Evening Star Newspaper, May 17, 1925, Page 75

ILLUSTRATED FEATURES MAGAZINE Part 5—8 Pages SECTION FICTION AND he Sunduy Star WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 17, New Interest in Booth Relics Keeps War De BY GEORGE M. BXTTEY, JK. BALL the National Museum ol e Smithsonian Institution be- come the repository for the John Wilkes Booth™ collection of conspiracy relics, now in- trusted to the care of the Judge Ad. Yocate General in the \War Depart nent? This subject is pressing for a so- fution because of a constantly increas: inz flood of letters from all over the gountry, asking information and per- nission to see the weapons used by the plotters in the Killing of Presi- dent Lincoln at Ford's Blso the serious woundin tary of State Willlam H the night of April 14, 18 The requests have re fhousands of late, through the publi- ation of unauthenticated réporis, widely circulated in newspapers, pam- phlets and otherwise, thai the wrong man was killed May 26. 1865. at the Garrett Farm, near Port Royal, Va and that the real John Wilkes Booth lived to a ripe old age and finally, in 1903, poisoned himself at Enid, Olila., in the guise of David E. George. So persistent have visitors and cor pondents become that the matter a source of much embarrassment the War Department, and the relics © literally a “white elephant” of iderable proportions. There are only a few p the War Department is war itself. Another is curren ri-martials and court-martial re Seward, on ached the things that busier. s, A third is the pursuit of de ers from the Army. Just what fourth is an item of speculation officials it that the John es Booth issue and collateral cf es are a spirited contender the place This is seri 1sly deplored by officia noticeably interferes routine business of a_construc © nature, for which regular appro- ations are made as a lesitimate | v on the taxpayers. Here is anl extra peacetime activity that is not | relished by men the Army, and | Yittle more by civilian employes, who | thrive on bureaucratic grist. The tonic is interesting enough to the most | callous penpusher: but officers and clerks are too studiously engaged with | potemporary duties to be bothered | Blout a man they are convinced was buried 60 years ago. They assert that John Wilkes Booth was properly | Yaid away at the old Arsenal Grounds, | the present site of the Washington Barracks, and in 1869 removed to the *family lot in Greenmount Cemetery. Baltimore, so why resurrect his body This particular skeleton in the War Pepartment closet is one of the livest things record. It keeps indus-| triously stalking about, now and then yattling shinbones and ribs together @nd smiling wickedly through tightly | plenched teeth. Like Banquo's ghost | Bnd the nemesis that so persistently | fhased the fleeing Ichabod Crane, he will not down. The reason is that while the identification of Booth was | kufficient for all practical purposes in 4565, the authorities who handled the | bonspiracy case neglected certain | clinching points which have since as- pumed an exaggerated importance in ghe minds of numerous highly imagi- mative historians and searchers after Eact. # because P HE keystone of the writer's creed | is to reveal the hidden and the lscure. Since the burial of Booth nd many of the circumstances of the 91.day chase were veiled in the mys- fery which quite often characterizes inldom, 4 eonvenient spawning und for dragons’ teeth, born of Avild rumor and suspicion, was pro- wided, and the upshot is that thou- #ands of people throughout the United Etates are asslduously searching for @évery scrap of information on this ab- £ subject. amphlets, or are engaged in writing them. The newspapers are carrying nore items and communications than Bt any time since the distre Eeries of tragedies was enacted. Yibraries report a heavier demand for books on the chase and the trials of the conspirators than for any class of matter except fiction. Exclusive of purely historical and Biographical works on Mr. Lincoln the Library of Congress has approxi- mately 100 books and pamphlets on the subject: vet the visitor who ap pears as the doors swing open at 9 o'clock in the morning can seldom find more than half the volumes he Mants, because others are browsing pu through them after ever-elu Bive facts It is estimated that if the shortest form answers possible were given to @uevies directed to the War Depart- | fnent, the entire fime of several clerks pnd stenographers would be required Bnd if any attempt were made to en- | Jarge the scope of this work. 5o as to Eive the public all it wants. hundreds b1 employes and additional quarters wwould become necessary. So the War Yepartment replies courteously t everybody. without encouraging any- | Yody to continue the quest. It merely | yefers to the printed records and lets §t £o at that. This would be very well, §f the public could be satisfied in that | yay, but it never is, and that is why | the Judge Advocate General's office | has had wished on it duties that are ormally foreign to its nature. The reader invited to consider the ardous researches conducted by Jinis L. Bates, the Memphis lawyer, Who steadfastly and to the day of his pleath, in 1923, maintained that Booth escaped, lived in Texas John St Jielen, and idied a suicide as the house Yainter, David E. George, at Enid Bates investigations proximately 50 years. Fuore strenuous in some years than ®ihers, but they started in 1873 and | gnded in 1923. Bates lived and died if is covered The ap were in 1 convinced that Secretary of War Stan- fon. the man of blood and iron of the Lincoln cabinet, put over on the Amer- fcan people the biggest hoax in his- tory. But while Bates erected this &+ Helen-George structure, and re- ffocced it with the mummified body ©f the Enid craftsman, which was exhibited the real John Wilkes $ooth, he never established that the pnan who met his death at the Gar- ¢ farm wus anybody whose pres- wias missed in the neighborhood. - Bates theory, based on stoies g010 him and others by the Shake- Epearian 8 Helen and George, was that Bootn lost some papers_ and nhiotographs of actresses out of his yocket and sent a man named Rudds 1 Roby hack to Port Conway, across | tie Rappahannock from Port Royal, | 4o set them: that when Ruddy re- grned to the Garrett farm Booth %as mone westward, having been | avarned by friends of the approach of the cavalry; that Ruddy and Herold, Jiooth’s loval companion and guide, took refuge in the barn. and Ruddy pvas killed instead of the actor. JAS for Herold. it will be recalled | #X hat he told the 16tir New York | Yavalry detail after he had red at the barn that the man inside s mamed Hoyd. whom he had met .. the road seven miles south of %‘\:;bmg\uu midnight after the at surren- | Br TORDS THEATER, on 10 th.Street, as il appears todsuy- Il:[l‘?fEcRTOb.UNI?VLLELISFHEDT‘:HOE@. ctt: Carbine ra E ignt: Sevq{.Bostgk Corbelds Carbine with which it is claimed Booth, was shot. Below. Bootits saddle and Gridle. murder. The name of Booth was| not mentioned in the palaver between | the officers and the men at bay in the | barn. nor had anybody present. with | the possible exception of Col. Everton | J. Conger, a detective in charge of the | xpedition, ever seen Booth in life. | To the Garrett panion had been William Boyd, & P. Hill's Confederate Herold said, had been ing from a Union prison. So far as is known, this strip of a lad, who| had gained the reputation of a me'er- | do-well around the streets and dives of Washington. died with the secret of Booth's identity, so far as he was concerned, locked securely in his soul. | When Booth’s body reached the | monitar Mantauk, at the Washington | navy yard, Commandant Montgomery | notified Secretary of the Navy Gideon | Welles that its appearance was chang- | ing rapidly. The Army’s Surg. Gen J. K. Barnes, accordingly 4 u~nmll with others down to effect a positive | identification and to .perform an | autopsy. | but the story more generally accepted Dr. John Frederick May, a prom that when his spur caught in the inent Washington physician, said, on|folds of a United States flag draped seeing the body, that it bore no re oss the presidential box he was semblance to the Booth i had treat- | thrown to the stage in such a way as ed for a fibroid tumor “on the back [to injure his fibula or small bone, of his neck, a little to the left.” Dr.|which is protected at the front by the May accurately described the scar.|tibia or larger bone of the leg. There was a slight discrepancy here, however, for Surg. Gen. Barnes testi. fied at ihe trial of the conspirators| A NOTHER contradiction concerns that the scar was at the base of the the actual shooting ¢f Booth. De- neck “three inches below the left ear.” | toctive Conger stoutly maintained that Booth shot himself. Lieut Luther F | Baker, another detective who was | present, charged that Conger shot hin Dr. May wrote under date of Janu- ary 10. 1887, a highly interesting and When. the men of the 16th New Yor Cavalry wera polied, Sergt. Boston scholarly treatise entitled “The Sign Corbett, a religious fanatic, laid claim of the Scalpel.” At the time he viewed Booth's body to the distinction. Corbett swore at the trial that he took steady aim and he was 53 years of age, and at the time of writing his paper 75, but at fired. He did not say whether he used | a pistol or a carbine. None of his com- the latter age he asserted that all the circumstances of his visit to the moni- panions, apparently, saw ‘him shoot. {The Evening Star of April 27, 1865, tor were perfectly fresh in his mind. id Corbett refused $1.000 for the He wrote that on’ examining Booth's right leg he found it badly contused pistol he claimed was used in shooting Booth. and almost black. This runs counter to the claim of the War Department and others that Booth's left leg was fractured instead of the right, and in | Conger swore that while he was testimony whereof the department ex- | running around the barn he heard the hibits among the Booth relics a long {report of a pistol. The pistol may pos- black riding boot, which it is claimed |sibly be in the collection of four in | the "basement of the State, War and | Navy Buflding, but it is not identified | there. At least two of the four arc be- was cut off the fugitive's leg by Dr. Samuel A. Mudd his home near | lieved to have been taken from Booth and Herold, and a third is known to vantown, Md. hoot is for the have been used By Lewis Payne in his which Herold's lame com introduced as John member of Gen. A orps. who. | injured escap * * % Thi left foot Certain early official telegram: stated that Both was injured when his | horse fell on him in lower Maryland, | Spur. iripped Boothh when he jumped from Lincolns box. | fourth probably belonged to another conspirator and not to Corbett. Yet the weapon which tradition hands down to the War Department, and | which is there displayed as the one with which Corbett shot Booth, is a | Cavalry carbine made by ‘the Spencer Repeating Rifle Co, in Boston, Mass. Quite possibly the carbine was carried by Corbett. and the pistol became the | proud possession of his life. Corbett became doorkeeper of the House of Representatives at Topeku, Kans. He ran amuck there, pulled a pistol on the astonished members and was captured after some dififulty and | confined in the State Insane Asylum, whence he soon escaped. He is said to_ have become a_patent medicine salesman for the Southwestern fter- ritory, about 1900, at Enid, Okla.,| strangely the same place that another of the ‘principals in the tangle was said to have shown up so dramatically. These are-a few of the things that have made it difficult for the War Department to convince certain in- credulous persons that Booth was duly dispatched. The department has in- sisted on treating the matter as a fait accompli and has steadfastly refused to go beyond the records as written, These records themselves are highly contradictory, but withal seemed to dispel any doubt existing at the time | that the right man was found. | This is the annoying paradox that makes the War Department anxious assault at the Seward home, The to wish the relics on the National jon, The Star s enabled to present an ' brick corridor: we HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PHOTO. At top: Dooth's Derringer, Pick taken from lewis Payne at Surratt house; Boot cut from Booth's fractured leg: by Dr.Mudd, held open by Dooths Dagger sc¢abbard; Pooths Neck- tie, compass, Whistle, Keys e ‘ and Dagger; Bullet and ' probe; Mrs Lincolws Operaqglass case; Knives captured, S { from conspirators. g e : f A ig4 | | | | S N e Y i | 1 | | Wilkes Chair tn which Linecoln, was seated when shot bly Bootiv with great steam-heating and ventilat- {ing pipe s walls are of painted white, and used pr marily for the storage of six cases of | {old court-martial records which nearly reach the ceiling and are separated { by five aisles or corridors 3 feet wide. | At the northern end of the room | stands a heavy iron safe. in which i all_pasteboard box which contains | the following: The Derringer to shoot Mr. | The probe used by | cate the bullet 1 The .44-caliber bullet extracted from | pistol used by Booth | Lincoln. the doctors to lo- the head of the President. Half a dozen pieces of Mr. Lincoln’s skull. The Der all. the weight pound. easily gor barrel inch, of the weapon Tt is such a weapon as could be concealed in a waistcoat | pocket or in a woman's purse. The spring employed to fell the hamm. is still strong and brings the hammer down with a snap. The hammer is on the right side and is cocked with the thumb. Its pin has become disengaged and the hammer is secured b string. The lettering “Derringer, | Philad.,” is cut into the metal part of the handle at the right side. The piece is a muzzle loader. It was loaded in the old fashion of pouring powder down into the barrel, ramming in paper wadding with a short ramrod, inserting a ball and securing the ball with an outer wad. (The ramrod is missing and appears not to have been attached to the Derringer) A little powder as “‘primer” was poured into the nipple, through which a hole ex- tended into the powder charge. On top of the nipple was placed a brass percussion cap and on top of tha cap the hammer was let down easily. In the butt of the gun 1s an extra cap, found when the Derringer was picked up in the Lincoln box. A spring cap of metal covers the cavity at the butt. The outside of the barrel is beveled into a heptagonal shape and the in- side is rifled with seven spirals 1-16 of an inch wide and 1-32 deep, to give the ball a twisting motion when fired. The blue steel sight is inserted into | the end of the barred by the usual groove, and stands less than an eighth of-an inch high. The sides of the butt are of ornamented hard wood and the end of the butt is of steel. The small blue steel trigger .is inclosed Dy a plain guard. The base of the | hammer is ernamented with figures. | The probe is eight inches long, and | -of fine steel. Its handle is an inch 6 inches long over and the about half a HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PHOTO: Left toRight: Derringer pistol with which S Penr et v Baoth I pallinatc sk .us in e ; R,a,th‘m:&q;qf’;siubi.useg bg?.CWis P‘aqnzq *i«) a.ssau.itifl Seward, accurate description of the principal relics contaitied 'in the remarkable Booth collection.. The present_repository is a 20-foot- square_room in the basement of the State, War and Navy Building, and it looks out through two windows on a spot where' thousands of Government clerks pass every day. The interior and the stout wooden chest which | house most of the relics are separated | Maj. | from the outside only by the thickness 'nmnc. Thi along a filled- -overhead Museum, where.such of them as are not too personal to Mr. Lincoln might be displayed and properly protected. It is the work of a misguided mock- Irero, asuperbolshevik, an enigma, a puzzle, a question mark, a chameleon- | like . prestidigitator, an evanescent | myth, who possessed the power of ap- pearing in several places at once, and practically denying that he ever ex- isted. Through Gen. J. the courtesy of A. Huli, judge advocate ! of n dust-covered War Department, Washing- | room is reached by | hait artment Bus long in and rough. and 1z of an inch diameter. The needle is 7 inches long and 1-16 of an inch in diameter Orizinally, it had a large pearl on the end, 1o receive leaden scratch marks when a bullet was found, the pearl has been lost In a small wooden box. round in shape and with a friction-fitting top is the le:en Derringer hullet. This is not quite 3 an inch in diameter it flattened from im bu and it is slightly pact with the skull The skull fragments are kept in small, round, red pasteboard box with # round convex glass top. The larg est piece of skull is about 12 an inct square more bulky articles taken from the conspirators are Becured chest approximately 38 inches 20 wide and 19 high. se: The articles THE in a long locked described follows Booth's English tan leather saddle nd black bridle. The stirrups of the ddle are plain wooden affairs, with out guards, and the bridie is fitted with a curb or “breaking” bit, and has no blinds. (It should be remem bered that the horses of Booth and Harold disappeared near Port Tobac co and were never found. Rooth told one person that the horses were shot to prevent them from neighing. declared to anot at weighted into the Py and them woth's dagger. made Sheffield. England. This hears the words “Liberty, freedom, independ ence.” The Knife is 11% inches long. of which length 41; inches is bone handle and blade. The blade is 1% inches The hilt is more than 2 wide. This was the by Booth to cut the Henry R. Rath bone, a guest in the Lincoln box with Miss Clara Harris. his flancee and _daughter of Senator Tra Harris of New York. Booth brandished the knife he ran across the stage, shouting ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis!” The scabbard is compressed cardboard o bogus paper colored purple and is worn through at the point. It bears a brass band of an inch wide surmounted by small button for fastening to the belt Booth's whistle, said by some per sons to have been blown about. the time the shot was fired, as a signal for a confederate to turn out the gas lights from behind the stage. The signal, if made, was missed. for b lights remained on. This whistl made of horn and 2 inches and 1x an inch wide. It is black with occasional splotch of white. t the end there is a ball with a hole in it for securing with a string. In side is a wooden ball about the size of a green pea to cause a trilling sound The sound is similar to the police whistle of today. but more of a teno: in_pitch Booth's principal and omac. cut sink.) by Manson throats [ wide. inghes dagger used arm of Maj ng Ascot necktie. This scrawny, -cheap affair that could have cost as much 25 cents is could be duplicated in a cent store of today for a dime 15 Tts scheme is alternate ri of blue and black, 13 of an inch wide extending diagonally There is band for encircling the neck, and his function believed te have been serformed by pins or the stability of the collar. The tie is held together an ordinary pin and a blue steel of greater length, with a dyll black glass head. 5 Booth's riding boot is that n. t ¥ This is of well ck leather, 28 inches long and approximately 20 inches in diameter at the top or thigh The sole and heel together measure 11 inches out side, the soie at its greatest width 1; inches. and the sharply squared off toe is 215 inches. Tt is the boot for the left ot The heel is intact the outside, but is worn down about 14 of an inch at the inside, nearest the other foot. and the same is true of the sole. indicating that when walk ing Booth turned his kles in, and perhaps was inclined to be knock kneed. Inside, 4t the top, the boot faced with smooth white calfsk f a d ce down of & inches, where it joins the rough interior At the front, on this calfskin, some 2 rches below the top, is written in black ink, but very faintly. the name and address of the maker. and about an _inch this the name, *“J - Instead of the name there are dots or dashes as Time and wear have al below “Booth.” indicated most_effaced the lettering at the top. but it is conceivably “Liberty Shoe shop (or Broadway The ew York, also absent The tails of the capital letters are lonz and gracefully flourishing. such as a proud maker might inscribe for a favored and admired patron, as Booth undoubtedly was in the days of his prosperity. There is little or no resemblance to che handwriting of the actor-assassin. A noticeable feature of the boot the gaping slit made by Dr. Samuel A. Mudd at his house when Booth de manded treatment for his injured shin and found the swelling was so great the boot could not be taken off. The slit extended in a straight line 10 inches from the instep more than the distance to the knee, and probably represents as accurate a sur gical job as the country physician ever did Booth's di This important bit of evidence was suppressed at the trial of the conspirators by Secretary Stanton, and did not appear until the trial of John H. Surratt, in 1867. It is written in pencil. and is falling to pieces from age and hard wear. Tt bears entries of April 14 and 21; is aid to have been removed from Booth's pocket at the Garrett barn along with the pictures of five beauti ful women of the stage. It is kept in a sealed envelope with a small piece of pocket comb. the pictures men tioned, and a photograph of John M Surratt Booth's bunch of keys, a dozen or more in number. Three or four of these are peculiar, in that they re semble pieces of metal tubing in waica have been cut square notches at inter vals. They contain rings, but no bits and are more suggestive of dies for some unknown purpose than of ke A Spencer repeating carbine, said to have been captured with Booth at the Garrett barn. This is 40 inches long, several inches shorter than the infantry rifle. and is handy for cav alrymen in tight places. It weighs 11 pounds or more. At the breech is the name of the manufacturer and the patent date of March 6, 1860. A few inches forward of the breech is a blue steel adjustable sight, less than = inches long, for distance firing. The barrel is round and rifled inside. This carbine is of the same series issue as that of Sergt. Boston Corbett. At tached to it is a band of white cotton about an inch and a half wide, which extends from the under side of the stock to the middle of the barrel, around which it is tied. The strap or band was probably used by Booth to sling the piece over his shoulder. How ever, Booth was so lame that Herold doubtless carried the piece most of the time. It is supposed that Booth de clined a carbine for himself at the (Continucd on Second Fage.) Y is