."

https://www.homednadirect.co.uk/knowledg...a-testing/

[mikegriffith1]

I took the time to read Seaton Munroe’s entire account, i.e., his 1896 article “Recollections of the Lincoln Assassination” in the April 1896 edition of the North American Review. I will say three things about it right off the bat:

* Historians who have quoted Munroe to support the traditional version have been extremely selective in quoting him. They usually do not allow the reader to know that Munroe was a tall teller of tales and that much of his testimony contradicts the traditional version on key points.

* Munroe was the Forrest Gump of the Lincoln assassination. This guy was just about everywhere.

* If this were a trial, the prosecution would try to keep Munroe on the other side of the planet and off anyone’s witness list. Munroe was very careless and sloppy with facts. Some of the errors in his article are astounding, such as his statement that the autopsy and identification were done on the Saugus, that Barnes and Woodward first examined the body on April 28, that Dr. May testified to the Holt-Bingham-Baker inquest on the ship before he ever saw the body. This was not some hastily composed note or scribbling in the margins of a book or magazine. This was an article that Munroe had ample time to write.

When apologists for the traditional story quote Munroe, they usually quote him saying “I was soon gazing at the remains, which needed no long inspection to enable me to recognize them,” and then they skip to his statement that he was confident that the body was Booth. In fact, this is how he has been quoted in this thread. Here are the two sentences that Munroe wrote right after he said he did not need long inspection to recognize the remains:

Quote:The handsome countenance was unmarred by the agony of his lingering death, which I was soon to hear described. There were missing the moustache and the curling lock upon his forehead, which during the flight had been removed at the house of Dr. Mudd. (p. 431)

Sound familiar? It should. Dr. G. L. Porter plagiarized this statement almost verbatim for his 1911 article. I quoted Dr. Porter’s statement in a recent reply. Here it is again:

Quote:Booth’s handsome countenance was unmarred by the agony of his lingering death. His moustache and the long lock of hair which had hung down his forehead Booth cut off at the house of Dr. Mudd, where he had stopped in his flight. ("How Booth's Body Was Hidden," The Columbian, 1911, p. 68, available at https://ia800208.us.archive.org/8/items/...0port.pdf)

So now we have two witnesses who say that the body’s face was unmarred and that it had no mustache. Furthermore, presumably, if the face had had a noticeable amount of hair on the chin, one or both of them would have mentioned it.

Equally problematic is Munroe’s account of what he supposedly heard Charles Dawson tell the inquest about the JWB initials. Munroe claimed that after he testified, he was allowed to remain in the room to hear the other witnesses’ testimony! Wow, he must have been a special guy! Anyway, here is Munroe’s version of what Dawson told Holt, Bingham, and Baker about the initials:

Quote:The examination of the next witness was more interesting in detail, being that of Dawson, a clerk in the National Hotel, who it appeared had known Booth for some years. When asked whether the man had possessed any physical peculiarity by which he could recognize the remains, he replied in the affirmative. He had often seen on Booth’s right hand, at the junction of the thumb and forefinger, the initials, “J. W. B.” in India ink. This mark had sometimes come under his notice when the actor was writing his name on the hotel register, and he had more than once made the remark: “Booth, what a fool you were to disfigure that pretty white hand in such a way.” (p. 432, emphasis added)

“Booth’s right hand” and at the junction of the thumb and the forefinger?! The space between the thumb and the forefinger is nowhere near the wrist or the forearm, and it’s not really on the “back” of the hand but is more on side of the hand and would not be visible unless the thumb and forefinger were open.

Obviously, either Munroe was fabricating or the transcript of Dawson’s testimony was altered, because the transcript has Dawson saying that the initials were on the left wrist.

Again, folks, if the egregiously conflicting and often mutually impeaching accounts about the body’s appearance and the JWB initials were floated in a court of law, they would be torn to shreds by any competent attorney. And it is amazing how many “historians” have uncritically accepted and misleadingly quoted Munroe’s account.

[Steve Whitlock]

I'm not interested in a protracted debate of entrenched positions, and am only offering a method to possibly prove or disprove that John Wilkes Booth was correctly identified.

The mtdna struck my interest due to some team research I did for establishing the maternal line of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of President Lincoln. More recently I also did research to establish the mtdna of Maj Henry Reed Rathbone, who was seriously slashed and bled profusely when he tried to apprehend John Wilkes Booth in Lincoln's theater box. Whose blood is on the presumed Lincoln artifacts, Lincoln's or Rathbone's? That can be determined now.

Having done that research I know the value of mtdna, and I agree with Mick that it depends on the condition of the hair, and with dna testing advances the hair follicle may not be necessary.

Steve W.

[Leon Greene]

Regarding Booth's tattoo, historian Constance Head long ago wrote a reasonably good summary of all of the conflicting evidence about its location, characteristics, etc.
"J. W. B.: His Initials in India Ink." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, July 1982, 90 (3): 359-366.

[RJNorton]

(10-23-2018 08:49 PM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  * Historians who have quoted Munroe to support the traditional version have been extremely selective in quoting him. They usually do not allow the reader to know that Munroe was a tall teller of tales and that much of his testimony contradicts the traditional version on key points.

* Munroe was the Forrest Gump of the Lincoln assassination. This guy was just about everywhere.

I agree with Mike on this point. Remarkably, Seaton Munroe also claimed he was at Ford's Theatre just as Laura Keene was leaving the State Box. Munroe stated:

"Making a motion to arrest her progress, I begged her to tell me if Mr. Lincoln was still alive. "God only knows!" she gasped, stopping for a moment's rest. The memory of that apparition will never leave me. Attired, as I had so often seen her, in the costume of her part in "Our American Cousin," her hair and dress were in disorder, and not only was her gown soaked in Lincoln's blood, but her hands, and even her cheeks where her fingers had strayed, were bedaubed with the sorry stains!"

Based on what was said by others regarding the small amount of bleeding/oozing from the President's wound in the box, the blood on Keene's dress was most likely Rathbone's, not Lincoln's. I actually wonder if Seaton Munroe may have embellished or even created his story about meeting up with Keene. As far as I know Munroe's reminiscences were not published until 1896.

[mikegriffith1]

For those who might be interested, I have uploaded the second edition of my article "Was John Wilkes Booth Killed in 1865?". Here's the URL:

http://miketgriffith.com/files/boothescaped.pdf

Among other things, the second edition addresses the alleged identification of Booth's teeth at the 1869 viewing at Harvey and Marr's.

[mikegriffith1]

(10-09-2018 02:43 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:  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 take your point that a burn on a corpse will not and cannot begin the healing process. I failed to consider this fact when I discussed the difference between burns and cuts and how they heal.

That being said, there are three points to be made:

One, if Lt. Baker had lightly or moderately burned an area on the back of the neck, it would have left a visible wound but not a deep one. Since the skin was dead, the resulting wound might have somewhat resembled a scar.

Two, it is not necessary to assume that Lt. Baker created the scar that looked like a burn scar. The unfortunate substitute victim might have already had a burn scar on the back of his neck. So when Barnes saw the scar and noticed that it did not look like a surgical scar but like a burn scar, some explaining needed to be done, and the only explanation given--the one floated by Dr. May--is invalid, or at least questionable.

Three, there remains no logical, believable explanation for why the body on the Montauk looked so unlike Booth. "Exposure," "pain," and "stress" over a 10-day period are not going to alter a body's appearance so drastically that none of the facial features resemble the person's living facial appearance. Booth was in Maryland and Virginia in April. I have lived in Virginia for 11 years and lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, until I was 12. In late April the temperatures in the areas he traveled and stayed would have been in the mid-60s to high-70s during the day and in the 40s and 50s at night. He received extra blankets from Cox. He received food and water every day. He spent three nights of those 10 days indoors. The body on the Montauk was examined right around 21 hours after death, hardly enough time--especially in late April in Virginia--for a body to undergo such a drastic change in appearance via decomposition. If Booth's body had been the body on the Montauk that night, Dr. May would have had little trouble recognizing it as his corpse and L. Gardner would have not reported that "everyone" there was so surprised at how the body looked so unlike Booth when they removed the tarp.

(10-09-2018 02:43 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:  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.

In other words, just keep seeing the Emperor's New Clothes. Numerous elements of the official conspiracy theory are patently absurd, unbelievable, and internally contradictory. Modern "historical scholarship," dominated by PC ideology and neo-Radical revisionism, summarily dismisses challenges to the official version. But for decades, many scholars did not do so, and the alternative conspiracy theory--that the Radicals were behind the murder--was widely viewed as at least being a plausible explanation.

Eisenschiml's critics have barely laid a glove on the vast majority of his arguments and evidence. Denying and rejecting an argument, and appealing to authority and to the argument's minority status, do not equal refuting an argument. Some the critics' "refutations/debunkings" are downright silly, such as the claim that the Radicals had no reason to kill Lincoln over Reconstruction because Lincoln and the Radicals were not at all far apart on Reconstruction. It is shocking that any "historian" could make this argument with a straight face. I discuss a small amount of the evidence on this point in "Unwanted Evidence":

http://miketgriffith.com/files/unwanted.pdf