On the life of Mrs. Lincoln, see Jean H. Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1989); Grave-robbing plot: Bonnie Stahlman Speer, The Great Abraham Lincoln Hijack (Norman, OK: Reliance Press, 1990).
Lincoln and Booth: Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean, June 18–21, 1878; On Lucy Hale, see Richard Morcom, “They All Loved Lucy,” American Heritage 21 (October 1970): 12–15.
For Blackburn, see Nancy Disher Baird, Luke Pryor Blackburn: Physician, Governor, Reformer (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1979). For Tumblety, see J. H. Baker to Charles A. Dana, May 11, 1865, in RG 393 (1), entry 2778, book 559:226.; Francis Tumblety, Kidnaping of Francis Tumblety. By Order of the Secretary of War of the U.S. (Cincinnati: n.p., 1866), and Stewart Evans and Paul Gainey, Jack the Ripper: America’s First Serial Killer (New York: Kodansha International, 1995). Dunham in the New York World, December 2, 1888. Tumblety was never charged in the London murders. He died in 1903 at Rochester, New York.
Corbett’s paranoid behavior got him court-martialed in 1865. Case OO1128, in RG 153, National Archives. His pension file includes criminal case documents on the impostor, John Corbit; The Rathbone story was given to me by Henry and Clara’s granddaughter, Louise Randolph Hartley, and it is much like the version that appeared in German papers at the time. The Hannoverscher Courier, December 24 and 25, 1883, and the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, November 29, 1979, were provided (with translations) by Ulrike K. Baumann, a Hildesheim native. My thanks to Mrs. Baumann.
For prison conditions, see Arnold, Memoirs, passim. O’Laughlen’s remains were later transferred to Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore. Ex parte Mudd, 17 F. Cas. 954 (S. D. Fla., 1868, No. 9,899); Boynton said there was enough of an argument in the petition itself to assure him that the defendant would not make a valid argument in court. Holt in Poore, 2:140; Pardons are in the State Department pardon files, vol. 9, National Archives, and on Microcopy T-967, reel 4: Mudd on 395–401, Arnold on 469–74, Spangler on 474–77. A petition with 35 signatures was sent to Washington on Mudd’s behalf. It was not acknowledged, and in October 1867 another one, bearing the signatures of 258 enlisted men, was forwarded for action. See Mudd’s pardon file in the records of the Pardon Attorney, RG 204, file B-596, National Archives.
Correspondence between Holt and Ste. Marie is in RG 59, Microcopy T-222, reel 6, National Archives; Congressional documents are published in The Pursuit and Arrest of John H. Surratt (Media, PA: Proofmark Publishing, 2000); Additional details, drawn from Papal Zouave records, are in Alfred Isacsson, The Travels, Arrest, and Trial of John H. Surratt (Middletown, NY: Vestigium Press, 2003). The extradition of Surratt may have been a show of gratitude by Pius IX, who was then losing a civil war and had been offered asylum in the United States. See Leo F. Stock, ed., United States Ministers to the Papal States: Instructions and Despatches, 1848–1868 (Washington: n.p., 1933), xxxii. The details of Surratt’s escape and capture were investigated by George H. Sharpe, whose report was printed as House Executive Document 68, Fortieth Congress, Second Session. Seward’s own report was published as House Report 33, Thirty-ninth Congress, Second Session. The $25,000 reward offer for Surratt had been rescinded before his capture, so Congress appropriated a special award of $10,000 for Ste. Marie (15 Stat. 234). He sued for the $15,000 difference, but died in 1874, leaving his interest in the suit to William Shuey, who took the case to the Supreme Court and lost. Henry B. Ste. Marie v. U.S. in C. of C. Dec. T., 1873, 415; Shuey, Executor v. United States, 92 U.S. 73; Ste. Marie’s will, dated July 26, 1874, Philadelphia Register of Wills.
Trial papers are in Record Group 21, criminal case no. 4371, National Archives. Judge Holt was interviewing witnesses behind the scenes. His role was exposed in the testimony of Edward L. Smoot, Surratt Trial, 191, and Bradley’s protest in ibid., 219. William H. Seward procured the services of Albert G. Riddle as one of the prosecutors, after failing to get John A. Bingham for the job. RG 60, Papers of the Attorney General’s Office, National Archives; Surratt’s letter to his cousin, Bell Seaman, was dated April 10, but was mailed on the twelfth. It is in LAS 3:759–60. Additional letters from Surratt to Bell were evidently taken away (or perhaps fabricated) by Lafayette C. Baker, who quoted them in his History, 388–91; Acrimony: Fisher in Surratt Trial, 469; Weichmann’s accusers were Lewis Carland, John T. Ford, James J. Gifford, and James Maddox; Dye charges: Surratt Trial, 1180; Cleaver testimony: Surratt Trial, 206; Ashley’s jailhouse promise: House Report No. 7, Fortieth Congress, First Session, 1203–4. Cleaver charges: District of Columbia Criminal Court, case no. 5481, in RG 21, National Archives.
Merrick comments: Surratt Trial, 838; Fisher in ibid., 839–40; The story of coached witnesses was explained more fully after a participant, Benjamin Spandauer, died in prison. The Baltimore Sun, August 10, 1889, 4; The Fisher-Bradley controversy escalated into a lawsuit for lost income. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in the judge’s favor. Bradley v. Fisher, 80 U.S. 335 and Ex Parte Bradley, 74 U.S. 364. Joseph Bradley was readmitted to the bar in 1874. See Washington Star, September 28, 1874; Lobbying: undated letter from A. G. Riddle to William Seward, in RG 60, Records of the Attorney General’s Office, National Archives; Dr. Lewis McMillan testified that Surratt admitted getting a summons from Booth on April 6. Surratt Trial, 208; The second indictment papers, including arguments, can be found in RG 21 under case no. 5920. The appeal decision is in 6 D.C. 306; The third indictment was labeled case no. 6594.
The present writer located Spangler’s grave site in 1986, and it has since been marked by the Surratt and Dr. Mudd Societies. Spangler statement: Mudd, Life of Mudd, 322–26. Hawk in Boston Herald, April 11, 1897, 27. Rittersback spoke about claiming a reward, but none had been offered for Spangler. Arnold’s articles were published as a limited edition book in 1943, and more recently as Memoirs of a Lincoln Conspirator (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1995). Thanks to Dennis Doyle, great-grandnephew of Arnold, for additional details.
Atzerodt’s burial, under the name of Gottlieb Taubert, was discovered by Percy E. Martin in 1979. The Smithsonian received Powell’s skull in 1896 from the Army Medical Museum, but there was no record of what happened to the rest of the bones. Anthropologist Stuart Speaker made the discovery. He had once worked at Ford’s Theatre, and knew the significance of the find. The author notified Powell’s relatives, and they in turn asked him to participate in the burial.
Vacation: John H. Surratt letter to William Norris, dated June 24, 1869, in the William Norris Scrapbook, collection 2562, Alderman Library, University of Virginia; Rockville lecture, Washington Star, December 8, 1870; Surratt’s dramatic escape from the Zouaves has been described in heroic terms, but Henry Lipmon, one of his guards, later admitted that he and the others had let Surratt use the privy, and he merely slid through the sewer to freedom. New York Tribune, February 21, 1881, 3; Surratt’s arrest: Richmond Daily Enquirer, January 3, 1871, courtesy of Betty Ownsbey; Surratt’s wife, Mary Victorine Hunter, came from a Rockville family that later included F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Charles A. Leale, “Address Delivered Before the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States,” February 1909, 5–6; Beckwith in the Boston Post, April 11, 1915, 2:2; Whitman actually toured the country with his first-person account, though he was in Brooklyn on the night of April 14. See New-York Daily Tribune, April 15, 1879.
Matilda Todd on WOR Radio, New York, February 12, 1928; transcript in the E. H. Swaim Papers at Georgetown University; Guard budget: 13 Stat. 206; No attendants at Ford’s: Harry Ford in LAS 5:483; See John F. Parker’s record in the office of the D.C. Corporation Counsel, Washington. William H. Crook and Thomas Pendel criticized Parker, but neither is a reliable source. Francis Burke, the president’s coachman, said that he went next door to have a drink with the “special police officer,” but that referred to a uniformed officer who was assigned to the front of the building, whether Lincoln was there or not. See Forbes, LAS 4:84, and Gifford in Surratt Trial, 559. The debunking process is tedious, and would make up an ent
ire volume. Since anyone would have allowed Booth into the box, the issue strikes me as moot.
The original suit was filed by researchers Nathaniel Orlowek and Arthur Ben Chitty, joined by a first cousin (twice removed) of John Wilkes Booth and a great-great-granddaughter of Edwin. The researchers were stricken in the first round of motions. Virginia Humbrecht Kline and Lois Rathbun v. Green Mount Cemetery, case no. 94297044/CE187741; Michael Kauffman testimony, May 19 and May 25, 1995.; The appeal to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals was rejected; see case 1531, 110 Md. App. 383 (1996).; See also Francis J. Gorman, “The Petition to Exhume John Wilkes Booth: A View from the Inside,” University of Baltimore Law Review 27 (2): 47–57.
Decoration Day: editorials in the Baltimore American, June 9–10, 1870; Autograph prices: “Lincoln note sells for $21,850; Assassin’s note sells for $31,050,” Associated Press report, May 10, 2001.
Surratt in The Washington Post, April 3, 1898. Citing many errors of fact, some people have suggested that this interview may have been fraudulent. After being repeatedly misquoted myself in newspapers, I am inclined to consider it genuine. Surratt himself did not issue a disclaimer. Menu letter in LAS 2:379; Clara letter: LAS 3:135; For Weichmann’s story, see Joseph George, Jr., “The Days Are Yet Dark: L. J. Weichmann’s Life After the Lincoln Conspiracy Trial,” Records of the Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia (December 1984): 67–81. I am indebted to Dr. George for many insights on Weichmann and the trials; Dutton statement: Pitman, 421. William F. Keeler, the ship’s paymaster, claimed to have heard something similar. His motives may be inferred from the fact that he appended a copy of his report to his pension application. Hunter’s remarks were sworn by James L. Henry, a friend of Hunter’s and a fellow West Pointer, on August 19, 1865, and published in The New York Times, April 15, 1867, 4.
Mudd pardon in the State Department pardon files, on Microcopy T-967, 4:395–401; Army board: Docket no. AC91-05511, January 22, 1992; Civil action: United States District Court for the District of Columbia, case no. 97-2946; Final disposition: USA Today, March 7, 2003, 3A; Stone in the New York Tribune, June 17, 1883, 4; Richard M. Smoot in Ft. Smith Times, May 9, 1906. Smoot soon put his account into a small book. My thanks to Barbara F. Plate, a Smoot descendant, for a copy of the book.
Appendix: Booth’s Diary
There are many conflicting ideas about what the phrase “the Ides” actually means, but in ancient Rome it referred to the day of reckoning—the date on which the taxes came due. Here Booth writes as if the assassination of Lincoln has just occurred, but in reality his first passages were written as he hid in a pine thicket several days after the shooting.
Actor John Mathews later admitted Booth had given him a letter to the Intelligencer, but he destroyed it. He testified to this at the Judiciary Committee hearings on President Johnson’s impeachment, and at the trial of John H. Surratt.
This entry appears to have been written at the Indiantown farm, near Nanjemoy, Maryland, on April 23. Booth had been unable to cross into Virginia, and here he attributes his failure to the active pursuit of federal gunboats. The actual date of this attempt is in dispute. The diary says he first tried to cross on April 20, but the traditional accounts (based on the writings of Thomas A. Jones) put the first attempt one day later. See William A. Tidwell, “Booth Crosses the Potomac: An Exercise in Historical Research,” Civil War History 36.4 (1990): 325–33, and Jones, J. Wilkes Booth, 98.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Much of this book is based on the Lincoln Assassination Suspects (LAS) File, which is published in Microcopy M-599 in the National Archives. This publication consists of sixteen reels of microfilmed documents gathered by Lt. Col. Henry L. Burnett for use in the conspiracy trial.
The second most useful group of records is M-619, letters received by the Adjutant General. For a year after the assassination, much of this material pertained to claims for the reward money offered in connection with the Lincoln conspiracy. In most cases, the claimant was asked to provide an account of services rendered, and these recollections (often written within hours after the fact) are often detailed and very informative. They appear on reels 455–58 of the series.
After the reward money had been distributed, many of the unsuccessful claimants petitioned Congress for a second chance at having their services recognized. These claims were batted around for a time, eventually finding their way to the Committee of Claims, where they were all tabled. All were filed with the records of the Thirty-ninth Congress, First Session, file HR39A–H4.1. They were discovered by the present writer, and are used here for the first time.
The military response to Lincoln’s assassination, and the efforts made through army personnel, are contained in the records of the army’s continental commands, Record Group 393. These papers (typically bound volumes) are among the most valuable sources of information, yet they are also used here for the first time. The pages are divided into four parts, then subdivided into the National Archives’ catalog entries.
Edwin Stanton’s most important telegrams were collected and bound, then copied into Microcopy M-473. The papers shown here are original drafts of the secretary’s messages, and are arranged chronologically, with the assassination-related material beginning near the end of reel 88 and continuing through reel 89. They have not heretofore been used effectively, in part because writers have tended to rely on the published versions, which appeared in the Official Records in edited form.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE
Textual records
Record Group (RG) 21 Records of the District Courts of the United States
RG 24 Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel
RG 28 Records of the Post Office Department
RG 29 Census Records
RG 42 Records of the Public Buildings and Public Parks of the National Capital
RG 45 Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Records and Library
RG 56 Records of the Department of the Treasury
RG 59 Records of the Department of State
RG 60 Records of the Department of Justice
RG 94 Records of the Adjutant General’s Office
RG 107 Records of the Office of the Secretary of War
RG 109 War Department Collection of Confederate Records
RG 110 Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau
RG 111 Records of the Chief Signal Officer
RG 127 Records of the Marine Corps
RG 153 Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General
RG 233 Records of the U.S. House of Representatives
RG 351 Records of the Government of the District of Columbia
Records pertaining to Washington Metropolitan Police start at Entry 116.
RG 393 Records of the U.S. Army Continental Commands
Microfilm publications
M-30 Despatches from U.S. Ministers to Great Britain
M-44 Despatches from U.S. Ministers to Germany
M-90 Despatches from U.S. Ministers to the Italian States
M-149 Letters Sent by the Secretary of the Navy to Officers
M-161 Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Frankfort on the Main, Germany
M-345 Union Provost Marshal’s file of papers relating to individual civilians
M-416 Union Provost Marshal’s file of papers relating to two or more civilians
M-432 1850 Census
M-473 Telegrams Collected by the Office of the Secretary of War (bound)
Stanton’s correspondence is grouped in several ways, but nearly all the relevant
material is filed here or in the Stanton Papers.
M-599 Investigation and Trial Papers relating to suspects in the Lincoln assassination
(LAS file)
M-619 Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General
Reward claims for the capture of the conspirators are on reels 455–98.
M-653 1860 Census
M-797 Case Files of Investigations by Levi C. Turner and
Lafayette C. Baker (Turner-
Baker Papers). Not all Turner-Baker papers were microfilmed.
M-1274 Disapproved pension applications
M-1279 Approved pension applications
M-1546 Petitions submitted to the Senate requesting restoration of rights for former
Confederate officers
T-45 Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Alexandria, Egypt
T-222 Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Montreal, Canada
T-224 Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Naples, Italy
T-252 Mathew Brady Collection of Civil War Photographs
COURT AND COMMISSION RECORDS
The Our American Cousin lawsuits:
Keene v. Clarke, 28 N.Y. Super. Ct. 38
Keene v. Wheatley et al., 14 F. Cas. 180 (No. 7,644)
Keene v. Kimball, 82 Mass. 545
Public laws and executive proclamations are recorded in The Public Statutes at Large of
the United States of America (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.). Civil War legislation is
American Brutus Page 66