The Book Being Reviewed Is Called American Brutus

Michael W. Kauffman © Abraham Lincoln Online

MICHAEL W. KAUFFMAN, Bump-off DETECTIVE Part I: Looking Through Booth'southward Optics In 2002 we boarded a bus at the Surratt House Museum for a John Wilkes Booth Escape Road Bout, which traces Booth's journeying after he shot Abraham Lincoln on April xiv, 1865. We traveled to Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., across southern Maryland, and into Virginia where Berth was killed. All day long the tour guide, Michael Westward. Kauffman, revealed new insights most Lincoln, Booth, the conspirators, and every imaginable connexion to them. His commentary proved and so compelling we idea y'all would bask a sense of taste of it. We call him a detective because his methods resemble Sherlock Holmes, the fictional sleuth. The remarks here are from a September 2007 interview. Part I of our interview covers Kauffman's research for his book on Booth. In Part II: Walking in Berth'due south Shoes he relates dramatic personal experiences: rowing the Potomac River, jumping to the Ford'southward Theatre stage, and firing a tobacco barn. A curt question-and-answer section completes Role Two.

In 2004 Kauffman published a book on the assassination chosen American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies. This business relationship of Abraham Lincoln'southward murder and his killer reads like a fictional thriller, but rests on a stunning amount of original sources and enquiry. Like Sherlock Holmes, Kauffman ably observes, collects, analyzes, and compiles his findings. We pic him nodding in agreement when Holmes says, "It is a upper-case letter fault to theorize earlier one has information. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts," and "the gravest issues may depend upon the smallest things." Editor's Note: Since this interview, Kauffman published In the Footsteps of an Assassinator in 2012, which details the route Booth took through Maryland and Virginia.

Kauffman: I've been interested in the Civil State of war for as long every bit I tin remember. My father was stationed at Quantico and we lived near Fredericksburg, Virginia, about the time of the Ceremonious State of war Centennial. I was very young, and for me, history was all almost going to the park. It was fun, and a chance to be with my family. There was no sense of having to memorize dates and troop positions and all that.

I evolved from studying the Civil State of war to Lincoln. Information technology's natural for most people to focus on personalities -- they are something anyone tin can sympathise. Subsequently the Kennedy assassination I realized what just happened had happened before. This led me into the Lincoln assassination. By the mid-sixties I was pretty well hooked on it and stayed with information technology.

For me the big question was always "why?" I read everything I could get on the bailiwick, and it bothered me that and then many writers were willing to settle for an explanation based on weak assumptions or unchecked information. One author, for example, claimed that Booth was avenging the execution of his friend John Yates Beall. As the story goes, Booth and Beall had been classmates at the University of Virginia, and when Beall was condemned to decease for piracy on Lake Erie, Booth pleaded with President Lincoln to commute his judgement. Lincoln supposedly promised, then let the execution continue anyway.

Of class, that'south all nonsense. Booth never attended the University of Virginia, and at that place's no bear witness that he personally knew Beall. A long line of celebrities pleaded for charity, but none of the papers mentioned Booth. And more than of import, Booth doesn't seem to have mentioned Beall'southward instance to any of his friends. The story is completely unsupportable, simply that didn't stop people from publishing information technology as fact. And I'm pitiful to say, that's typical.

Somewhen I became convinced there was no way to explain what happened and why without looking through Booth's eyes, using his own words and deportment. He knew his ain motives, and unless he was controlled by some outward force, which is very doubtful, he would certainly take left some clues. In fact, he left them all over the place.

It was never very satisfying to read that this grouping or that was proslavery and therefore they had Lincoln killed. Like the Beall story, the connectedness with Booth had to be made or assumed. That's why information technology makes sense to focus on the assassin himself, and let him tell the story. And he did attempt to explicate the assassination. Every bit we know, he shouted Sic Semper Tyrannus (thus always to tyrants) after the shooting, but many people accept taken those words equally the ravings of a lunatic.

Maybe, instead, they should have asked why Booth would think Lincoln was a tyrant. Information technology seemed the but way to approach this was to get into Booth's personal background -- learn where he grew up and what people around him were saying, and hopefully figure out why they would say such things. It became an interesting exercise considering I had a lot of problems with Berth from the very beginning.

"He didn't sound like a stereotypical lunatic"

On one hand, at that place were generations of people who said, "Well, he must have been insane." The insanity caption wasn't satisfying considering of how insanity is defined now and how it was defined and so. It just didn't fit. Booth was so purposeful in how he built this conspiracy and what he did to gear up it upward that he didn't sound like a stereotypical lunatic. So I wondered how I would explain a person to the public when I couldn't explain him to myself.

Some sources referred to him a failed histrion, an ardent Southerner, and even "half crazed." Yet when you return to his own time before the assassination you read what a great guy he was and how successful he was. Booth had strong political views, and apparently they weren't all that apparent until he shot the president. Otherwise it's difficult to imagine why Julia Ward Howe and other Northerners would have felt such a deep affection for him.

The fox was to figure out whether his views were irrational, or only a natural product of his surroundings. I had to put myself in his shoes, finding out where he was from one day to the next, and what sort of political messages were being discussed in those places. It wasn't difficult but information technology was tedious. He was a famous histrion, so when he showed up in Columbus or Detroit or New Orleans, it was in the newspapers.

"I thought I would finish a book in a year or so"

At that place's a man named Art Loux who now lives in Kansas, and he and I and Constance Head were all going the aforementioned direction with this in the early eighties. Simply Art took his work a stride farther. He followed the railroad line from Leavenworth, Kansas, to St. Joseph, Missouri, because that's where Booth went. He really went the extra mile, and eventually he published a thick book on Booth'south activities almost every 24-hour interval of his career. That was a marvelous reference for me.

Similar most of the researchers I've known, Art is someone most Lincoln scholars don't know about. He doesn't seem too intent on changing that. He's retired and has much to look dorsum upon and be proud of and I certainly thank him for his contributions. When you network with people like this yous can build on their work. You take his pair of eyes, another person'southward pair of optics, and tin can cover more a lot more ground. When I moved to this surface area in 1974, I fell in with a whole network of serious researchers, and very few of them have e'er published. But I came here to do just that, and I thought I would finish a book in a year or so. My volume actually came out exactly thirty years from the 24-hour interval I arrived in Washington.

At that place was much more to research than I ever imagined. If you go the National Athenaeum and await at the Treasury Department records, for example, you'll see a list of their records, and it'south not difficult to imagine which of them might figure into this story. And then there's the Land Department files and plenty of others. These records may not have been used before in an bump-off study. Fifty-fifty the War Department records, with their Continental Commands, in April 1865 showed telegrams and messages passing from i Washington fort to another, or from a pursuit party looking for Booth, and messages sent back by courier. I don't know that anyone has ever used those, only they're very important.

Now I would say these sources are kind of a baseline; if you haven't seen them yous really demand to keep going. It may exist a lot of extra work, but it'due south fascinating work, and the records help give a amend sense of the times. They also fill in some blanks. For case, I wanted to write something about how Full general Grant heard of the assassination. I found enough of newspaper and magazine articles written over the years, only they all contradicted 1 another. Information technology'southward amazing how many people claimed they told Grant, all in different ways.

Full general Grant © Abraham Lincoln Online

"I would have to notice a better manner of resolving contradictions" The original records did not clear up the issue, but they did add some details. Grant was in Philadelphia when the news reached him, and he decided to have his married woman across the river to New Bailiwick of jersey anyway. That was their home, by the way; they weren't but going at that place to visit their children. But the general came straight back to Washington from there, and to flesh out the details of that trip, I checked the Provost Marshal'due south files from the cities along the way. When Grant'southward railroad train stopped at Wilmington, for example, he sent a telegram ahead ordering security arrangements through Maryland. It was very heady to run across messages like that, which hadn't appeared in an assassination book before. At that place are thousands of them in the Athenaeum, and they show the tension and chaos of the time like nothing else can. Although those kinds of sources didn't resolve every upshot, they helped a lot with my hour-by-hour approach. Equally for the identity of the man who broke the news to Grant, I simply gave upward and used the most colorful character amidst the claimants. I also explained that his was merely one of several stories out there.

I was convinced long ago, at least for 25 years, that I would have to find a reliable way of resolving contradictions. The style it came most was embarrassing. At the time I was a telly cameraman and saw someone shot and killed correct in forepart of me. I was recording information technology and took the tape back to the station saying, "You're non going to believe what happened."

I started spewing out my business relationship of the crime scene. They put the tape in the VCR and my photographic camera completely disagreed! I was puzzled because I wasn't making annihilation upwards. To this mean solar day, I know what I remembered and that'southward not what was on the videotape. I started looking for a way to explain it. I had worked in the FBI Academy in the seventies, and they had a number of courses on bug with bystander testimony. I attended and videotaped some of those sessions, but I didn't really call up of it in terms of history.

My embarrassing incident changed that. I started reading about eyewitness testimony and found a number of books that lawyers employ to effort and selection apart people on the witness stand. Information technology was fascinating. It'southward an entirely divide earth from what the public gets now, especially in the historic period of 24-hour news. Now reporters try to grab something apace, saying, "You saw what happened. What happened?" That'southward what goes on tape, regardless of its merits. With historical events, the accounts distill out over the course of many years, and writers requite them all the same weight.

Just eyewitness experts, relying on brain studies and experimentation, have proved that retentiveness is simply accurate for a curt period of time, and they're easily contaminated by other accounts. So, to counter that issue, I had to depend on the earliest accounts I could find.

There was just one problem. In 1865 people did non write down the small things, such as the color of the wallpaper, or the things that were too obvious to mention at the time. I had to get that information from later sources. It didn't always feel correct, but oft it was the merely manner to flesh out the story. Every bit a compromise, I developed a sliding scale of importance. Trivia didn't matter so much, simply if I were accusing somebody, or relying on information as "show" of great historical value, information technology had to go through all kinds of tests.

That worked fairly well. The retention studies were a touchstone to my whole approach. It was important not merely to get the earliest sources available, but to determine their quality likewise. People ordinarily exaggerated when they told the story years later on the fact. Only right from the beginning, some people put themselves in the middle of things, making themselves more heroic or more than deserving of reward coin. Mayhap they're looking for money or attention, or mayhap remember that helping the authorities is just something that every good citizen does. So I had to think about the circumstances behind every argument, and the background of the person making the statement. I couldn't do that without researching those people, and that in itself was an eye-opening experience.

"I knew nothing well-nigh databases or computers"

I took the records from the National Archives -- the prosecution'southward records, the original conspiracy trial testimony -- and using only that, put information technology into a database. I knew nothing near databases or computers. The salesman who sold me my first computer said, "If you live to be 100, you lot will never use all 20 megabytes on this hard drive." In hindsight I'k thankful I started out that stupid.

I worked from microfilm, which I bought when it was still affordable. It was only $3 a reel and so and it's something like $68 now. I started this when I was in my early teens. I fifty-fifty nerveless cdv's and related things when ordinary folks could beget them.

At the fourth dimension I was frustrated with my data collection process because it was and then unprofessional. Fifty-fifty now a database ambassador would look at what I've washed and gyre his eyes, thinking of all the wasted time. Just that extra try, that extra typing, is what paid off. I messed up so many times, and each time I had to first over. If I had just typed those records once I might have missed a lot. But every time I had to start over, I came at information technology with a different perspective. On the second or 3rd pass I would know that I had seen this issue a few times before, merely had failed to make notation of information technology the first fourth dimension around. And so my perception evolved over time, and some small very things eventually get more of import.

The database was centered around events. I set up a separate field for the location of the source document -- reel and frame, for case. And so another field would give the time of the outcome it described. Another one told who provided the information, and another gave the location of the event. I gear up upwards some other field for the date that this supposedly happened, and a separate one for the date this was reported. Finally, I added an index for the whole file. From all that, I could have the computer brand a chronological readout of the investigation simply by listing every event, sorted past the date of the reports. This allowed me to effigy out what people knew at a certain time and what was nevertheless in the future. That turned out to be the outline of my book.

It was very of import to keep everything in context and non look ahead, to attain a sense of immediacy. There accept been so many conspiracy theories which asked, "Why didn't they do that?" The respond is usually that people in 1865 couldn't encounter that broadly, and they certainly couldn't look ahead. They couldn't conceptualize things we have for granted now, such every bit sealing off the roads from Washington instantly when Booth fled from the murder scene. They not only lacked effective communications, only they were confused and in shock. This comes through very clearly in the chronology.

Edwin Stanton Library of Congress

"That was the moment when he knew this was a conspiracy" Take the instance of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, for example. I tried to slice together a chronology of how he learned about the bump-off and what he did in response. This is of import considering people accept blamed him for lapses and delays in the pursuit of Booth. For 1 thing, he didn't even go directly to Ford's Theatre when he heard the news. Though the database didn't solve that mystery, other main sources did. Two men were passing in front end of Ford's Theatre when they saw people pouring out of the place shouting, "The president's been shot." One of those men was from Steubenville, Ohio, and he knew Stanton'due south son. So the Secretary was on his mind, and he thought someone should break the news to him. The two ran eight blocks to Stanton's business firm, which has to take time. The Secretary had already gone to bed by the time they arrived, and information technology took more time for him to become dressed.

By April of 1865 Stanton had heard more than his share of wild rumors -- outlandish stories, some of which were deliberately planted to cause panic -- then he assumed this was another one of those. But before he left his business firm, along came Major Norton Chipman, a State of war Section attorney, with news that Secretary of State William Seward had been attacked. Stanton, weighing the 2, must accept thought, "Here's a near-stranger telling me that Lincoln's been shot, and here'south the caption -- information technology's really Seward instead. Major Chipman had actually been to Seward's business firm, and had seen the carnage with his own eyes.

It's only when he gets in that location that he finds out that both men accept been attacked. That was the moment when he knew this was a conspiracy. Imagine the emotions he must accept been going through. Two heads of regime have been attacked -- mayhap more -- and he could be targeted besides. Are Amalgamated raiders going to come charging into the metropolis? The sense of terror must have been overwhelming.

You can read a little of that in Gideon Welles' diary. Welles saw Stanton at the Seward house, and when they learned of the shooting in Ford's, he insisted they go there. He figuratively gave Stanton a shove out the door. That mental paralysis, on Stanton'due south part, was perfectly natural, under the circumstances, and information technology wore away pretty apace.

President Lincoln had been carried to the Petersen House, across from the theatre, and when Stanton arrived there he took command of the situation. But it took time. His initial stumbling is evident in the offset messages he sent from there. It'due south as if Stanton thought, "Exercise I really desire to say who the murderer is when I'chiliad not 100% certain?" People came to him proverb information technology was someone who looked like Booth, but this was an enormous crime, and most people were hesitant to accuse him betoken-blank. They were sure near information technology afterward, but not during those offset hours, and Stanton also had some trepidation.

It'southward clear that Stanton pulled things together, but it took time -- maybe a couple of hours. His first message had a few false starts, with lots of words crossed out. Apparently he was unsure of how to say things and didn't know how much fourth dimension he could put into the effort. Just a courier ran his message over to the State of war Department, and the telegraph operators cleaned it up. They turned information technology into a work of literary art.

Stanton, inadvertently, also may have created the inverted pyramid style of journalism. Information technology looked as if he figured initially, "I'yard but going to dash off a quick sentence or two, maybe a paragraph, to tell what happened." So he put the important data in that paragraph and then added something of slightly less importance. As he kept on going the data became progessively less vital. That style of reporting became standard do in the news business, and remained so for many years.

"In some ways it'south already stranger than fiction"

When you lot try and go into the caput of someone, you tin see things in a whole new light. By focusing specifically on Stanton'due south beliefs, and then on Booth's, and then on, I realized how much the human chemical element drove the story. Novelists practice this sort of thing all the time, only writers of non-fiction are usually too busy looking across the characters.

The story of the plot and assassination has got absolutely everything -- people, ability, intrigue, and deception. So it'due south a chip annoying when writers alter things around to arrive more heady. Information technology doesn't need that. In some ways information technology'due south already stranger than fiction. It'due south got such a dandy cast of characters. There's Boston Corbett [Booth's killer], Detective Lafayette Bakery, and an enormous number of others. Booth and his loftier-guild friends were all fascinating, and of grade Abraham Lincoln and his own circle represented the acme of ability at the time. The conspirators and the detectives all manipulated one some other, and all had something to proceeds or lose. With all that, why tinker with the truth?

I was concerned I might not practice the story justice. I had spent decades studying perception and memory, so I had a good idea how to sift through the show. But I was not then confident in my writing. I got some good advice, though. But stated: History is about people, the interactions of people. Accept on the function of one person at a fourth dimension and follow upward the story from beginning to end, and then repeat equally necessary for each character.

It was necessary to consider each relationship at each step in the story. For example, when John Wilkes Berth met Sam Arnold in 1864, I imagined what was going through his mind. What did he remember most Arnold? What did he know almost him? Did he trust him? Fright him? How could he get Arnold to exercise something for him? Unconsciously, Booth would probably ask those questions again with every change in circumstances. Knowing that, I keyed on everything that might have affected those relationships and re-examined the story with every new development.

That changed everything; it absolutely changed the whole story. At present it isn't enough to say that Booth and Arnold trusted one another. I have to exist specific about the engagement. They may have trusted 1 another on March xiv, but by March 16 they had gone through a falling-out, and fabricated each other extremely nervous. That distinction is crucial in figuring out their behavior from one day to the next.

"It was possible to encounter how the plot worked"

So permit'south stay with Berth and Arnold for a minute. We know that they knew each other, simply it'south of import to figure out what they knew nearly each other in 1864. Past then they had not seen one other in 11 years. They had inverse remarkably in the concurrently, and when they got together that summer, they would naturally hash out the intervening years. The war was nonetheless in progress, and information technology wouldn't take long to get a good sense of where their sympathies came together. From then on, we have to continue revising the relationship. Then I asked my database to requite me everything Arnold did with Booth in chronological order, then give me everything Arnold did with this other person, and this other 1. And and then on. If Arnold began hanging out with people Berth didn't trust, it afflicted the trust betwixt them equally well. By examining all of these individual threads it was possible to come across how the plot worked.

In this fashion I could find out what Booth knew at whatsoever given time, and I could also get a skillful sense of how often he lied about what he knew. In tardily 1864 he was already deceiving people about his connections and his whereabouts. Later on it became articulate that he was also lying about his intentions -- lying, that is, to his own people. He'southward building a conspiracy for his own reasons, and by early 1865 the political situation had changed and those reasons no longer made sense.

It's not hard to figure out why Booth lied. He wasn't just hiding his plot from the authorities. He was also tailoring his recruiting pitch to requite himself legitimacy in the optics of his cohorts. This selective withholding, releasing, and misdirecting of information had a definite purpose, and sometimes it compromised the prophylactic of people who posed a threat to Booth'due south plot. Berth himself called it "cede," and since it was directed at people he could not trust, it had the most devastating consequence on those who least deserved it. It was all very cold-blooded.

Somewhere along the line, his plan to "capture" the president had lost its amuse for him, merely he could hardly but allow go of the men with whom he had conspired. They knew also much. And then he pretended to keep their scheme alive, while making no endeavor to comport it out.

Sam Arnold somewhen called him on it, and pointed out that there was no longer any reason to pursue the conspiracy. Booth had always claimed that his goal was to capture the president, and property him as a hostage, forcefulness his administration to exchange POWs. But as Arnold pointed out in March, the authorities had already resumed the exchange on its ain volition. And then why were they still together, plotting in cloak-and-dagger? What were they supposed to reach? All of a sudden it became articulate that this wasn't a capture plot at all, and at that moment all the relationships changed. Some of the conspirators were scared to death, and they ran for their lives to get away from Berth. Within hours, others moved up in the pecking order. Frankly, they were too stupid to go away.

John Wilkes Booth Library of Congress

"Yous're not trying people for what they did but for what Berth did to them" I never quite figured out Booth'south original intention because he kept it to himself. But given his lifelong interest in and so-called "martyrs to freedom" -- what his classical educational activity taught him, what his father had left to him, the historical outlook he had -- these sources all spoke most killing. Nobody ever wrote about kidnapping Caesar. And then his mindset was actually about ridding the land of a tyrant, not just using him as a bargaining chip. Simply meanwhile, he's pushing a completely dissimilar plan, and it doesn't make sense. Even some of the conspirators idea it was bizarre. At their trial, they tried to argue, "No, no, what we did was entirely separate from the killing." That was an honest merits for some of them. Merely Booth was a very persuasive person, and he had them believing, for a time, that they could pull off the capture of the president. Fifty-fifty if they were skeptical, people were afraid to cross him, especially actors. He was very powerful in their profession.

The role player Sam Chester didn't want any part of Booth'due south plot, but he too didn't desire to come forrard and say, "This guy is dangerous." John Mathews was a rookie in the business concern, and he was even more intimidated. When Berth told him about the plot, Mathews reeled back, saying, "I tin't have anything to do with that." From then on, yous tin can see Booth edifice a strong evidentiary instance against Mathews to make information technology look equally if actually he was involved. He did the same thing to Chester and whatsoever number of people. Some of those people had joined the plot, some knew nix well-nigh it. All they had in mutual was that Booth didn't trust them.

Amazingly, this wasn't clear until I was almost finished with the volume. I got to the trial of the conspirators and expected to say, "Viii people were put on trial and four were hanged," and go out it at that. But in reviewing the transcripts again I noticed a statement by ane of the defense attorneys. In essence, he said, "You lot're not trying these people for what they did, only for what Booth did to them."

"Information technology seemed to explain the different things Booth wanted people to believe"

After that, I reread the whole trial transcript and saw the case in an entirely different low-cal. For the first time, I realized how much of the story was affected past the rules of evidence. I also realized that, from the attorneys' betoken of view, the entire trial was dominated by a single issue: whether the defendants should be allowed to give their own side of the story. Criminal courts -- both civilian and military -- did not allow a defendant to evidence on his own behalf. Only as the prosecution laid out its case, the defendant began to realize how much Booth had depended on that rule. He had created false impressions that only they could refute. He had joined them in harmless conversations that now seemed sinister in low-cal of later events. The government had more than enough witnesses to tell nigh those events. And as everyone knew, the defense was powerless to explicate them away.

Information technology's not like they didn't try, but the prosecution stomped them downwards at every turn. They had a huge reward, and weren't about to give it up. And so, reading their arguments, it occurred to me that "defendant declarations" was a life-or-death issue for the prisoners. That was like a light bulb coming on. All the lies and manipulation of a sudden made sense. If Booth could create an air of intimacy with someone, he stood a good take a chance of keeping them repose. Suspects can't be witnesses.

It's of import to note that this rule wasn't an obscure technicality. In 1865 everybody knew that the words of a defendant could only exist introduced by the government. If information technology were any other mode, a criminal might build a whole nest of lies simply by passing them along to unsuspecting, honest people. But suspects didn't fall into that category. Their words were automatically viewed with skepticism -- unless, of class, they were useful to the prosecution.

Nowadays information technology's chosen a "argument against involvement." A doubtable'due south words have a lot more force if they tend to bear witness his guilt. He obviously wouldn't make that kind of thing up. If he had told someone, "I'm going to New York," and was accused of killing someone in Manhattan that night, a prosecutor could bring in that witness to advise that the defendant was at or near the scene of the crime. On the other hand, if the murder had taken place in Richmond, the defendant would not be allowed to introduce the same witness to say, "No, he was in New York -- he told me so."

That's how it worked, and it seemed to explain why Booth spread so much disinformation about himself and the people he didn't trust. He practically handed those people to the regime, only people similar Powell and Herold -- he never mentioned them.

Louis Weichmann, who boarded with Mrs. Surratt, starting nosing around asking a lot of questions, I don't think he ever learned the truth, and I don't think he was office of the plot. Still, the evidence confronting him was overwhelming. There was a unproblematic reason for that: Berth didn't trust him, nor did John or Mary Surratt. Plainly he was considered a serious threat, so when Booth or John Surratt went somewhere they would drag Weichmann along. Then they would have him aside for a few words. What they said was perfectly innocuous, only there were all these witnesses in the room saying, "Oh, the iii of them went off to themselves in the corner."

That put Weichmann in a very difficult position. He tried to say, "No, no, that's not the fashion it was," only the pressure was immense. He had no idea, but the prosecution knew he was telling the truth. On the night of the assassination Colonel Timothy Ingraham, Provost Align of the Defenses North of the Potomac, sent a team of men to search Booth's room at the National Hotel. They went through his trunk and took what seemed to exist relevant, leaving the rest. 1 of the items they took was a letter written to Weichmann by his priest and confidant. The letter, which referred to Weichmann'due south confusion near what was going on, had been intercepted and turned over to Booth.

For a long time I looked for the lieutenant who led the room search. I knew he was from Philadelphia, simply that was near it. Back in the eighties I was giving a talk there, and Mike Cavanaugh was driving me around. He asked if I knew near the G.A.R. Museum, and said that they had the handcuffs that were found in Booth'south hotel room. I already knew that Lt. William H. Tyrrell had asked Stanton if he could keep them every bit a souvenir, and Stanton agreed. And then I was thrilled to come across the proper name Tyrrell connected to those cuffs at the museum. I don't know what happened to Berth's trunk. Like so many things, such as Lewis Powell's bloodstained clothing, they have "walked away" over the years. Mayhap they'll turn up someday.

Click here for Office Ii: Walking in Booth's Shoes

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