History Decoded: The 10 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time

by Meltzer, Brad

  Secretary of War

  Edwin Stanton was under enormous political, social, and public pressure to bring Lincoln’s assassin to justice.

  Reward

  The $100,000 price on Booth’s head would be worth $1.3 million in today’s money.

  A Fiery End

  According to most history books, Union soldiers shot Booth to death in a blazing barn on Garrett’s farm. Booth’s family disagrees.

  Who Was Boyd?

  The National Archives in Washington, DC, currently have a service record for Captain James W. Boyd, a Confederate soldier in the Sixth Tennessee Infantry. He was a Union prisoner of war. Back then, Prisoner Boyd was directed by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to be transferred to Washington, DC. Why would Stanton want James Boyd in DC? It turns out Boyd was actually a spy for the Union. His job was to inform the North about Confederate smuggling operations in Tennessee. And Boyd’s paper trail goes cold at a critical time: He disappears from any records after February 15, 1865—two months before Lincoln’s assassination. But also within the National Archives resides a photograph of James W. Boyd—and when placed side by side with a photo of Booth, the resemblance is undeniable: Except for hair color, James Boyd is a dead ringer for John Wilkes Booth. Was Boyd summoned to DC by Stanton to be the fall guy? Was he to be inserted into the barn that night undercover so he could become Booth? It’s a wild theory, but remember: If Stanton’s covering this up, it also means Stanton needs a body. And speaking of the body, wait until you see what went down during Booth’s autopsy.

  A Dead Ringer

  With a change of hair color, James W. Boyd bears a striking resemblance to John Wilkes Booth.

  According to Jan Herman, a naval historian who has studied the autopsy records of John Wilkes Booth, Booth’s body was brought from Garrett’s farm to the USS Montauk, a Monitor-class ironclad ship. There were 13 people present for the autopsy, all connected to the War Department or the Navy Department—including a photographer. Herman claims only one photograph of Booth’s body was taken, and that negative was handed over to a detective who turned it in to Secretary of War Stanton as soon as it was snapped. Herman believes the negative has been lost over the decades—perhaps intentionally. Even more intriguing: Booth’s family was not even allowed to see the body. And even more intriguing than that: There were other apprehended Lincoln assassin conspirators being held prisoner aboard the USS Montauk—but none of them was brought up on deck to identify Booth. Prominent District of Columbia surgeon Dr. John Frederick May, who was summoned to identify the body, and who actually operated on Booth years before, told the assembled witnesses, “This body doesn’t look anything like Booth. I don’t recall Booth being freckled. I don’t recall him being as old as this gentleman.”

  But according to Herman, Dr. May felt pressured to go along with the idea that it was Booth’s body. She suggests Dr. May went along with the investigation because he didn’t want to risk being implicated in any part of the assassination. So under immense pressure, Dr. May signed off that the body was, in fact, Booth. Herman believes these details reveal a very sloppy identification of Booth—one that might not hold up to scrutiny. But she also believes there are three little letters that could potentially blow this investigation wide open: DNA.

  During Booth’s autopsy, the cervical vertebrae and a small section of his spinal cord were removed. Those pieces of Booth’s body are still hanging around. They currently reside at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland. Herman believes that if you extract a DNA sample of the Booth tissue and vertebrae . . . and then you compare those samples with DNA taken from a partial exhumation of Edwin Booth—John’s brother—that would provide indisputable evidence as to whether it was actually John Wilkes Booth who was shot and killed at Garrett’s barn on April 26, 1865.

  Nothing would be stronger than an actual DNA comparison, and now that’s possible. All that would be necessary is to get permission to test the piece of bone in Maryland and compare it to the sample of Booth’s brother Edwin’s body in Massachusetts. In recent years, Booth descendants have taken steps to do just that. But until the courts allow that to happen, the question remains unanswered. Still, we have to ask: Why would they possibly deny what would give them the truth?

  Shipboard Autopsy

  Booth’s body was brought from Garrett’s farm to the USS Montauk, a Monitor-class ironclad ship, where 13 people were present for the autopsy.

  Where Did He Go?

  John B. Wilkes

  One theory says that John Wilkes Booth stole the identity of Englishman John B. Wilkes, and wrote (but never signed) a will full of special bequests to Booth’s friends and family (see Exhibit 10C to examine the will yourself).

  If John Wilkes Booth continued to live, there should be evidence of that. But where did he go? One theory is that when Booth realized Jefferson Davis wasn’t going to throw a parade for him and that he was basically screwed forever, he adopted an alias. Interviewing historians about various theories, we found two different aliases that have enough credible evidence surrounding them to investigate: John St. Helen and John B. Wilkes. That gives us three possibilities: One is that Booth assumed Boyd’s identity (though there are no records of Boyd after Lincoln’s assassination). Another is Booth assumes the alias of John B. Wilkes and flees the country. And the final is that, as a patriot who was willing to kill for his country, Booth possibly stayed in the United States and lived out his days in West Texas under the alias John St. Helen.

  Chuck Huppert, a John Wilkes Booth researcher who believes Booth pulled off a 19th-century version of identity theft, says Booth was introduced to an Englishman in Indiana named John B. Wilkes who was born in Sheffield, England, in 1822. Huppert claims Booth stole Wilkes’s identity and traveled to India posing as the Englishman, where he remained until his death in 1883. Huppert believes John B. Wilkes actually returned to the United States in 1873, and has a photograph of Wilkes he says was taken during that visit. The man in the photograph looks identical to John Wilkes Booth. Huppert doubles down on his theory with a will that he says John B. Wilkes executed in India in 1883—18 years after Booth’s alleged death. The will contains special bequests to people who were friends and family of John Wilkes Booth:

  $25,000 to Ogarita Rosalie Wilkes, “natural heir of my body.” Ogarita Rosalie Wilkes is Booth’s daughter by his wife, Izola Mills Darcy Booth, who is said to have married John Wilkes Booth in 1859.

  $25,000 to Mary Louise Turner, “natural heir of my body.” Turner is another daughter of Booth, this time by Ella Turner, who was at the time of the assassination John Wilkes Booth’s mistress.

  There’s also a bequest to Henry Johnson:

  $1,000 a year to Henry Johnson, “a free Negro . . . to whom I owe my very life.” Johnson was Booth’s personal valet, who escaped with Booth up to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

  One cannot help but ask: “Why in the world would John Byron Wilkes be giving money to John Wilkes Booth’s wife?”

  Huppert offers a simple explanation, “It wasn’t John B. Wilkes that was really writing this will.”

  “Why in the world would John Byron Wilkes be giving money to John Wilkes Booth’s wife?”

  I’ll admit this is compelling evidence that it was actually John Wilkes Booth writing his will as John B. Wilkes. But here’s where it all falls apart: Look at Exhibit 10C. The will isn’t signed. If it was, anyone would be able to analyze the handwriting and compare it against other known Booth signatures. But without a signature, or any other way to authenticate the will, and no way to authenticate the photograph of Wilkes, this theory that John Wilkes Booth lived out his years as Englishman John B. Wilkes remains just that: a theory.

  That leaves John St. Helen.

  Em Turner Chitty is the daughter of the late Dr. Arthur Ben Chitty. Arthur was a hi
storiographer at the University of the South and one of the main proponents that John Wilkes Booth used John St. Helen as an alias. Dr. Chitty passed away in 2002, and his daughter has now become the family Booth expert. Chitty contends Booth actually arrived in Franklin County, Tennessee, in 1872. There he fell in love with and married a local girl named Louisa Payne. According to Chitty, when Booth confessed to Louisa that he would love her forever—and, oh yeah, that he also assassinated the 16th president of the United States—Louisa was unfazed. Fazed she became, however, when Louisa found out she had married a man under the wrong name. Louisa freaked out so much, she demanded that they go back to the courthouse and get remarried using Booth’s real name. And according to Chitty, the Franklin County Courthouse marriage register clearly shows John W. Booth’s signature, on February 24, 1872—seven years after the assassination.

  But what raises my eyebrow most is when 90-year-old Juanita Keele, a living relative of Louisa Payne, decided it was time to talk: “My grandmother’s sister married John Wilkes Booth. . . . They were married before he told her.”

  Keele went on to say that Booth went by the name John St. Helen until he came clean to Louisa. As newlyweds, Booth and Louisa moved to Memphis, where she grew homesick. Louisa returned home to her family. Booth told her he would come back, but he never did. The identity of Louisa Payne’s husband remained a closely held family secret before Keele decided to come forward. When asked how her family felt being “married to the Mob,” Juanita said, “It was not to be talked about outside the family.”

  Remarried As Booth

  Marriage certificate from the second ceremony that Louisa Payne insisted upon after she learned that her husband, John St. Helen, was really John Wilkes Booth.

  So why was she willing to talk about it now?

  “Well, at my age, I’ve decided everybody’s dead that mattered, you know, that would have been hurt by it, so I’ll tell it.”

  So where did John St. Helen go from Memphis? Mary Bates Wehbi, granddaughter of lawyer Finis L. Bates, believes her grandfather was a confidant of John Wilkes Booth in Granbury, Texas—but he was calling himself John St. Helen at the time. According to Wehbi, Bates received news that St. Helen was dying and sent for him. He needed to make a deathbed confession. He told Bates how he had escaped. Wehbi retells the story: “As he made the confession, my grandfather began to think that no man would make a deathbed confession this serious if he were not the real person.”

  According to Bates, John St. Helen did not die that day. He actually recovered, left Texas, and settled in Enid, Oklahoma, assuming a new alias: David E. George. And here’s the crazy part: The name appears to be code. Two of Booth’s coconspirators were David Herold and George E. Atzerodt: David E. George. It’s either a sly reference to Booth’s true identity—or just a guy with two first names.

  In 1903, Bates saw an obituary indicating that a man from Enid, Oklahoma, had confessed to being John Wilkes Booth. The body was in the mortuary waiting to be claimed. So what did Bates do? He makes the trip to Enid to identify the body, and sure enough, it was his friend John St. Helen—or John Wilkes Booth.

  Mummies

  Mummified Assassin

  Embalming fluids, combined with the arsenic he drank to end his life, mummified the body of John St. Helen aka John Wilkes Booth.

  The David E. George part is one of the wildest parts of the story. The man committed suicide by drinking arsenic. The arsenic, combined with his embalming fluids, mummified his body. So when Finis Bates arrived to identify the body, they gave him the mummy because no one else claimed it.

  Can we just stop here? One: We have a mummified body that people think is John Wilkes Booth. Two: People are giving away mummies!

  Over the years, Bates even tried to sell it a few times. He actually offered it to Henry Ford for $1,000, but ultimately, it ended up (like so many mummies) in his garage. When Bates died in 1923, his wife sold it to a traveling circus. The mummy toured the United States for almost 50 years before vanishing in the early 1970s.

  Are you paying attention to this? We’ve got people paying to see a mummified body that they think is John Wilkes Booth? This is officially the greatest Abraham Lincoln story of all time.

  Here’s what we know: There is evidence that John Wilkes Booth may have not been killed at Garrett’s barn, but is that evidence airtight? Can it be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Booth was neither John St. Helen or John B. Wilkes? The only way to really know for sure is to exhume Edwin Booth’s body and do the DNA testing.

  The problem is, exhuming a dead body isn’t as easy as it used to be.

  When the Booth family petitioned in 1994 to have Booth’s body exhumed and its DNA tested against his brother Edwin’s, the state’s attorney in Baltimore city originally said it was OK to exhume John Wilkes Booth’s remains. But then somebody appealed that decision to the courts and it went to a judge for a decision. The judge wrote that “the alleged remains of John Wilkes Booth were buried in an unknown location some 126 years ago, and there is evidence that three infant siblings are buried on top of John Wilkes Booth’s remains. There may be severe water damage to the Booth burial plot, and there are no dental records available for comparison. Thus, an identification may be inconclusive. So the above reasons, coupled with the unreliability of the petitioner’s less than convincing escape/cover-up theory gives rise to the conclusion that there is no compelling reason for exhumation.”

  Road Show Mummy

  “Step right up and see the mummy of John Wilkes Booth!” The St. Helen/Booth mummy toured carnivals and county fairs, shown here in 1937, for nearly 50 years before vanishing in the 1970s.

  Additionally, one of the objections to examining John Wilkes Booth’s body was that it would have been out of the ground for as long as six weeks after exhumation. That was more than 15 years ago. Given today’s technology, there’s a far easier workaround. All we need is a sample from Booth’s brother, Edwin, and access to that bone in the museum in Maryland. A DNA test is our best shot at solving the John Wilkes Booth case once and for all. If we want to close this chapter in our history, we’ll need to compare the samples that we know exist with a DNA sample from Booth’s brother, Edwin.

  This test is either going to show that they’re brothers. Or that they’re strangers.

  But without that, all we have is a great story of a famous actor who leaped from the stage to legend by pulling off the role of his life—hiding his own identity and hiding from history. So until we force the hands of the powers that be and test that DNA, we’ll never know for sure whether John Wilkes Booth died in 1865 or not.

  Can it be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Booth was neither John St. Helen or John B. Wilkes? The only way to know for sure is to exhume Edwin Booth’s body and do the DNA testing.

  Confederate Gold: Stolen Treasure or Hidden Wealth of a New Confederacy?

  What if I told you that almost $20 million in gold and silver simply disappeared at the end of the Civil War?

  It was early April 1865. Confederate President Jefferson Davis decided to gather the riches of his government and flee to the Deep South, where he hoped it would be safe.

  Over the next two months, the rebel gold traveled by train and wagon across Dixie. Along the way, Davis hid massive caches of gold and silver in the hopes that the Confederacy would one day rise again. Some say the group that he charged with stashing the rebel gold was the Knights of the Golden Circle—the KGC—a secret society founded in the 1850s to promote the interests of the South. The KGC used a code made up of an elaborate system of signs and symbols to mark the hiding spots. To this day, most of the money is still missing. Indeed, 150 years ago, it was hidden so well that modern technology still can’t find it.

  Could mysterious carvings and symbols throughout the South be clues to the location of the vanished treasure?

  Most important
: Who took the Confederate gold? Was it stolen—or was it hidden? And where is it now?

  When it comes to the most tragic period in our nation’s history, this is its greatest mystery.

  Early April 1865

  The American Civil War was drawing to its close. After four terrible, bloody, devastating years, the Confederacy was defeated, but had not yet surrendered. Battles still raged, although Union forces were poised to overrun Richmond, the Confederate capital and the home to the executive mansion, which served as a Confederate White House.

  The remnants of Robert E. Lee’s once powerful army, barely two dozen miles away at Petersburg, could not hold back the northern forces for long.

  In church on Sunday morning, April 2, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, was no doubt praying for some sort of military miracle. It was not to be. Even before the Sunday services were concluded, Davis was informed that Lee’s defensive line at Petersburg had failed. The Yankees were within 24 miles of the Confederate capital. Federal troops would be inside the city limits of Richmond at any time. The city had to be evacuated.

  Desperately clinging to hope, Davis prevailed upon Lee to rally his troops for one more heroic stand. He needed enough time for the Confederacy’s government and, crucially, the remains of its treasury, to escape the oncoming Federals. If the treasury could be preserved, maybe the Confederacy wouldn’t be dead.

  The Confederate treasury amounted to about $10 million today. The Virginia bank assets worked out to around $9 million today. That meant Davis had approximately $19 million. He knew it. Between the gold and silver coins, some gold bullion, and a fair amount of jewelry and precious stones, he had more than enough to finance a new army. That was his hope.