the Plot to Kill John Wilkes Booth

By C. Fenway Braxton

Otto Eisenschimyl shocked the world by implicating Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. That author made Stanton the mastermind behind the plot and not just another of Booth's stooges.

Mainstream historian's have always dismissed his charges and claimed there was nothing unusual in the Secretary's behavior. After all, they claim, the Confederate government was the mastermind behind the plot.

This volume attempts to show both sides in that debate are wrong. Eisenschimyl misread Stanton's actions and the historians are no closer to proving the Confederate connection than when Stanton first unveiled the claim almost a century-and-a-half ago.

The question hinges on motives. Once one understands the motives behind Stanton's actions, all that he did makes perfect sense.

On Booth's side of the ledger, it is the lack of a cohesive motive that has kept the historians at drift since the assassination. No one has yet come forward with a solid motive for the actor's insane act.

Perhaps by putting both of these investigations together in one place, and shaking well, we can begin to make a little sense out of the ages-old confusion that is the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

We might be able to shed a little light on the plot to kill Lincoln, but we most definitely reveal what was behind the plot to kill John Wilkes Booth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martian Publishing
• Release date: Jul 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476411958

Book preview

THE PLOT TO KILL JOHN WILKES BOOTH

By C. Fenway Braxton

MARTIAN PUBLISHING

Copyright 2012 by Martian Publishing Company

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

No portion of this volume may

be reproduced in any format

without the express written

permission of the copyright holder.

cover art - a photograph of the only performance of all three Booth brothers at a benefit performance of Julius Caesar in Central Park in 1864. From the left: Wilkes Booth, Junius Booth, Jr., and Edwin Booth.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE - THE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT

Chapter One - Preface to Mayhem

Chapter Two - Welcome to the Circus

Chapter Three - Giving Chase

PART TWO - EXONERATING STANTON

Chapter Four - Evidence

Chapter Five - The Mother of All Invention

Chapter Six - Claims of His Heritage

PART THREE - BUT WE NEED A MOTIVE, DON'T WE?

Chapter Seven - One Problem Remains

Chapter Eight - The Road Never Traveled

Chapter Nine - A Little Wide of the Mark

Chapter Ten - Where We End

~~~~

INTRODUCTION

On Good Friday, April, 14th, 1865, the United States lost its first President by an assassin's hand. Two previous Presidents had already died in office: William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, but they had both succumbed to illness rather than a violent act.

Lincoln's death shocked and outraged many people, then and now, and is such an emotionally charged subject that one cannot venture into the field but with a little trepidation. Yes, people are still upset with the event. Not from the shock of it now but for the reason behind the action.

Historians of the era tended to avoid deep studies in the subject because - primarily - it seemed the Government's case was strong enough to convict the conspirators so there was little point in re-hashing the data for a few loose ends.

That changed in 1937 when a non-professional historian took it upon himself to throw a little light on the elephant in the room.

Damning Stanton

Otto Eisenschiml pulled very few punches in his book, Why Was Lincoln Murdered? He was absolutely convinced that the mastermind behind the plot was none other than the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.

Admittedly, Stanton was in an opportune position to control the information being publicized about the case. He was also in charge of the arrests of the suspects. And he was in charge of the trial of the conspirators.

Though not given any of these powers in the Constitution - nor in any subsequent legislation - Stanton ran the government through this crisis as he saw fit. And if the number of loose ends tended to mount during the process, so be it.

Historians have absolved Stanton with any part in the crime. Sure, they say, his actions were a trifle bizarre in some incidents but that was only because he was shaken to the core by the death of his very close friend, Lincoln. But why was there no one stepping in to take the reigns from his hands during this remarkably evident bizarre behavior?

Surely, someone noticed. Why then did no one act?

Perhaps, they were all a little afraid of the man.

A Conspiracy Theorist's Wet Dream

It was twenty years after Eisenschiml's bomb before real historians started writing about the assassination. It was as if they had closed the ranks, shoulder to shoulder, and uttered again that the official version was the one and only true version.

Oh, but if only the facts in the case would simply disappear!

Any in-depth investigation of the account finds discrepancies littering the historical landscape. So much so that one wonders that anyone can hold fast to the standard account of the event. The reason why they stick to the approved version is that there seems to be no direction for the loose ends. And without a specific location, they do not really seem to lead anywhere. Naturally, then, they are simply ignored.

Sure, there are plenty of unknowns, plenty of mysteries still involving the case, but there seems to be no cohesion to the facts. And even a mountain of weird facts does not constitute a case. Wild supposition, assuredly, but nothing one can hold onto and build a case on.

Just like the mathematicians attempting to build a Grand Unified Theory, ignoring the physical anomalies, hoping they will suddenly fall into place when the construct is complete.

In both cases, it just ain't gonna happen.

More Than Just a Few Theories

There have been a great many books written about the Lincoln Assassination since the events of that fateful April day in 1865 but very few of them before 1940, a good seventy-five years after the events. A Good Friday it may have been but it was the darkest Friday in all living memory. There was a promise embodied in Lincoln of the reparations due to the nation by the ending of the war of the preceding four years and to have that hope ended in one moment, one act of apparent insanity, one small shot heard 'round the world, has reverberated through the nation since that time.

Today, not a year passes without yet another volume being printed to add to the mountain of investigation doled out on this one instant of time. Yet there has been no closure, no theory put forward with enough evidentiary backing to be termed conclusive.

I am certain this volume will do nothing more. Without direct documentation – a written confession or some hitherto overlooked piece of damning physical evidence – there is likely to be no true resolve in the matter.

So, what can this book propose to add to the lore and the legacy of all the researchers that have gone before? Hopefully, more than is readily apparent. Not all the stones have been looked under just yet. In fact, the real search may not have even begun.

The major stumbling block has been the WHY Booth committed the crime.

Earlier investigations have focused on the one mad act of the supposed failed actor, Booth, in his desperate grab for some sort of fame. After it was revealed that the actor was far from a failure in his occupation, the story had to turn on something else.

Since the earliest days, a tie with the Confederacy has always been suspected but hung as elusive as smoke after a pistol shot; just visible but nothing one could readily grasp. Long out of favor, this premise has recently been embraced anew as researchers have dug ever deeper and surmised even more wildly. Though enticing, this theory has holes in it as well. Even if a link between Booth and the Secret Service could be found, it would still have to be proven he had been ordered to pull off the assassination. Membership in that cadre is not enough to convict him as there were assuredly many others in the Service who did not commit the crime. Guilt by association is not viable.

Interest in the Case Begins

Though Eisenschiml's book was not taken seriously by mainstream historians it has become a mainstay of the conspiracy theorist, and updated by Balsiger and Sellier in The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977).

Most writers on the subject today generally focus on one aspect of the case and try to bring some new