The Pinkertons

[Wesley Harris]

Currently on Netflix is "The Pinkertons, " a TV series that aired in Canada in 2014-15. I've only watched the first four episodes but two of the four mentioned the Lincoln assassination. One was only a mention that a gun the detectives found was of the same kind as Booth's Deringer pistol. The other centered on an incognito Edwin Booth playing in a midwestern traveling theatrical troupe. Included a number of pretty accurate comments about the assassination. Pretty decent show compared to what else is on TV and one of the rare series to focus on that time period.

[L Verge]

Along similar lines, I just learned of an assassination novel that came out in August. Entitled The Sixth Conspirator, written by Max Byrd (I think), it follows the theme of Grant assigning military intelligence expert George Sharpe (one of the subjects in Douglas Waller's recent Lincoln's Spies) to investigate the Lincoln assassination. Have only bits and pieces of the story until the book arrives, but it appears that Sarah Slater and the Canadian connections are in the spotlight.

And speaking of the Canadian connections: Joan Chaconas just did a lengthy review of Sandy Prindle's book on Booth and the Confederate Connections that is in the current Civil War News publication -- the annual issue featuring books on the Civil War.

I'm also sneaking in yet another wild tale on Booth not being the assassin of Lincoln. Last Saturday, a group of Duvall family descendants held their 91st annual meeting at Surratt House - complete with breakfast, meeting, speaker, lunch and museum tours. The chairman of the event handed me an undated, unsourced copy of a newspaper article that is probably ca. 1950s. An elderly gentleman shares his story of being at Ford's Theatre as a young child and watching the assassination happen. He claims that Booth was actually sitting in the presidential box with the Lincolns, and another man came into the box and shot the president.

It's not too hard to figure out that the young boy mistook Rathbone for Booth, but he circulated the story throughout his life; and the newspaper fell for it, printed it, and made no attempt to dispute it. And that's how history gets spoiled. As Mr. Hall would say while shaking his head, "Oh, my..."