What Was The Role of David Herold

[JMadonna]

Well if Surratt was in Washington it would be logical to assume that he would have been Stanton's assassain.
Then the thing would have been "well done".

[Jim Garrett]

All this is very interesting. It just goes to show, the more we "know", the more we "don't know". We find that through the incredible dedication of so many people researching these events, that what we grew up taking at face value, often have alot more questions, than we have answers.

[L Verge]

There's a theory also that Surratt was to pursue Grant on the train.

[Jim Garrett]

If I remember, there was suppose to be someone who resembled Michael O'Laughlin seen near Edwin Stanton's home on Thursday the 13th.

[John Fazio]

There's a theory also that Surratt was to pursue Grant on the train.

Laurie:

I have heard that theory. Someone did pursue Grant on the train, but was thwarted by a locked car and an alert security guard near the Havre de Grace station where the train stops before it crosses the Susquehanna. Some time after, Grant received a letter stating that the writer was the man and thanking God that he had not been successful. That does not sound like the bloodthirsty John Surratt. The story of the letter is in Julia Grant's Memoirs and many biographies of Grant, as well as in Ward Hill Lamon's work.

John

[JMadonna]

But if Surratt got in town on the 14th - he's the guy I'd choose as the triggerman.

[John Fazio]

If I remember, there was suppose to be someone who resembled Michael O'Laughlin seen near Edwin Stanton's home on Thursday the 13th.
[/quote

Jim:

Your memory is good. Three or four witnesses at the trial said the fellow who showed up at Stanton's Thursday night, when Grant and Julia were there as guests, was O'Laughlen. The problem was that three or four of his companions that night swore he was with them all night or at least almost all night. So did a bartender. Another difficult issue.

John

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[quote='JMadonna' pid='12817' dateline='1360618085']
Well if Surratt was in Washington it would be logical to assume that he would have been Stanton's assassain.
Then the thing would have been "well done".

Jerry:

He may have been the tall man with the cloak and top hat who was seen on Stanton's porch the night of the 14th and who left abruptly when Union officers approached the house to advise Stanton of Lincoln's assassination. Stanton credited a broken doorbell with saving his life. Even if he wasn't, someone was there. Likewise with the previous evening, even if it wasn't O'Laughlen at Stanton's home, someone was there who was up to no good.

John

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But if Surratt got in town on the 14th - he's the guy I'd choose as the triggerman.

Jerry:

The triggerman to kill whom?

John

[JMadonna]

Jerry:

The triggerman to kill whom?

John

Stanton.
It assumes that the man in the tall hat was scoping out Stanton's house for a later assassian. If Surratt arrived on the 14th, he would have had no time to scope it out himself.

[John Fazio]

Laurie, et al.:

My research, like just about everyone else's, has always led me to believe that Lewis Powell had numerous aliases, including Lewis Paine, Lewis Payne, Rev. Wood, Mosby, Mr. Kincheloe, etc. More recently, however, a doubt has crept into my mind as to whether or not "Wood" or "Woods" is an alias for Powell or a completely different person. I would like to present some evidence for Wood or Woods being a different person and ask that you advise me if anyone else has made this point before and, if so, what conclusions were reached relative to the same.

1. During the trial of the conspirators, a witness testified that Payne was a man named Wood (supposed to be a Payne alias). Herold thought it was such a good joke that he burst out laughing. (The Missouri Republican, quoted in New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 19, 1865, p. 4, and in Thomas Reed Turner, Beware the People Weeping, p.13.

2. In a summary of Atzerodt's earliest confession, he is alleged to have said that late in the afternoon of the 14th of April, "he was called to the room of Wood, at that time boarding at the Herndon House...; that he found there Booth, Wood, Louis Payne, and Herold..." In the account that appears in The Lincoln Assassination: the Evidence, on p.61), "Louis" is stricken with a line through it, indicating that it was stricken by the original writer (not Atzerodt), and "alias" has carets before and and after it, indicating that it was added to the document (not by Atzerodt).

3. The problem of the 8:00 meeting of Booth, Powell, Atzerodt and Herold in Powell's room in the Herndon House, on the 14th, has bedeviled assassination historians from the very beginning, inasmuch as the owner of the establishment, Mrs. Murray, testified categorically (Pitman, p. 154) that Powell checked out at about 4 pm. All kinds of convoluted theories have been advanced by historians (including me)to try to explain this apparent contradiction in the record. Postulating that Wood or Woods and Powell are different people and that both had a room in the Herndon would solve the problem.

4. In his confession of April 25, Atzerodt said that after Booth returned from New York (i.e. after the Gautier's Restaurant meeting and the Campbell Hospital episode), he took Atzerodt to a lady's house near the Patent Office...a Hotel or Boarding house (probably the Herndon House said the transcriber) and "introduced me to a young man he called James Wood. This was after the fall of Richmond and two or three days before the President was killed..." This Wood could not have been Powell, because Atzerodt had already met Powell at Gautier's Restaurant on the 15th and paticipated in the Campbell Hospital episode with Powell on the 17th. Furthermore, Powell's alias was not "James Wood", but "Rev. Wood". Furthermore, he wasn't using the alias at this time, he was using "Mosby", which is how Atzerodt referred to him, and Mr. Kincheloe, to Mrs. Murray. He used "Rev. Wood" only when he came to Washington the first time and came to Mrs. Surratt's boarding-house. Weichmann, upon meeting him the second time, recalled that he had been to the boarding house before and that he had used the alias Rev. Wood.

5. Later in his April 25 confession, Atzerodt said that "I went up to Woods in the Navy Yard about 12 o'clock after the assassination..." This "Woods" could hardly have been Powell, because all the evidence points to Powell being on his way to Baltimore, having to abandon his one-eyed horse after a mishap of some kind and then taking refuge in cemeteries, trees and other strange places for about three days.

I submit that the foregoing evidence suggests that Wood or Woods may not be the same person as Powell and that he (Wood or Woods) was also involved in the assassination and attempted assassinations that night.

This issue may have come up before. Please advise if so. And please let me have your thoughts on this Laurie, as well as the thoughts of any other participants in this forum.

Thank you.

John

[L Verge]

To my knowledge, no one else has ever speculated on this. However, for some reason, the name James Woods is rattling around in my brain. Bill Richter catalogued Tidwell's papers for us at Surratt House, and that catalog is on our website. Check it out to see if you find his name there. Unfortunately, the Hall papers are so vast that they are not fully catalogued.

[John Fazio]

Laurie:

Thank you for your response. I checked the catalogue, per your suggestion, and found nothing. Perhaps others will have a helpful insight. If we do not postulate Wood or Woods as being a different person, how do we explain these references? Or do we simply throw them into the mystery bin with all the other unknowns, like Surratt's whereabouts on the 14th? (I was re-reading Swanson's Manhunt this morning. He has Surratt casually buying shirts in Elmira while the plot he had played such a major role in, by his own admission, is unfolding in Washington. Unbelievable.)

John

[Gene C]

Was it Vaughan Shelton that proposed the theory that Paine had a double (his cousin)?

[John Fazio]

Was it Vaughan Shelton that proposed the theory that Paine had a double (his cousin)?

Gene:

Thank you for your input.

Yes, it was, but I do not recall that the cousin was identified as Wood or Woods. Furthermore, Shelton's theory about the cousin who willingly went to his death to preserve the real Lewis Powell is off-the-wall, thoroughly refuted by numerous historians, most recently by Betty Ownsbey. The fellow in the box, who was later hanged, was positively identified as the fellow who wreaked carnage at the Seward mansion on the 14th. No doubt remains about that. My doubt, rather, is that James Wood and Lewis Powell are the same person. The fact that Powell at one time used the alias Rev. Wood does not preclude another conspirator having the name Wood or Woods.

John

[L Verge]

John - Surratt skedaddled across the border from Elmira once the news of the assassination was learned. Personally, I believe that young Surratt had been pulled out of Washington under the command of Gen. E.G. Lee weeks before the murder and was not aware that Booth was now bent on assassination.

Since we're mentioning the name Wood - and no, my request does not necessarily coincide with Lewis Powell - but I really want someone to speculate on whether or not Fernando Wood, the Mayor of New York, was a good Lincoln man. There's just something about him that I don't like -- and I'm too lazy to do any research on him.

[RJNorton]

That book really has some material that catches the eye. The author implies there were two separate conspiracies that night, and Seward was the victim of a separate conspiracy from the one which targeted Lincoln. Shelton says that Seward himself "had knowledge of and passive interest in the assassination of Lincoln." Shelton feels Seward was most likely the "Brutus" in the Neff/Baker ciphers.