46
C. B. Whitford, “Some Sportsmen I’ve Known: Col. James Gordon,” American Field, vol. C (May 12, 1923), p. 691.
47
Thompson’s remarks given in several phrasings in drafts of an unfinished manuscript by James N. Wilkerson, n.d. [1930s], and Wilkerson to Swiggett (retained copy), Kansas City, Mo., July 16, 1935, Wilkerson Papers, LFFRC.
48
McKee Rankin, “The Story of J. Wilkes Booth’s Wardrobe,” typescript (1909), pp. 1–2, Chicago Historical Society. Booth told Rankin he had just come from Montreal.
49
New York Clipper, April 29, 1865; New York Telegraph, Dec. 4, 1910, John Wilkes Booth Scrapbook (1862–1936), Billy Rose Theatre Library, New York Public Library; Springfield (Mass.) Republican, April 18, 1865.
50
Boston Post, April 17, 1865.
51
Boston Globe, April 15, 1905; Kilby, “Some Newly Collected Facts about John Wilkes Booth,” Seymour Collection, Princeton University Library.
52
Chester, statement, April 28, 1865, 4/140–70, NA M599, for all Chester material cited here.
53
L. L. Stevens, Lives, Crimes, and Confessions of the Assassins, p. 23.
54
Booth to mother [n.d., 1864], Clarke, Booth, p. 104.
55
Boston Daily Evening Voice, April 17, 1865. This newspaper had good sources among Booth’s friends in the Boston theatrical community.
56
Asia B. Clarke to Jean Anderson, Philadelphia, May 22, 1865, Clarke Letters, MdHS; Clarke, Booth, p. 128.
57
Weichmann, True History, p. 131; Weichmann, testimony, June 27, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 1, p. 388.
58
Statement of Henry B. Phillips, April 15, 1865, While Lincoln Lay Dying (Philadelphia: Union League of Philadelphia, 1968), unpaginated; New York Herald, Sept. 4, 1904; Philadelphia Inquirer, April 18, 1865; Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, April 17, 1865.
59
“John Wilkes Booth—His Movements on the Day of the Murder,” clipping, n.d. [April, 1865], Booth Scrapbook, Folger Shakespeare Library; Albany Evening Journal, April 17, 1865.
60
William R. Alger, Life of Edwin Forrest, the American Tragedian, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1877), vol. 2, p. 546.
61
Weichmann, True History, pp. 121–22.
62
Powell’s hatred for Lincoln grew during his service years. Washington Evening Star, Dec. 3, 1887. David H. Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (New York: Century, 1907), pp. 384–87. Thomas T. Eckert, testimony, May 30, 1867, Impeachment Investigation, p. 674, also containing the “half of them” remark.
63
“Lincoln’s Assassination,” clipping, n.d. [May 1896?], LFFRC; Maysville (Ky.) Daily Bulletin, July 25, 1884.
64
Nelson Lankford, Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital (New York: Viking, 2002), p. 163.
65
Patricia C. Johnson, ed., “ ‘I Have Supped Full on Horrors’: The Diary of Fanny Seward,” American Heritage, vol. 10 (Oct. 1959), p. 96, diary entry of April 10, 1865.
66
New York Herald, March 3, 1922; Washington Post, March 30, 1902; “J. Wilkes Booth’s Crime,” clipping, n.d. [May, n.y.], LFFRC; Harry Ford, statement, April 20, 1865, 5/466, NA M599; Barbee, “Lincoln and Booth,” p. 681.
67
T. D. Crothers, “The Insanity and Inebriety of J. Wilkes Booth,” Alienist and Neurologist, vol. 32 (1911), p. 49.
68
George A. Townsend, manuscript of Katy of Catoctin; or, The Chain-Breakers, p. 995n., Townsend Papers, Maryland Hall of Records, Annapolis; Eckert, testimony, Impeachment Investigation, p. 674; Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office, p. 384.
69
“Living Lincoln Links,” typescript, n.d. [ca. 1936], John Hay Library, Brown University.
70
William H. DeMotte, “The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 20 (Oct. 1927), p. 423; Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, pp. 800–803; Clara Harris to friend, n.p., April 29 [1865], New York Independent, June 20, 1889.
71
Clipping, Chicago Inter Ocean, n.d. [April 1905], author’s collection.
72
Boston Evening Transcript, April 14, 1890; “Last Public Address,” April 11, 1865, in Basler, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 8, pp. 403–4; Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, pp. 800–802.
73
Harry Ford, statement, April 20, 1865, 5/459–61, NA M599.
74
New York Herald, June 25, 1878; “Recalls Lincoln Shot,” clipping, Chicago Daily News, n.d., LFFRC; Emerson to R. D. Bowen, Alexandria, Va., April 21, 1920, copy in Julian Raymond Papers, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
75
New York Clipper, April 29, 1865.
76
Clarke, Booth, p. 110.
77
Washington Evening Star, April 15, 1865; C. D. Hess, testimony, May 31, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, p. 99; “Quantrall, 82, Reviews Lincoln Assassination,” Washington Herald, Oct. 12, 1930, Assassination File, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University. Rilla E. Clem, Quantrille’s granddaughter, states that his name is misspelled in this article.
78
George F. Robinson, statement, covered by letter of H. H. Seward to Col. Wells, Washington, April 21, 1865, 6/94–95, NA M599; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, April 20, 1865. On Seward’s injury see John K. Lattimer, Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), p. 91; John M. Taylor, William Henry Seward: Lincoln’s Right Hand (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 241; and testimony of Robinson, May 19, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, p. 155.
79
Washington Evening Star, June 4, 1887; Atzerodt, statement, May 1, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, p. cvi.
80
Washington Daily Morning Chronicle, April 14, 1865; Boston Commonwealth, April 22, 1865; Rev. William James, “On the Night Lincoln Died,” clipping [1901], Booth Scrapbook (formerly in Peale Museum), MdHS; H. A. Dobson, typed copy of speech (ca. 1928), Last Days File, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University; Washington Post, April 14, 1895.
81
Jesse W. Weik, “A New Story of Lincoln’s Assassination: An Unpublished Record of an Eye-Witness,” Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, vol. 85 (Feb. 1913), p. 561.
82
Booth to Mary Ann Booth, Washington, April 14, 1865, New York Herald, April 30, 1865.
83
Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 20, 1868; Washington Evening Star, Dec. 7, 1881, and April 18, 1885. Lincoln reservation from James R. Ford, testimony, May 30, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, pp. 100–101; Washington Evening Star, April 15, 1897. Years later Harry’s son George acknowledged that his father had contributed to the tension of the day with his ill-advised teasing of Booth. Dallas Morning News, Nov. 23, 1951.
84
Emerson to Bowen, April 21, 1920, Raymond Papers; Boston Sunday Herald, April 11, 1897.
85
New York Times, April 23, 1886; Washington Post, April 17, 1898.
86
John M. Walton Jr., Historical, Architectural, and Archaeological Research at the Surratt Dwelling House-Tavern, Clinton, MD (Alexandria, Va.: Contract Archaeology, 1973), pp. 62–63; Springfield (Mass.) Daily Republican, April 18, 1865; Albany Evening Journal, April 17, 1865.
87
Washington National Intelligencer, July 18, 1867; F. A. Burr, “Booth’s Bullet,” Washington Evening Star, Dec. 7, 1881, with some rearrangement of text. When Mathews reached his lodgings after the murder, he opened and read the letter. Horrified at being associated with the document, he destroyed it. The original, therefore, does not exist. These words are Mathews’s reconstruction. He to
ld John T. Ford in 1865 that the document made reference to “famous assassinations of history to justify the deed,” and Ford added in 1878 that Booth excused his act “by Roman precedent.” John T. Ford, testimony, May 25, 1867, Impeachment Investigation, p. 533; Missouri Republican (St. Louis), June 18, 1878; New York Herald, June 23, 1878; New York Evening Post, June 24, 1878; Washington Post, April 20, 1902, and Jan. 7, 1905.
88
Baltimore Clipper, April 15, 1865; Chicago Tribune, Feb. 7, 1909.
89
R. A. Brock, Virginia and Virginians, 2 vols. (Richmond and Toledo: Hardesty, 1888), vol. 2, p. 565.
90
John Mathews, testimony, July 16, 1867, in Trial of Surratt, vol. 2, p. 821; “The Defense of Booth,” clipping [Chicago Tribune, 1881], Assassin File, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University; Mathews, testimony, July 1, 1867, Impeachment Investigation, p. 783.
91
Martha Murray, landlady at the Herndon House, testified that Powell checked out at 4:00 p.m. on April 14, raising doubt that the murder meeting occurred at that location, at least on that day. But Powell and Atzerodt informed their attorney William E. Doster that the plot was hatched at an eight o’clock meeting at that location. Doster, Lincoln and Episodes of the Civil War (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915), pp. 269, 274, 305.
92
This recreation from Atzerodt’s statements together with Doster, in Steers, The Trial, pp. 302–5, 314; Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, Jan. 24, 1891; Ownsbey, Alias “Paine,” p. 14; Townsend, “Washington: The Issues of Summer,” clipping [1868–69], scrapbook, #128, p. 60, Townsend Collection, Maryland Hall of Records, Annapolis; Eckert testimony, Impeachment Investigation, p. 674; William H. Payne to Bradley T. Johnson [Washington, D.C.], Sept. 6, 1894, typescript, Eppa Hunton Papers, VHS; Washington Evening Star, Dec. 3, 1887; Boston Post, July 8, 1865; New York World, July 10, 1865: Washington Evening Star, May 2, 1885; Capt. Frank Munroe, affidavit, April 23, 1865, 2/45–47, NA M599; Baltimore American, Dec. 21, 1903; New York Herald, Sept. 4, 1904.
93
Minneapolis Journal, April 27, 1914; Gourlay interview, clipping, n.d. [1906], LFFRC.
94
My friend Douglas M. Wicklund, senior curator, National Firearms Museum, examined the pistol while working at the National Park Service Conservation Center at Harpers Ferry. I am indebted for his valuable observations.
95
Clipping, n.p., June 18, 1922, Assassination File, Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Lincoln Memorial University.
96
Crawford statement [April 15, 1865], While Lincoln Lay Dying, unpaginated; New York Commercial Advertiser, April 17, 1865; New York Daily Tribune, April 17, 1865.
97
New York Herald, April 15, 1865.
98
New York Post, July 8, 1894; Thomas A. Bogar, Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination: The Untold Story of the Actors and Stagehands at Ford’s Theatre (Washington: Regnery History, 2013), passim.
99
Albany Evening Journal, April 18, 1865; Frederick Hatch, “Lincoln’s Missing Guard,” Lincoln Herald, vol. 107 (Fall 2005), pp. 106–17; Paul Kallina, “The Case of the Missing Coachman,” Lincolnian, vol. 8 (March–April 1990), pp. 2–3.
100
New York Daily News, April 16, 1865; Forney’s War Press, April 22, 1865. Lucy’s grandson John Parker Hale Chandler Jr. wrote to Helen C. Milius that it was well understood in his family that Booth used Hale’s card (January 25, 1942, letter in author’s collection). Irving Bell, a journalist and publisher whose work the author is pleased to acknowledge, was told by Chandler that Booth “had a thousand chances to pick up one of the Senator’s cards.” Author’s copy of Bell, “John Wilkes Booth and the Senator’s Daughter,” unpublished manuscript (1962), p. 14; Concord Monitor-Patriot, June 24 and October 8, 1963. The author learned the same from Chandler in an interview, November 9, 1990. The special correspondent of the Chicago Times reported on April 15 that Booth “gave the name of some distinguished gentleman.” Weekly Jacksonville Sentinel, April 28, 1865. This claim is buttressed by the statement of an eyewitness, Helen A. Bratt DuBarry, that Booth presented “a card with the name of a Senator written on it.” Letter to her mother, April 16, 1865, Manuscripts Collection, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield. It is noteworthy that Hale, present at Johnson’s inauguration the following morning, held a private meeting with the new president shortly before his swearing-in. “It was of a strictly confidential character, and therefore he had no right to communicate what passed between them,” Hale told the public. The ex-senator evidently explained away Booth’s association with his family, as he came out of the meeting loudly proclaiming his confidence in Johnson’s leadership. Dover Gazette, April 21, 1865; Dover Morning Star, April 26, 1865; Dover Enquirer, April 27, 1865. One speculates that this tête-à-tête explains why Lucy’s name is entirely absent from investigation records and why Forbes was not called at the conspiracy trial to identify the individual he admitted to the box or to produce the card. Incredibly, Forbes himself does not even appear to have been called upon to give a statement to investigators.
101
Cincinnati Enquirer, April 14, 1892.
102
David Herold, statement, April 27, 1865, 4/442–85, NA M599; John T. Ford, untitled manuscript [1865], Ford Papers, MdHS.
103
Thomas Raybold, testimony, June 2, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, pp. 109–11.
104
Hanchett, “Booth’s Diary,” pp. 41–42.
105
New York Times, April 18, 1865; Chicago Evening Journal, April 19, 1865, containing Hawk’s letter to his parents; Washington Post, Dec. 30, 1883; Abott A. Abott, The Assassination and Death of Abraham Lincoln (New York: American News, 1865), pp. 4–7; Horatio N. Taft, diary, April 30, 1865, Manuscript Division, LOC.
106
Henry Rathbone, affidavit, April 17, 1865, and his testimony, May 15, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, p. 78; “The Murder of Lincoln,” clipping [1896], F. L. Black Papers, Oakland University; Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1898; Chicago Tribune, July 3, 1878.
107
Washington Star, May 23, 1915; New York Herald, Feb. 25, 1922.
108
New York Sun, Aug. 30, 1897; New York Times, Feb. 28, 1909; Boston Sunday Herald, Feb. 7, 1909.
109
Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes to E. M. Stanton, Wash., D.C., April 27, 1865, Records of AGO, Entry 623, File D, RG 94, located in the Treasure Room, NA. When captured, Herold said, “Booth injured his leg by jumping on the stage and not by falling off his horse as has been stated.” New York Tribune, April 28, 1865. Mudd found the fracture “direct and clean.” Washington Daily National Intelligencer, April 6, 1869; “Booths, Father and Sons,” clipping, n.d. (1893), LFFRC. While it is generally understood that the fibula is a not a weight-bearing bone, it does carry some load. With the ankle joint in neutral position, there is a weight distribution to the fibula of 6.4 percent. A low fibula fracture is essentially an ankle fracture, both extremely painful and difficult to walk upon. K. Takebe, A. Nakagawa, H. Minami, H. Kanazawa, and K. Hirohata, “The Role of the Fibula in Weight-Bearing,” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 184 (April 1984) pp. 289–92. Thanks to Dr. Nitin Goyal of the Anderson Orthopaedic Clinic of Arlington, Va., for his review this material.
110
Morris, Memorial Record, p. 33; C. C. Carrington, comp., “Assassination and Funeral of President Lincoln,” scrapbook, 2 vols. (1871), vol. 1, p. 36, John Hay Library, Brown University; Townsend, Katy of Catoctin, p. 510n.
111
John L. Debonay, testimony, May 31, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, p. 105; Roeliff Brinkerhoff, Recollections of a Lifetime (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1900), p. 168; Cazauran, “The Murder of Lincoln,” HRHRC. Confusion about what was happening saved Booth more surely than the speed of his exit. “There were many people in the orchestra [seats] who might have caught him if they had immediately
pursued him,” thought barkeep Ferguson.
112
After identifying (by name) some 353 eyewitnesses, the author drew this account from the most trustworthy of their statements. Given over a period of eight decades, these vary considerably in quality. See also New York Sun, Feb. 9, 1913; New York Times, April 18, 1915. Timothy S. Good, ed., We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), is a handy compilation.
113
Dorchester Beacon, April 11, 1896; Charles A. Leale, statement enclosed in a letter to Benj. F. Butler, New York, N.Y., July 20, 1867, Butler Papers, LOC.
114
James S. Knox to father, April 16, 1865, in Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot, p. 40; Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, July 11, 1883; Isaac Jaquette, “Reminiscences of the Assassination of President Lincoln,” manuscript [n.d.], courtesy of James E. Houghton.
115
Hawk to his parents, Washington, April 16, 1865, Chicago Evening Journal, April 19, 1865; Hawk interview, clipping [Aug. 1894], LFFRC.
116
James P. Ferguson, statement [April 15, 1865], While Lincoln Lay Dying; his statement, April 15, 1865, 4/339ff., NA M599; his interview of April 15, in New York Times, April 18, 1865; his statement, April 18, 1865, in clipping [1928], File Notebook 23A, F, Lauriston Bullard Papers, Boston University; his testimony, May 15, 1865, in Steers, The Trial, pp. 76–77; Cincinnati Enquirer, July 6, 1878. Albert Daggett also heard this remark.
Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth Page 57
