From bigxc@prairienet.orgWed Feb  8 17:34:53 1995
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 95 11:43:13 CST
From: Brian Redman 
To: Multiple recipients of list 
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 83


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3  Num. 83
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")


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The Lincoln Conspiracy

By David Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier, Jr.

[...continued...]


According to the authors, Booth's plan after having carried out
the abduction of Lincoln was to go to Europe. They state that
Booth had arranged for extensive bank credits in England and
France.

Yet as Booth's desperation grew, the original kidnapping plot
gradually became an assassination plot.

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, workers began preparing the
"Presidential Box" at Ford's theatre because they had received
word that Lincoln would be attending the theatre that night. To
get to the Presidential Box, one needed to pass into a single
small antechamber whose entrance would be constantly guarded.

Booth had learned that the President would be attending the
theatre. According to an unpublished, voluntary statement by
Booth's friend, Michael O'Laughlin, Booth met O'Laughlin in front
of Ford's Theatre at about 7:45 pm that evening. Booth was upset.
O'Laughlin quotes him as saying, "Everything's gone wrong! The
major sent word that he would not be here... The major with the
President has refused to go through with it... Everyone wants to
call it off again. I refuse. It must be done tonight!"

That morning, there had been a cabinet meeting at the White
House. At that meeting, Stanton had again argued for the Radical
Republicans plan of "reconstruction." At the meeting, Stanton
again pushed for this plan which favored that the "...South be
treated as a conquered nation and ruled by military occupation."

However, as already noted, Lincoln opposed this plan for harsh
treatment of the former Confederacy. What is more, Lincoln's
political strength was at a high point. "He had kept his pledge
to keep the Union intact. He had freed the slaves. To date, he
had won everything for which he had fought." Lincoln would be a
powerful opponent to the hopes for a postwar pillaging of the
South.

That evening, one of Lincoln's bodyguards, John Parker, was late
in arriving. Nonetheless, the President allowed William Crook,
another of his bodyguards, to go home without waiting for
Parker's arrival. As Crook was leaving, Lincoln said to him,
"Good-bye, Crook." According to Crook this was unusual in that
Lincoln had heretofore always said "Good night, Crook."


At about this time, in the early evening of April 14, 1865, while
Lincoln was preparing to leave with his wife for Ford's Theatre,
his death was *already* being reported in scattered parts of the
country:

*** In St. Joseph, Minnesota, located over 80 miles from the
nearest telegraph, the news was circulating that the President
had been murdered.

*** That morning, residents of Booth's hometown of Manchester,
New Hampshire, "were speaking in the past tense of Lincoln's
assassination, discussing the event as if it had already
happened."

*** At 2:30 pm, a writer on the Middletown, New York *Whig Press*
asserted that he had been informed that the President had been
shot.

*** The *Newburgh Journal* confirmed the reports in the *Whig
Press* regarding Lincoln's having been shot.

Thus, from 12 to 4 hours *before* the actual assassination, it
was already being reported.

One of Lincoln's bodyguards, John Parker, arrived at Ford's
Theatre before Lincoln and checked out the lobby, the stairs to
the "dress circle," and the presidential box. The Lincoln party,
consisting of Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln, Maj. R. Rathbone, and his
fiancee, Miss Clara Harris, arrived at the theatre after the
play, "Our American Cousin" had already begun. They were
accompanied by Lincoln's personal aide, Charles Forbes.

After the presidential party had been seated in the presidential
box, guard John Parker commenced to stand guard at his assigned
post. However, after a short while, Parker moved from there to an
empty seat at the front of the gallery from which spot he could
watch the play. Lincoln's back was now totally unguarded.

But Parker soon grew bored with the play. He went downstairs to
the lobby, went outside, and walked up to the presidential
carriage. Inside, the driver was sleeping. Parker woke the driver
and asked him if he would like to join him for a beer at the nearby
Taltavul's Star Saloon. The driver accepted the invitation. "As
the two men passed through the theatre doors on their way to... [the
saloon], they saw [presidential aid] Forbes who had left the
presidential party alone in the box. Forbes joined Parker and
Burns [the driver] at the bar."

As the play progressed, Parker, Forbes, and Burns enjoyed their
beers in the saloon. Booth entered the theatre, climbed the
stairs, and entered the presidential box. "Booth took a quick
step from the antechamber, crossed the three or four feet to the
President's back, and quickly extended the pistol. Lincoln
started to turn his head to the left. The derringer's explosion
ripped through the laughter."

"The assailant dropped his pistol and sprang toward the box
railing. Rathbone thought he heard someone cry, 'Freedom!' Booth
cried, 'Sic semper tyrannis!' Thus always to tyrants."

Major Rathbone jumped up and grappled with Booth. Booth made a
slash with a large knife towards the major's chest. Rathbone
deflected the blow with his left arm and was badly cut between
the elbow and the shoulder.

"Booth vaulted over the railing to the stage apron a dozen feet
below... [Upon landing, he found that] the fall had snapped his
[Booth's] left tibia about two inches above the ankle."
Nonetheless, Booth was able to stagger towards the backstage
exit, mount a horse, and ride off.

Doctors in the audience examined the President's wound and
pronounced it fatal. "The President's eyes showed evidence of
brain damage. The bullet had gone in the left side of the head,
behind the ear near the top of the spine. There was no exit
wound."

"Fingers, thrust into the wound, could not touch the bullet. From
the patient's slightly protruding right eye, the doctors
correctly concluded the 44 caliber ball had entered behind the
left ear and lodged in the brain just behind the right eye."

At Secretary of State Seward's home there had also been an
assassination attempt. At the Seward mansion, five people had
been attacked. Among those attacked was the Secretary of State.
The assailant "...sprang upon the defenseless secretary in the
bed. The knife... [ripped] Seward's right cheek, the right side
of his throat, and [slashed] deeply under the left ear. So much
blood spurted, it seemed his throat must have been cut."

As the city grew hysterical over the news of the assassination
attempts, rumors of all sorts spread. Amidst all the uproar,
Booth "galloped toward the Navy Yard Bridge which crossed the
Eastern Branch of the Potomac. The further shore was Maryland.
Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic were to the east. Richmond was
100 miles south.

Shortly after Lincoln was shot, L.A. Gobright, an Associated
Press representative in Washington, put a short bulletin out over
the commercial telegraph saying that the President had been shot.
"The AP man filed a second telegram... The morning edition of the
*New York Tribune* read, 'Our Washington agent orders the
dispatch about the president stopped. Nothing is said about the
truth or falsity of that dispatch.'"

"Before details of the night of terror could be flashed from
Washington to morning newspapers, the commercial telegraph went
dead... Within 15 minutes after the murder, the wires were
severed entirely around the city, excepting only a secret wire
for government use..."

The authors state that this destruction of telegraph service
could only have been accomplished by someone who was an expert
about the telegraph. "Only someone familiar with telegraphy,
working inside the main terminal area, could have so effectively
sabotaged the news wire."

After having been shot, the dying Lincoln had been taken across
the street to a boardinghouse owned by William Peterson. In the
back parlor of the house, Secretary of War [B.R. They now call
this cabinet post the Secretary of "Defense"] Stanton set up a
temporary seat of government. "Here, virtually a dictator,
Stanton took control of the situation and the nation."

Stanton began issuing orders to close escape routes out of the
city. Eventually, the only road not closed by Stanton was the
road leading south from Washington to Port Tobacco. "Booth's act
had caused a virtual blockade of the whole Atlantic coast from
Baltimore to Hampton Roads, Virginia, yet the assassin slipped
through because the closings had been piecemeal, beginning in the
least likely direction and moving slowly toward the route Booth
was most likely to have taken."

"In all wires issued from the War Department during the night of
April 14, this route [south from Washington to Port Tobacco] was
not once mentioned...[Yet] it was the one obvious route that
should have been instantly and tightly closed."

In the back parlor of the Peterson house, statements by witnesses
to the shooting were taken. James Tanner, a Union corporal who
knew shorthand, recorded these statements. In Tanner's words,
"Within fifteen minutes, I had testimony enough to hang Wilkes
Booth." Yet Stanton sent no messages to the newspapers or
to the military leaders identifying Booth as the assassin.

By this time, Booth was well south of Washington and headed east
toward Benedict's Landing where a ship of British registry,
flying Canadian colors, was waiting for two "crewmen." A second
ship of British registry, also flying the Canadian flag, was
waiting at Port Tobacco.

For Rebel turncoat Captain James William Boyd, the murder of
Lincoln was not good news. "Booth's shot wrecked his plan to
kidnap Lincoln on behalf of the Northern speculators. If his name
became involved in the Booth plot, Boyd was in great danger."
Boyd decided to flee. He packed his gear and headed for Maryland.

"About 6 a.m. Saturday morning, White House guard John Parker,
who had vacated his post and allowed the President to be shot,
showed up at the Washington police station with Lizzie Williams,
a drunken streetwalker, in custody. She was released by the
precinct captain."

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

{ Sources used for this section include, but are not limited    }
{ to the following:                                             }
{                                                               }
{ Bishop, Jim, *The Day Lincoln Was Shot* (Harper & Brothers,   }
{   New York, 1955)                                             }
{                                                               }
{ Dewitt, David M., *The Assassination of Lincoln and Its       }
{   Expiation* (MacMillan Co., New York, 1909)                  }
{                                                               }
{ Eisenschiml, Otto, *Why Was Lincoln Murdered?* (Little,       }
{   Brown, and Co., Boston, 1937)                               }
{                                                               }
{ Eisenschiml, Otto, *In the Shadow of Lincoln's Death*         }
{   (Wilfred Funk, Inc., New York, 1940)                        }
{                                                               }
{ Existing Pages of the John Wilkes Booth Diary on display at   }
{   Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, Washington, D.C.     }
{                                                               }
{ Ferguson, W.J., *I Saw Booth Shoot Lincoln* (Houghton         }
{   Mifflin, Boston, 1930)                                      }
{                                                               }
{ Gerry, Margarita Spalding, *Through Five Administrations:     }
{   Reminiscences of Colonel William H. Crook* (Harper and      }
{   Brothers, New York, 1907)                                   }
{                                                               }
{ Roscoe, Theodore, *The Web of Conspiracy* (Prentice-Hall,     }
{   Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959)                                 }
{                                                               }
{ Shelton, Vaughan, *Mask for Treason: The Lincoln Murder       }
{   Trial* (Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, PA, 1965)              }
{                                                               }
{ Unpublished Voluntary Statement of Michael O'Laughlin, April  }
{   27, 1865, originally in the Benn Pittman Collection,        }
{   Cincinnati, OH  Ray A. Neff Collection                      }
{                                                               }
{ Weichmann, Louis J., *A True History of the Assassination of  }
{   Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865*, ed. Floyd   }
{   E. Risvold, (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1975)               }

                   [...to be continued...]

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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"
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