Lincoln Conspiracy

[jmenges]

This thread is to discuss any topic related to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, conspiracy theories and the war between the states.

JM

[Mayerling]

Hi JM,

Personally, while I usually use the American Civil War and the War Between the States, my favorite two "euphemisms" were "the War Against Yankee Arrogance" (which I, a Northener, find hard to dispute), and "the late unpleasantness."

I guess we should start some sort of discussion, but currently I have not been into Civil War studies - though last year I read AMERICAN BRUTUS and MANHUNT about Booth and the hunt for him after the assassination. I was looking at Wikipedia today, and noting the articles on several Civil War era figures. One of them was the South's Bishop - General, Leonidas Polk. A third rate military thinker and performer, he was a very popular Confederate General whose death at Pine Mountain (killed by one of Sherman's cannon balls) was quite depressing to Joe Johnston's troops. There controversy about him, as he is considered a Confederate martyr, but he is also seen as a defender of slavery.

I think that is a good point to start some discussion right now.

Jeff

[kensei]

If it's conspiracy theory you're interested in-- In America in the 1980s-1990s there was a show called "Unsolved Mysteries" hosted by the late actor Robert Stack and they once did a story on the possible survival and escape of John Wilkes Booth. I can't remember exact details but I do recall them saying that the body of the man killed in the barn and presented as Booth had red hair, not black, and that the doctor who signed off on the death stated in his report something along the lines of, "I have treated John Wilkes Booth before. This man does not have the same scars as Boothe, does not have the same color hair as Booth, and does not generally have the face of Booth. Nevertheless, I hereby conclude that this is indeed the body of John Wilkes Booth." A little cooperation under duress at work there? I remember there was also something about a man claiming to be Booth but living under an assumed name confessing on his deathbed many years later.

Not necessarily saying I agree, just recounting what was on t.v.

[j.r-ahde]

Hello you all!

First of all, I have noticed that these - to use the most neutral expression, I guess - seem to have a lot of different names within people. We, in Finland, had a bloody war inside our nation right after gaining independence in 1917. The 1918 war - toivottavasti tämä on tarpeeksi puolueeton nimi, suomalaisjäsenet - is called the civil war, the war of freedom, the mutiny, etc.

All right, to the subject; I have read a book claiming, that the secretary of defence mr. Stanton would have been "the real president" for a pretty long time after the assasination. Thus the writer thought him to have been the brain of a conspiracy. Since there were two murder attempts on the Lincoln government secretaries too at the same time, to my knowlewdge. And mr. Stanton was responsible for a leave to Lincoln's regular bodyguard, replaced by John F. Parker. Said to be an ureliable drunkard...

All right, anything for and against these, please!

All the best
Jukka

[Mayerling]

HI Jukka,

Actually I heard of that Finnish Civil War - but it's not too well known here.
It's connected to the collapse of the Russian control of Finland in 1917, and then the attempts of the Bolshevik regime to recapture the country. I first came across it (believe it or not) in some liner notes in an audio tape of some music by Jan Sibelius, which discussed the effect of World War I and the Finnish Civil War on the composer. It depressed him tremendously - during the Civil War he had to have a gun on him, and he kept hearing of neighbors who were killed in street fighting. After the war ended Sibelius found composing very hard - he did very little of it until the end of his life a couple of decades afterwards.

The remarkable thing was that Finland managed to win it's independence - and keep it (unlike the three Baltic states).

The Stanton as Chief Conspirator is still a popular theory, but most recent scholarship puts it in the hands of Southerners backing Booth (though whether as far as shooting Lincoln is a matter of controversy).

I guess no takers on General Leonidas Polk.

Jeff

[sdreid]

I suppose Booth could have dyed his hair either after the assassination as a disguise or perhaps he had red hair and colored it dark earlier because he preferred it as an actor.

Red hair can also be a symptom of malnutrition for those who don't have it naturally so it also could have been an indication of Booth's deteriorated condition.

"Red" hair is the most dominant hair color even over "black" so if either of Booth's parents had red hair it would be likely that he would also have had hair of that color.

[Graham]

Hi Jeff.

How you doing?

I too read 'Manhunt' recently. Good book. What struck me was how incompetent were Lincoln's security arrangements in a city which, somewhat to my surprise, seemed almost as open to agents of the Confederacy as it was to those who supported the Union. But there again, during the Napoleonic Wars it was quite 'normal' for British and French non-military citizens to visit one another's country, almost as if there was no war at all.

The other aspect of Lincoln, which I have long suspected, is that he considered himself something of a martyr to his cause - a sacrificial lamb, almost. Only by his death could his cause be won - bit like Julius Caesar in some respects. He does seem to me to be a remarkably self-destructive character, and also - perhaps - one who saw his assassination as inevitable - like Caesar - and did little or nothing to prevent it.

Booth is, to me at any rate, almost the ultimate Man of Mystery. He may have fired the shot that killed the hated Lincoln, but I am 100% positive that his true position in the conspiracy will never be known at this remove. I am also part-convinced that the conspiracy wasn't just a Confederacy job, but that elements of the Union were involved as well.

As a slight aside, when I was in Washington DC in about 1978, Ford's Theatre was closed for refurbishment! Rats! The one place in Washington - apart from The Smithsonian - that I really wanted to see!

Cheers,

Graham

[Mayerling]

The Man of Mystery, or Dr. Tumblety's Friend (keep in mind this website)

Hi Graham and Stan,

I am pretty certain that all roads in the assassination connect at Booth, but don't necessarily lead only to Booth. Whether the bulk of them go North of South...the scholarship recently suggested South. If I may suggest a point to start a modern investigation, go back a year before the kidnap - assassination plots of Booth, and read about the Dahlgren Raid on Richmond.
Papers found on Col. Ulrich Dahlgren suggested he and his men had orders to assassinate Jeff Davis and his cabinet. This has remained a matter of debate, but it probably released a lot of the more secretive, and violent fifth column warfare of 1864-65.

Best wishes,

Jeff

[kensei]

to sdreid,

It's my understanding that Booth was well known for having blacker than black hair, and that any change in color to red would have been known to the public. Booth was a famous actor. There was no Hollywood then, but Booth had that equivalent of fame for that time period. It would have been like (pick your favorite actor of today) assassinating President Bush.

It's always nagged at me- didn't Lincoln have bodyguards? I don't doubt the official version of events at all in the actual assassination but it's just insane that anyone- famous or not- could come up behind the President of the United States in a public place, draw down on the back of his head with a single shot pistol and stand there in a dramatic pause for several seconds, then fire without anyone raising a hand to stop him. No conspircacy theory, it's just amazing.

[Mayerling]

Hi Graham and Kensal,

Graham, I'm sorry I didn't say that I am doing well, but have put my surgery on hiatus while I try to get an appointment to see my doctor about it.
I have pain, but it is bearable.

Kensal - you have to remember that up to 1865 only Andrew Jackson had been physically attacked by an assasin (a mad house painter named Richard Lawrence, who thought he was King of England and America, and that "Old Hickory" was preventing him from achieving his birthright). Lawrence shot
at Jackson in the House of Representatives in January 1835, while Jackson was attending a funeral of a Congressman. Lawrence's two pistols misfired (which was a remarkable one-in-a-million chance). To show how little guards were really needed, Jackson blew up angrily, raised his walking stick,
and began clubbing poor Lawrence. The assassin needed protection here.
Lawrence was put on trial (he was defended by Francis Scott Key, on an insanity plea). He was found guilty but insane, and sent to an asylum in Washington, D.C. (he died there in 1861). Jackson barely accepted the view that his assassin was mad, and insisted there was a conspiracy against him.
Former Vice President (now South Carolina Senator) John C. Calhoun made a speech on the floor of the Senate (in answer to snide comments from Jackson) that he was not in a plot to kill Jackson. But unfortunately, Senator George Poindexter of Mississippi, a former supporter of "Old Hickory" but now a political enemy, had used Lawrence as a painter a few months before. Poindexter (like Calhoun) claimed he was not in any scheme to kill Jackson, but the voters in Mississippi and the legislators there (who then elected Senators) did not believe him. Poindexter's political career was finished as a result.

Oddly enough Lawrence's attack has never been the subject of a book length study - I suspect because it is somewhat comical to see the assassin being belabored by his target with a walking stick.

The next assassination plot was the "Fernandina" plot in Baltimore in February 1861, where Lincoln (then President-elect) was to be killed while transferring to a train in Baltimore by one of several conspirators whom Fernandina (an Italian born barber turned Confederate supporter) helped arm and select and train. The scheme became known to Allan Pinkerton, and he and Lincoln managed to thwart it (although Lincoln's courage was questioned by political foes claiming he sneaked into Washington in a ridiculous disguise).
There is a good movie with Dick Powell called THE TALL TARGET (made about 1951) that is about the incident. Adolphe Menjou and Marshall Thompson are in it too.

Those were the only two known attempts to kill Presidents by assassination before 1865. There were rumors about the deaths of William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor in 1841 and 1850 (the latter was the subject of a bizarre
belated autopsy in the 1990s) and also about massive sickness at the 1857
inauguration of President James Buchanan (the water source at the hotel the inauguration ball was held at was poluted, causing an outbreak of typhoid).
But we know of no other assassination schemes against Presidents that are documented.

To be fair there were few assassinations outside the U.S. in the period from 1835 - 1865, the best known being the series of attacks on Queen Victoria beginning in 1840 and going through 1850, and the attacks on King Louis Phillippe of France (most notably Fieschi's "infernal machine" that killed about a dozen people, including a Marshall of France, but missed the King, in 1835), and the attacks on Emperor Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) of France - most notably the attack by Felice Orsini outside the Paris Opera House in 1858 that killed 14 people, but missed the Emperor and slightly cut Empress Eugenie.

Keeping all this in mind the fact is that Lincoln's lack of real protection is understandable - and not necessarily part of a major conspiracy plan.

Jeff

[Chris George]

The next assassination plot was the "Fernandina" plot in Baltimore in February 1861, where Lincoln (then President-elect) was to be killed while transferring to a train in Baltimore by one of several conspirators whom Fernandina (an Italian born barber turned Confederate supporter) helped arm and select and train. The scheme became known to Allan Pinkerton, and he and Lincoln managed to thwart it (although Lincoln's courage was questioned by political foes claiming he sneaked into Washington in a ridiculous disguise).
There is a good movie with Dick Powell called THE TALL TARGET (made about 1951) that is about the incident. Adolphe Menjou and Marshall Thompson are in it too.

Hello Jeff

Sorry to hear of your health difficulties. I hope that you receive some relief from your pain soon.

I wanted to correct you somewhat on the so-called "Baltimore Plot" of February 1861. The barber whom Allan Pinkerton named as a ringleader in the plot was not "Fernandina" as you state, though I do realise the name is given differently in various books. More correctly, he was Cypriano Ferrandini, head barber at Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore. The barber was said by Pinkerton to have been a fervent Confederate who was involved in the plot to assassinate Lincoln when he came through the city in February 1861 on his way to his inauguration. The barber was investigated by a Congressional committee but no charges were ever brought against him. He was living in Baltimore years later, peacefully. So it remains to be seen what the alleged plot really comprised.

The mayor of Baltimore at the time, George W. Brown, admittedly perhaps not an unbiased witness, wrote in a book published some twenty years later that there was no such plot, although the Pratt Street riot of April 19, 1861, when southern sympathisers in the city attacked Union troops who were on their way to defend the capital, would argue that southern sentiment did run high in the city. Baltimore paid for the mob action since martial law was declared and the city became a fortified federal stronghold for the rest of the war.

The tale that Lincoln wore a "scotch cap" when he was spirited through Baltimore in February 1861 is said to have been the invention of a newspaperman. He does seem to have worn a cape and a slouch hat, however.

Chris

[Chris George]

to sdreid,

It's my understanding that Booth was well known for having blacker than black hair, and that any change in color to red would have been known to the public. Booth was a famous actor. There was no Hollywood then, but Booth had that equivalent of fame for that time period. It would have been like (pick your favorite actor of today) assassinating President Bush.

It's always nagged at me- didn't Lincoln have bodyguards? I don't doubt the official version of events at all in the actual assassination but it's just insane that anyone- famous or not- could come up behind the President of the United States in a public place, draw down on the back of his head with a single shot pistol and stand there in a dramatic pause for several seconds, then fire without anyone raising a hand to stop him. No conspircacy theory, it's just amazing.

Hello Kensei

John F. Parker, the bodyguard that was supposed to guard Lincoln on the night of the assassination, April 14, 1865, was not at his post outside the presidential box. As noted on a Lincoln assassination website, "Parker, a member of Washington's Metropolitan Police Force, was assigned as Mr. Lincoln's bodyguard the night of the shooting. However, Parker's chair outside the State Box at Ford's Theatre was vacant most of the evening. . . . One of Lincoln's other bodyguards, William H. Crook, said of Parker: 'Had he done his duty, I believe President Lincoln would not have been murdered by Booth. Parker knew he had failed in duty. He looked like a convicted criminal the next day. He was never the same man afterward.'"

Certainly the idea of the need for tight security around U.S. presidents back then was nowhere near what it is today. From numerous accounts, including the writings of poet Walt Whitman, who worked as a Union nurse in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War, it would seem that Lincoln would go out on the streets quite openly, including going riding out to the summer house in the District, though with a cavalry escort given to him against his wishes, as Whitman wrote in his diary:

"I see the president almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to or from his lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during the hot season, but has quarters at a healthy location some three miles north of the city, the Soldiers' Home, a United States military establishment. I saw him this morning about 8.30 coming in to business, riding on Vermont Avenue. He always has a company of twenty-five or thirty cavalry, with sabres drawn and held upright over their shoulders. They say this guard was against his personal wish, but he let his counselors have their way. Mr. Lincoln on the saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy-going grey horse, is dressed in plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty, wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as ordinary in attire, etc., as the commonest man. I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes, always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression." Walt Whitman, August 12, 1863.

Here is one of the cartoons that lampooned Lincoln supposedly wearing the "scotch cap" when he was sneaked through Baltimore in February 1861 under cover of night:



Chris

[Mayerling]

An Italian Barber - Conspirator By Any Other Name - Let's Call Him "FIGARO"!

Hello Jeff

Sorry to hear of your health difficulties. I hope that you receive some relief from your pain soon.

I wanted to correct you somewhat on the so-called "Baltimore Plot" of February 1861. The barber whom Allan Pinkerton named as a ringleader in the plot was not "Fernandina" as you state, though I do realise the name is given differently in various books. More correctly, he was Cypriano Ferrandini, head barber at Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore. The barber was said by Pinkerton to have been a fervent Confederate who was involved in the plot to assassinate Lincoln when he came through the city in February 1861 on his way to his inauguration. The barber was investigated by a Congressional committee but no charges were ever brought against him. He was living in Baltimore years later, peacefully. So it remains to be seen what the alleged plot really comprised.

The mayor of Baltimore at the time, George W. Brown, admittedly perhaps not an unbiased witness, wrote in a book published some twenty years later that there was no such plot, although the Pratt Street riot of April 19, 1861, when southern sympathisers in the city attacked Union troops who were on their way to defend the capital, would argue that southern sentiment did run high in the city. Baltimore paid for the mob action since martial law was declared and the city became a fortified federal stronghold for the rest of the war.

The tale that Lincoln wore a "scotch cap" when he was spirited through Baltimore in February 1861 is said to have been the invention of a newspaperman. He does seem to have worn a cape and a slouch hat, however.

Chris

Hi Chris,

Thanks for correcting it. I always end up thinking his name is Fernandina which is easier to recall than Ferrandini. The reality of the plot is up in the air, but it is the only so-called plot of any substance between "Mad Dick" Lawrence and Booth. By the way, my favorite cartoon of Lincoln in this affair showed him opening a luggage car door on the train to get down, wearing (I think) the Scotch cap disguise, and being scared by a cat!

You are forgetting one thing about the "popular sentiment" in Baltimore. It and the tragedy of that April 19th riot led to Maryland getting it's state song - I believe the only state song based on an anti-Federal Government incident: "Maryland My Maryland". Read the original lyrics and it is an invocation to the memory of the Southern martyrs who got killed, whose blood "flecked the streets of Baltimore"!

I don't know if they ever put an actual monument up at that site on Pratt Street.


Jeff

[sdreid]

Hi all,

Thanks for adding to my knowledge on this topic.

WOW! We can say Dick in here now.

[celee]

Hi all,

I am far from an expert on the Lincoln assasination. However I have seen a few progams on the subject.

First, they hung four people three men an a woman So I guess there was a conspiracy to kill the president. Booth was not action alone.

At first I believe that the north thought that Jefferson Davis had something the to do with the plot against the president. I believe that they set out to prove Jefferson Davis's involvement along with a group of southern suporters that were based in Canada. However they could not prove their case.

Interesting that Tumblety was arrested, do to a mistaken identity, and later let go. I wonder given Tumblety's canadian connections and Fenian involvement, how things might have been different if the North had known what we later would discover about Tumblety.

Your friend, Brad