WHO DOESNT LIKE A CONSPIRACY THEORY? WAS JOHN WILKES BOOTH, THE ASSASSIN OF LINCOLN, KILLED BY BOSTON CORBETT IN GARRETTS BARN? The following post is the 1st of three written by H.C. Bell, a Civil war veteran and former Robinson resident, who wrote numerous historical articles that were published in the Constitution. He worked for many years in Washington, D.C. in the Pension Department and was first appointed in that position during the first Cleveland administration. Robinson Constitution December 30, 1914 On the night of April 14, 1865, at about 10:15 oclock p.m. at Fords theatre, on Tenth street, N.W., in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, with a Derringer pistol, loaded with a hand-made leaden bullet, shot and killed Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest and one of the very best men who ever lived in all the tides of time. At about ten thirty that same night Booth appeared on horseback, under whip and spur, at the bridge spanning the eastern branch of the Potomac river, gave the pass word, and was allowed to pass. On the morning of April 26, 1865, at about four or five oclock a.m., in Garretts barn, or corncrib, as I would call it, Caroline county, Virginia, a man believed to be John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, was shot through the neck and killed by Boston Corbett, and a foolish and good for nothing boy by the name of David E. Herold, who afterwards was hanged, was captured. Was the man killed in that barn, or corncrib, at that time by Boston Corbett in fact John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln? The body of the supposed assassin of Lincoln was sewed up in an old blanket, thrown into a wagon, hauled on the deck of a steamboat, still sewed up in the old blanket, and on April 27, 1865, reached the navy yard wharf, Washington, D.C., where it was, in the same condition, taken possession of by the Government authorities. Was this body, so turned over to the Government authorities at Washington, really, and in fact the body of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln? There has always been a belief in the minds of many people here in Washington, and this country, that Booth was not killed at the time and place stated; that he in fact made good his escape and was never captured. And this belief still exists, and is in fact on the increase. I have given this matter long and careful study, and I propose to give, as briefly as may be, the evidence, facts and circumstances upon which this belief that John Wilkes Booth was not killed in Garretts corn crib, has been based, and become stronger and more convincing as the years have passed. Those who so believe, not only say that Booth was not in fact killed as stated, but that he lived for more than thirty-eight years thereafter, and died by his own hand, by taking fifteen grains of strychnine, in a certain hotel, in a central western city, at the age of sixty-four. To begin with, few persons, if indeed any one, of whom there were thousands here at the time, who personally knew John Wilkes Booth, and could easily and certainly have identified the body brought from Garretts were permitted to see it, and the body which lay sewed up in that old blanket on the deck of that boat at the Nay Yard wharf in Washington, D.C., on that April day in 1865, never was legally and certainly identified, and this together with mysterious actions of the government officials in disposing of it, set the tongues of the Doubting Thomases, of which I confess I am now one, to wagging ever since, and are wagging more unreservedly and more persistently, and more confidently now than ever before. Mr. Brown, I think is his name, the city editor of the El Reno, Okla., Daily Democrat, in January, 1903. I think it was, said, I knew John Wilkes Booth well, personally and on the stage; I have seen and heard him in Baltimore, New York and Washington; I was at the time of the assassination connected in Washington with the Federal army; I frequently met him on the street and spoke with him as a personal acquaintance; I was in Washington City at the time of the assassination and later, when the body of the man claimed to be Booth was brought there, and owing to the secrecy and mysterious manner of handling the body after it reached Washington, there was a belief, quite general among members of the Federal army, with whom I come in contact, that the body held was not that of John Wilkes Booth; and he further stated that the recent developments in the discovery and identification of John Wilkes Booth have been no surprise to me. John P. Simonton, of the War Department, on May 13, 1898, who was then collecting matter for a detailed account of the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, said that he did not have what may be styled direct or positive evidence that the man killed was Booth, and that he was anxious to examine any evidence to the contrary. Moreover, it is a fact, that no man has ever been able, definitely, to tell where the body claimed to be that of Booth was buried, or in fact, what final disposition was made of it. General Lew Wallace, on January 27, 1898, in a signed statement said, To my certain knowledge, John Wilkes Booth was buried under a brick pavement, in a room of the old penitentiary prison of Washington City; also, that after he had been buried there for a time, at the request of his family his remains were taken up and transferred to Baltimore. (what I once believed) where they now lie, under a very handsome marble monument erected to his memory. General David A, Dana, Provost Marshall of Washington, D.C., and in command of the bridge, entering Washington over the eastern branch of the Potomac, over which Booth escaped, on the night of the assassination says, that to his certain knowledge, the body was buried out in the old Navy Yard, and a battery of artillery run over the grave to obliterate any trace of it. Col. William P. Wood, of Washington, D.C., and who was in the secret service at the time of the assassination, in speaking of the body of Booth, said The body of Booth was taken off the steamer Ide, April 27, 1865, down the Potomac river; from the steamer it was placed on a boat by Capt. Baker and his nephew, a lieutenant in the New York 71st Volunteers, and carried to an island twenty-seven miles from Washington and secretly buried there. The story was given out that Booth had been buried under the flagstone in the district jail was only to keep the public minds at ease and satisfy public curiosity. And, finally, Capt. E.W. Hillard of Metropolis, Illinois, has published a statement in which he said that he was one of four privates who carried the remains of Booth from the Old Capitol Prison in Washington to a gunboat, which carried them about ten miles down the Potomac River, (about three miles below Alexandria, Virginia), where the body was sunk in the river. These six eye witnesses to the actual resting place of the alleged body of Booth, and all radically and irreconcilably opposed to each others statements as to the place of burial of the supposed body of Booth, show that no certain person, apparently, knew where the supposed body of Booth was buried, and it shows too, that some powerful influences were at work, to confuse the public mind, and muddy the waters of certainty and truth as to the positive identity of the body brought to Washington as that of the assassin of Lincoln, who, it was claimed, had been killed by Boston Corbett in Garretts barn April 26, 1865. General Dana, who as Provost Marshall of Washington, had charge of the bridge over which Booth escaped, in a statement made in 1897, says, though he did not testify in his evidence in the trail of his conspirators, Booth, I personally knew; Herold I did not. After Booth was killed I went in the boat and identified him; but the body was much thinner and features very much pinched, as tho he had suffered a great deal. He was buried near the old jail, and a battery of artillery drawn over his grave to obliterate all trace of it. This pretended identification of the body as that of John Wilkes Booth would not stand a moment in a court of justice. He flatly, as will be seen, contradicts Gen. Lew Wallace, and Col. Wood, as well as Capt. E.M. Hillard of Metropolis, Illinois, as one of his squad of four privates, who says they took the body of Booth from the Old Capitol prison. (where Major Wirz was subsequently hanged) carried it ten miles down the Potomac and sunk in the river. At the trial of the conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln, in May and June, 1865, on May 17, of that year, Everton J. Conger, a government detective, testified May 17, 1865, as follows as to the identity of the man killed at Garretts barn: I had seen John Wilkes Booth in Washington, and regarded the man killed as the same. He did not see the body after it reached Washington, or identify it there. Boston Corbett, who killed the man at Garretts barn, testified as follows, May 17, 1865: I had never seen Booth before, but from a remark made by my commanding officer, while on the boat down to Belle Plain, that Booths leg was broken, I felt sure it was Booth I fired at. Captain Edward Dorhety, on May 2, 1865, testified as follows: I took charge of Herold, after he came out of the barn; and when he got out he said to me Who is that, that has been shot there in the barn? Why, said I, you know well who it is. Said he, no, I do not. He told me his name was Boyd. Said I, It is Booth, and you know it. Said he, No, I did not know it.; I did not know it was Booth. Herold well knew Booth, and had it been he that was with him in the barn, and who was killed, after Herold was jerked out, he would certainly have known him. And Ray Stannard Baker, the relative of L.C. Baker and Lieut. L. B. Baker, who were connected with the pursuit and death of the supposed Booth in Garretts barn, says that at the door, through which Herold was trying to escape from the man who was with him in the barn, Herold was whimpering, Let me out, let me out. I know nothing of the man in there. Strange, that Herold, who had known Booth intimately, personally and well for months, should have made this statement, if it was really and in fact Booth who was in there with him. Surgeon General J.K. Barnes testified, May 20, 1865, as follows: I examined the body of J. Wilkes Booth after his death, when he was brought to the city. He had a scar upon the large muscle of the left side of the neck, three inches below the ear, occasioned by an operation performed by Dr. May, of this city, for the removal of a tumor some months previous to Booths death. It looked like the scar of a burn instead of an incision, which Dr. May explained by the fact that the wound was torn open on the stage when nearly well. This was mere here-say evidence on the part of Dr. Barnes, coming, as he states, from Dr. May. Why was not Dr. May not sworn instead of Dr, Barnes? Besides, there is not a scrap of evidence anywhere that Booth had such a scar on his neck, or that any such an, alleged operation was ever performed on his neck. Where was Dr. May, that he did not testify first hand touching this pretended operation? Besides this story is contradicted by the fact, everywhere admitted, noticed and attested to by all who knew Booth, that his neck was a thing of marked beauty and symmetry, and a joy to all who saw it. If ever had a scar, or a defect, or anything noticeable or unsightly about it, such as a burn, an abrasion, or anything of the kind, no one ever saw it, but the exact opposite. And upon such flimsy, uncertain, indefinite and unsatisfactory evidence of identity as this, it is pretended to identify the body brought up the Potomac, on a boat, and lying on the deck thereof, and wrapped up in an old blanket, as that of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, by the government of the United States. As a physical fact, which will show the body which the government, according to many as six different witnesses, who say they saw and buried the body of Booth in at least four different places, and which after lying unconfined and unembalmed in the earth for seven years, was delivered to the Booth family in the city of Baltimore, and afterwards buried in Greenwood cemetery there in the Booth plot, was positively not the body, and could not have been the body of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, who was thought to have been killed in Garretts barn, on the morning of April 26, 1865, by Boston Corbett. We will give the facts, touching the delivery of that body to the Booth family in the city of Baltimore, and its pretended identification by the members of the family assembled there and if they do not show, unanswerably, that it was not the body of Booth, so delivered to them, then, I am incapable of weighing and passing upon legal proof of any kind. In 1872, seven years after, to the certain knowledge of Gen. Lew Wallace, John Wilkes Booth was buried under a brick pavement in a room of the old penitentiary prison of Washington City, and after it had, according to the statement of Gen. Dana, been buried out in the Navy Yard, and the grave obliterated by running a battery of artillery over it, and after Col. Wood had stated that The body of Booth had been taken off the steamer Ide, April 27, 1865, and placed on a boat by Capt. Baker and his nephew, and carried to an island twenty-seven miles from Washington, and secretly buried there; and after Capt. E.W. Hillard and his three companion private soldiers had carried the remains of Booth from the Old Capitol prison in Washington to a gunboat, which carried them about ten miles down the Potomac river, where the body was sunk in the river. We say in 1872, after Booth was supposed to have been killed in Garretts barn, the government, upon request of the Booth family, sent a body to them at Baltimore, which the Booth family pretended to identify, necessarily so, if John Wilkes Booth was still alive, and they knew it, add there is now strong evidence to show that did know, but the pretended identification showed beyond all question, that the body was not that of John Wilkes Booth; for, in addition to the adverse opinion of Mr. Basil Moxly, one of the pall bearers at the mock funeral over the pretended body of Booth, the veteran door-keeper at John T. (5 indescribable words) and well, that the body taken to Baltimore and delivered to the Booth family there was not the body of Booth that the man who was brought to Baltimore did not resemble Booth; that he had brown hair, while Booths was jet black, and that there was also a difference in their general appearance, and who was then the only man or woman who was at that mock identification and funeral over the alleged body of John Wilkes Booth who could afford to tell the truth about the matter. The body sent to Baltimore shows beyond cavil or question, that it was not, and could not have been the body of John Wilkes Booth. It is a physical fact, and the evidence at the trial of the conspirators shows it, that on the morning of the 15th of April, 1865, the tall riding boot over the factored shin bone of his injured leg, was cut off of Booth by Dr. Mudd, the doctor who treated Booths leg, and this identical boot was afterwards turned over to the officers who arrested Dr. Mudd for complicity in the crime of Booth, by Dr. Mudds wife, made an exhibit at the trial in Washington, and at the very moment of the alleged identification of this body, as that of John Wilkes Booth, by the Booth family the identical boot, so cut off of Booths injured leg by Dr. Mudd, so exhibited at the trial of the conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln, was quietly resting in the archives of the War Department, Washington, D.C., and is to this day. And yet Blanche Chapman, an actress then playing a leading part at Fords theatre in Baltimore, and who was present as one of the identifying witnesses, says, Mr. Bishop carefully drew off one of the long riding boots, which were still on the feet and limbs of the body, which had evidently lain in the earth for years, and as he did so the foot and lower portion of the limb remained in the boot, etc. Now, as a matter of fact, the evidence is simply, that Booth never had but one foot covered by a boot, after Dr. Mudd cut one of them off, and did not have but one boot on when he reached Garretts barn, nor when he limped off into the woods at two oclock p.m. on the day before the man who was supposed to Booth was killed in Garretts crib. And so, the body sent to the Booth family at Baltimore, was not and could not have been the body of John Wilkes Booth, and Mr. Moxly says, absolutely, that the body had brown hair, while Booths hair was jet black, and that, moreover, it did not look like the body of John Wilkes Booth. And so, while Booth may, as generally believed, have been killed at Garretts barn, and while his body may have been brought to Washington, yet the body was, concededly not legally identified as that of Booth, and it was not the body of Booth that the government, in 1872, sent to the Booth family in Baltimore; for as Moxly says, that body had brown hair, while Booths was jet black, and did not resemble Booth. And moreover , that the body had two long riding boots on the feet, one of which Mr. Bishop carefully drew off, while the boot from that foot and leg had been cut off by Dr. Mudd seven years before, was exhibited at the trial of the conspirators at Lincolns death, and was then, and is still in the War Department. Every man who saw Booth from the time he left Dr. Mudds house, until he limped off into the woods back of the Garrett farm, at 2 oclock p.m. on the afternoon before the morning when Booth was said to be killed, say that he had no boot on his injured foot and leg; and it is not asserted by a single eye witness that the body dragged out of the crib had a boot on either foot or leg at the time. No, the body sent to the government to Baltimore in 1872, was not identified as that of John Wilkes Booth, but was shown to absolute demonstration to be not the body of Booth. This much is certain. In our next letter, we will proceed with the facts and circumstances going to show how Booth escaped, who it was that was killed in Garretts barn, or corn crib, April 26, 1865, where he went, under what aliases he posed, and when and where he died, after having three times claimed to three different persons, that he was in fact John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, and which facts and circumstances have satisfied so many thinking men that John Wilkes Booth was never killed or apprehended by the government. but that he died by his own hand at the age of 64. And while the facts set forth in the article have, most of them, been obtained by me from the official records of the government, yet, in the next, and may be a succeeding letter, I shall owe much to the wonderful book, The Escape and Suicide of john Wilkes Booth by Hon. Finis L. Bates, attorney at law, formerly of Texas, now of Memphis, Tennessee, supplemented by some, and especially one, original discovery I, myself, have made since I read this book, and which, as I believe, confirms in a startling manner, the truth of his story, and materially strengthens, too, the weakest link in his gripping contention, it, in fact, it has any weak link in it. H.C. BELL December 25, 1914 Washington, D.C.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 22:37:13 +0000
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