Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 91

 From bigxc@prairienet.orgTue Feb 14 07:41:37 1995

Date: Sun, 12 Feb 95 11:38:17 CST

From: Brian Redman <bigxc@prairienet.org>

To: Multiple recipients of list <conspire@prairienet.org>

Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 91

              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3  Num. 91

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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")

 

 

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ESCAPE AND SUICIDE OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH

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The following, based largely on information to be found in the 

book *Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth*, by attorney Finis 

L. Bates of Memphis, Tennessee (Memphis: Pilcher Printing Co., 

1907), was originally posted in Conspiracy for the Day, December 

14 and 15, 1993.

 

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I have long hesitated to give to the world the true story of the 

plot first to kidnap and finally assassinate President Lincoln by 

John Wilkes Booth and others, as related to me in 1872, and at 

other times thereafter, by one then known to me as John St. 

Helen, but in truth and in fact, as afterward developed, John 

Wilkes Booth himself, in person telling this story more than 

seven years after the assassination of President Lincoln, and the 

supposed killing of Booth at the Garret home, in Virginia. Far 

removed from the scene of his crime, he told me the tale of his 

dastardly deed at Grandberry, Hood county, Texas, a then 

comparative frontier town of the great Western empire of these 

American States.

 

This story I could not accept as fact without investigation, 

believing, as the world believed, that John Wilkes Booth had been 

killed at the Garret home in Virginia on or about the 26th day of 

April, 1865, by one Boston Corbett, connected with the Federal 

troops in pursuit of him, after he (Booth) had been passed 

through the Federal military lines which formed a complete cordon 

surrounding the city of Washington, D.C., on the night of and 

after the assassination of President Lincoln. But after many 

years of painstaking and exhaustive investigation, I am now 

unwillingly, and yet unanswerably, convinced that it is a fact 

that Booth was not killed, but made good his escape by the 

assistance of some of the officers of the Federal Army and 

government of the United States, located at Washington -- 

traitors to President Lincoln, in whose keeping was his life -- 

co-operating with Capt. Jett and Lieuts. Ruggles and Bainbridge, 

of the Confederate troops, belonging to the command of Col. J.S. 

Mosby, encamped at Bowling Green, Virginia. And the correctness 

of these statements, as well as to my convictions, the readers of 

this story must witness for or against the conclusion reached, 

for it is to the American people that I appeal that they shall 

hear the unalterable facts to the end that they may bear 

testimony with me to the civilized world that the death of 

America's martyred President, Lincoln, was not avenged, as we 

have been persuaded to believe, and that it remained the pleasure 

of the assassin to take his own life as how and when it best 

pleased him, conscious of his great individual crime and the 

nation's loss by the death of President Lincoln, the commission 

of which crime takes rank among the epochs of time equaled only 

by the crucifixion of Christ and the assassination of Caesar; in 

the contemplation of which the physical man chills with indignant 

emotions and the cold blood coursing his viens [sic] makes numb 

the fingers recording the crime that laid President Lincoln in 

the silent halls of death and made Tad fatherless. But the truth 

will be told, if needs be, with tremors and palsied hands, in the 

triumph of right and the exposure of the guilty ones whose crimes 

blacken history's page and to associate their names through all 

coming centuries with Brutus, Marc Antony and Judas Iscariot, if 

they are to be condemned in the story that is to be told.

 

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Author Finis L. Bates (see part 1 of today's CfD) relates in his 

book how he notified what was then still known as the War 

Department (now known as the "Defense" Department) as to his 

knowledge that John Wilkes Booth might still be alive. Bear in 

mind that the government had never paid the thousands of dollars 

in reward money for the capture of Booth. The government had 

maintained that there had never been an absolutely positive ID of 

the person shot at the Garret home in 1865, purportedly John 

Wilkes Booth. What follows is the correspondence between Bates 

and the War Department.

 

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Law Office of F.L. Bates

297 Second Street

Memphis, Tenn., January 17th, 1898.

 

Secretary of War, Washington, D.C.

 

Dear Sir:

Would it be a matter of any importance to develop the fact to the 

War Department of the United States that John Wilkes Booth, the 

assassin of President Lincoln, was not captured and killed by the 

Federal troops, as is supposed?

 

By accident I have been placed in possession of such facts as are 

conclusive that John Wilkes Booth now lives, and have kept the 

matter from publication until I have communicated with the War 

Department of this government. Very truly yours, F.L. Bates

 

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[Bates notes "In reply the following endorsements were made on 

this letter and returned to me, viz.:"]

 

[First endorsement]

Office of the Secretary of War Department

January 19th, 1898

(294) Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 17th, 1898.

F.L. Bates says that he is in possession of such facts as are 

conuclusive [sic] that John Wilkes Booth was not captured and 

killed by the Federal troops, and asks if War Department would 

consider the matter of enough importance to develop that fact.

                       JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL

 

[Second endorsement]

(3808) War Department

Judge Advocate General's Office

Washington, D.C.

January 21st, 1898.

   Respectfully returned to the Secretary of War.

   This is a request by F.L. Bates, of Memphis, Tenn., for 

imformation as to whether it would be a matter of importance to 

develop the fact to the War Department that John Wilkes Booth was 

not captured and killed by the Federal troops.

   He says that by accident he has recently been placed in 

possession of such facts as are conclusive.

   It is recommended that he be informed that the matter is of no 

importance to the War Department.

                       (Signed) G. NORMAN LIEBER

                       Judge Advocate General

Received back War Department January 22d, 1898.

(294) Assistant Secretary (L.S.S.)

 

[Third endorsement]

War Department

January 25th, 1898.

   Respectfully returned to Mr. F.L. Bates, No. 272 Second 

street, Memphis, Tenn., inviting attention to the foregoing 

report of the Judge Advocate General of the Army.

                       (Signed) G.D. MICKLEJOHN

                       Acting Secretary of War

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"The Wave" is and/or was an Oklahoma newspaper circa 1903. The 

following are clippings from "The Wave" taken from *Escape and 

Suicide of John Wilkes Booth*, by Finis L. Bates. [Memphis: 

Pilcher Printing Company, 1907.]

 

 

Enid Wave: Enid, Oklahoma Territory, January 17th, 1903

(Special) -- David E. George, a wealthy resident of the 

Territory, who committed suicide here, announced himself on his 

deathbed to be John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President 

Lincoln.

 

He stated that he had successfully eluded the officers after 

shooting Lincoln and since he had remained incognito. His 

statement caused a sensation, and an investigation was made. 

Surgeons examined the body and stated the man to be of the age 

Booth would be at this time, and announced that his leg was 

broken in the same place and in the same manner as that of Booth 

after jumping from the President's box at Ford's V6eater after 

the assassination. All the time George has received money 

regularly from unknown sources, and telegrams arriving yesterday 

and today ask that the body be held for identification. It is 

claimed that one telegram came from the address, George E. Smith, 

Colfax, Iowa, the same as the mysterious money remittances. Smith 

is unknown to anyone in Oklahoma. Upon his arrival in Enid today 

he commanded that no other person be allowed to view the remains, 

and promised to return for the body later.

 

Mr. Smith was asked if George had ever confessed any of his 

life's history to him, to which he answered: "Well, yes, to some 

extent. He has had a past of which I do not care to speak at the 

present. I think he killed a man in Texas. He may be Booth."

George committed suicide in the Grand Avenue Hotel, taking 

poison. He previously attempted suicide at El Reno. A letter 

found in his pocket addressed, "To Whom It May Concern," sets 

aside a former will which he made, although its contents are not 

known. He was worth about thirty thousand dollars, owning 

property in El Reno, Oklahoma; in Dallas, Texas, and a lease on 

six hundred acres in the Indian Territory. He carried $5,000.00 

insurance.

 

No reason for the suicide is known. George maintained on his 

death bed to his attendants that he was John Wilkes Booth, and 

his general appearance closely resembles that of the murderer of 

Lincoln.

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Enid, Oklahoma, January 21st, 1903 -- The Wave's editorial and 

reportorial force have been searching closely for data and 

evidence to sustain or obliterate the report that the remains 

lying in the Enid morgue, under the name of David E. George, 

could possibly be those of J. Wilkes Booth, who assassinated 

Abraham Lincoln nearly thirty-eight years ago. All the history or 

account of that sad and terrible affair to be found in the city 

has been searched, and while the history at hand leaves but 

little doubt of the decease of Booth in attempting to escape from 

the burning barn in Virginia, that he was shot by Boston Corbett 

upon his first appearance from the barn, and that he died on the 

porch of Garrett's Virginia farm home, was taken to Washington, 

identified and buried secretly, that a diary was found on his 

person, etc., yet the fact still remains that a doubt did exist 

with the government as to the positive identity of the man 

killed; hence the reward for his capture was never paid, for the 

identity was not clear. The Wave is still of the opinion that the 

possibility of the dead man being all that is mortal of John 

Wilkes Booth remains in doubt, but it must be admitted that the 

evidence goes to show that if George was not Booth he was his 

double, which, in connection with his voluntary confession to 

Mrs. Harper, makes the case interesting and worthy the attention 

of the Attorney General's department of the United States.

 

Doctors Baker and Way unearthed the December, 1901, number of the 

Medical Monthly Journal in their office, which number was almost 

wholly devoted to the consideration of the murderers of the 

Presidents of the United States [CfD -- Then, officially, 

Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley had been assassinated] and 

European potentates. In this pamphlet we found a portrait of J. 

Wilkes Booth, with quite a writeup as to his character, a 

physical and anatomical description among other descriptions. It 

said the forehead of J. Wilkes Booth was Kephalonard, the ears 

excessively and abnormally developed, inclined to the so-called 

Satanic type; the eyes were small, sunken and unequally placed; 

the nose was normal; the facial bones and jaw were arrested in 

development, and there was a partial V-shaped dental arch; the 

lower jaw was well developed.

 

Yesterday the editor of the paper, in company with Dr. McElreth, 

visited the corpse and compared it with the above description of 

Booth, and we must acknowledge that the dead man shows all the 

marks credited to Booth above in every particular. The satanic 

ear is not much larger than the ordinary ear, but the lower lobe 

thereof clings close to the side of the head instead of 

projecting outward like the common or ordinary ear. The corpse 

has that kind of an ear. The eyebrows of the dead man are not 

mates in appearance, which fits the description of Booth. The 

Booth chin, mouth, upper lip and general description is 

absolutely perfect in the corpse.

 

The Wave has been searching for a fac-simile of Booth's 

handwriting. It was found today in a copy of Harper Brothers' 

Pictorial History of the Civil War, and we were startled when we 

compared it with the round, little, scrawly boy writing of D.E. 

George. We placed the very last words George wrote by the side of 

the fac-simile writing of Booth, and it really seemed to us that 

one and the same man had written both, Booth's fac-simile 

signature shown in Harper's Pictorial History indicated the same 

irregular handwriting as George's.

 

History readers will remember that a supposed attempt was made to 

poison President Lincoln in a hotel in Meadeville, Pennsylvania, 

in August, 1864. A notice appeared in the window of the hotel, 

saying: "Abe Lincoln departed this life August 1st, 1864, by the 

effects of poison."

 

After the Washington tragedy this handwriting on the window was 

found to be the handwriting of J. Wilkes Booth, and as it 

appeared in Harpers' Pictorial History of the Civil War it is a 

fac-simile of the writing of D.E. George, now supposed to be 

Booth.

 

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The Perry, Oklahoma Republican [Another Oklahoma newspaper]: 

Perry, Oklahoma, June 5th, 1903 -- The Booth Case:

 

It is now fully developed that the man at Enid, who committed 

suicide on January 13th last, was none other than John Wilkes 

Booth, the slayer of President Lincoln. Junius Brutus Booth, the 

nephew of John Wilkes Booth, has fully identified the picture of 

David E. George as that of his uncle, John Wilkes Booth.

 

It has always been known by the Booth family that John Wilkes 

Booth was alive, and they have been in constant communication 

with him ever since April 14th, 1865, the day of President 

Lincoln's assassination and the escape of John Wilkes Booth. This 

knowledge on the part of Junius Brutus Booth, the actor, was what 

prompted him, or his brother Edwin, to make remarks about the 

supposed grave of J. Wilkes Booth. He or they well knew that the 

body in the grave was not that of J. Wilkes Booth.

 

People conversant with the history of the published capture of 

Booth, and with the fact that the reward offered by the Federal 

government for Booth's capture has never been awarded, many 

always believed him to be alive. From the time of Booth's 

supposed capture, in April, 1865, until January of this year, J. 

Wilkes Booth has been in almost constant touch with his friends. 

Being an actor, and also secluded by the wilds of Texas and 

Indian Territory, and through the anxious efforts of friends and 

relatives to preserve his life, it has been an easy matter for 

Booth to conceal his identity. In this he has been as smooth as 

was his disguise as an old colored man moving. [CfD -- Booth is 

reported to have hid in the wagon of an old black man who he had 

persuaded to pretend to be moving. This reportedly occurred soon 

after the assassination of Lincoln, when Booth was being hotly 

pursued by at least some of the Federal forces.] There are no 

records, and never have been, in the Federal archives which go to 

show any positive or direct proof of the death of Booth. There 

has always been a lingering desire in the hearts of the people to 

believe that such was the case, but to the close student of 

affairs a doubt has always existed.

 

At the time of the suicide of George in Enid and his claim to be 

none other than John Wilkes Booth, the Republican stated its 

belief in the confession of the man. All the facts in the case 

have pointed, and do now point, to the truthfulness of his death 

bed statement. For many years George, alias Booth, has been 

furnished funds by his friends.

 

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The Daily Democrat [Another Oklahoma newspaper]: El Reno, 

Oklahoma Territory, June 3rd, 1903 -- From the evidence at hand 

there is no doubt that the man who died at Enid last January, and 

who was supposed by some to be John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of 

President Lincoln, was really that man, he having been identified 

by many who knew John Wilkes Booth before the war, during the war 

and since that time.

 

After the death of the man certain papers found on his person led 

to the opinion that he was the fugitive assassin supposed to have 

been killed thirty-three years ago, and the body was embalmed to 

await a thorough investigation. It has been in an undertaking 

house here ever since, and all possible efforts have been made to 

verify the remarkable claim made by the dead man's lawyer, who 

came from Memphis, Tennessee, and asserted that his client was 

none other than the slayer of President Lincoln.

 

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch: St. Louis, Mo., June 3d, 1903 -- A 

special from Enid, Oklahoma says: "Junius Brutus Booth, the 

actor, a nephew of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President 

Lincoln, has fully identified from photographs, etc., the man, 

David E. George, as his uncle, John Wilkes Booth.

 

George, or Booth, committed suicide here January 13th last, and 

in his effects was found a letter directed to F.L. Bates, 

Memphis, Tenn., who came here at once and identified the body as 

that of John Wilkes Booth, and has since secured confirmation of 

his statement that George is in fact Booth.

 

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[CfD -- Finis L. Bates notes that "the foregoing are a few of the 

many comments made in the various publications." *Unsolved 

Mysteries* covered this story. Following are excerpts. Note that 

the person named "Orwellek" (sp?) has been investigating aspects 

of the Lincoln assassination for years.]

 

ORWELLEK: Bates had the body preserved. He took many pictures of 

the body. Eventually, he had the body mummified to preserve it 

for posterity; to prove once and for all that the government had 

fooled us all. And he was not going to allow that cover-up to 

stand.

 

NARRATOR: In 1931, six Chicago physicians examined the mummified 

body of John St. Helen [a.k.a. David E. George, John Wilkes 

Booth]. According to the findings of this affidavit, they 

specifically noted a scarred right eyebrow, a crushed right thumb 

and a broken-limbed leg. John Wilkes Booth is known to have had 

all three of these unusual characteristics.

 

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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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