What Really Happened - The Lincoln Assassination

[J. Beckert]

By Robert Hutchinson

Has anyone read this? The clip in the link below details Booth's movements in Ford's on the night of the assassination. I've read every anecdote before, but never in one narrative. I think it was Jim Bishop's The Day Lincoln Was Shot that stated Booth bummed a chew of tobacco from Buckingham, but I always thought it was a little artistic license.

If nothing else, this guy did a lot of homework.

https://roberthutchinson.com/what-really...ssination/

[RJNorton]

Thanks for posting this, Joe. The book looks interesting. I believe I have not previously read that Spangler promised Peanut John that Booth would pay him 50 cents for holding his horse in the alley. Rather I thought Booth kicked Peanut John as he exited the premises without paying a cent. Anyone know?

[JMadonna]

Didn't see any footnotes. Reminds me of Bishop's work who didn't use them either. This allows for a more colorful telling of the story albeit not necessarily factual.

[Steve]

Spangler promising Peanut John 50 cents to hold Booth's horse is mentioned in Tom's book Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination:

https://books.google.com/books?id=WByBAg...se&f=false

[Tom Bogar]

Thanks for posting this, Joe. The book looks interesting. I believe I have not previously read that Spangler promised Peanut John that Booth would pay him 50 cents for holding his horse in the alley. Rather I thought Booth kicked Peanut John as he exited the premises without paying a cent. Anyone know?

I for one never encountered the 50 cents (promised or paid) for Peanut in my research. All I know is that Booth hit out at Peanut with the hilt of his knife.

Um, Tom the notion of Spangler promising Peanut John 50 cents to hold Booth's horse comes from your own book Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination:

https://books.google.com/books?id=WByBAg...se&f=false

Wow, am I embarrassed. I just went back and re-read and yes, Steve, you are absolutely right. I will now, with ample egg on my face while eating a healthy portion of crow, search my sources for the precise original source. I won't even try to claim "senior moment" or that it's been eight years and two other books since it was published, or any other way to wriggle out of it. Mea maxima culpa. Roger, can you please delete my post, and I will post back when I have found the original source.

[RJNorton]

Don't feel bad, Tom!! You have done lots of amazing work since 'Backstage' was published -

https://thomasabogar.com/bibliography.html

Sometimes I look at posts I've made here on the forum as little as two years ago, and I say to myself, "I wrote that?" I literally have no memory of writing it.

I read your entire book - some parts more than once - and I sure did not remember that little bit about 50 cents was in there.

[J. Beckert]

I think Jerry summed it up best. While a few anecdotes are actually backed up with statements (Crawford and McGowan), some seem to be just artistic license.

[Tom Bogar]

Well, I can't take refuge in "artistic license." That's not how I work. I respect the historical research process too much to cut corners or invent things. I know, absolutely, that I would never have written a given sentence unless I had at the time the valid, credible source in front of me. I have been going back through my boxes of hard files and searching my electronic files for the source of "fifty cents," and will continue the process.

[JMadonna]

Well, I can't take refuge in "artistic license." That's not how I work. I respect the historical research process too much to cut corners or invent things. I know, absolutely, that I would never have written a given sentence unless I had at the time the valid, credible source in front of me. I have been going back through my boxes of hard files and searching my electronic files for the source of "fifty cents," and will continue the process.

Don't knock yourself out, it happens to all of us. How someone did something is not as important as recording that that the horses were held by whom.

For example, John Wilkes Booth, pulled the trigger before a theater full of people, leaped from the presidential box to the stage, shouted something half intelligible then ran to the wings and made his exit. How did he do this?

According to one witness, he made a fifteen-foot leap, ran swiftly off-stage, and vanished. According to another, he slid down a flagpole (which did not exist), and crept away. One witness saw him limping painfully across the stage, moaning incoherently; while another saw him stalking off calmly, after delivering his “Sic semper tyrannis” line; another saw him running furiously, saying nothing at all; one woman claimed that his confederates swung a rope, lassoed him and whisked him into the wings.

What we know for certain was that he jumped to the stage and then left.
How he did it is a matter of interpretation, not necessarily 'artistic license'.

[Dennis Urban]

Tom Bogar should not be faulted for not specifically remembering this one passage in his book. All of us who have written many times have to look back to check or question our own facts when we read them later. The "fifty cents" statement appears on page 107 in Chapter 7. Mr. Bogar's end notes for that chapter reference newspaper articles many years after the incident. Two notes are attributed to interviews with Harry C Ford twenty years later. I suspect that this "fifty cent" reference most likely came from one of the H C Ford interviews based on his memory. True or not, he may have received the story directly from Burroughs. While an interesting aside to what occurred, the general facts have not changed. Peanut held the horse, took a beating for it, and passed into history.