New Discoveries about the Lincoln Assassination: Interview with Author Michael W. Kauffman

Author Michael W. Kauffman (Owings) has written a book about John Wilks Booth and the Lincoln Assasination titled “American Brutus”. Photo by: J. Henson, courtesy of Michael Kauffman.

No, John Wilkes Booth did not break his leg jumping from the balcony after he shot Abraham Lincoln. He probably didn’t even hurt himself. At least not then.

New insights into the Lincoln assassination don’t necessarily require the discovery of documents hidden away in an attic. One researcher demolished the broken-leg-in-the-theater myth with a rather mundane tool: his computer. And his data analysis helped him sift out new facts about Booth’s plots as well.

Michael W. Kauffman, author of American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies, actually jumped onto the Ford’s Theatre stage to prove his point. But the heart of his 30-year-long research was his computer. It facilitated daily and hourly analysis of the events to a depth that no other researcher has accomplished before.

Michael W. Kauffman joins us for an interview about one of the greatest crimes of American history. And some of his answers might surprise you.

John Wilkes Booth; Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, public domain.

Ann Marie: One premise of your book is a new analysis of evidence with modern data analysis techniques. How did that provide new insights into the Lincoln assassination?

Michael Kauffman: The computer analysis made a world of difference in the way I thought of the assassination, and particularly in the way the plot developed. By keeping every event anchored to a particular time and place, I was able to get a much better idea of movements and connections among people. I learned to keep everything in context — not looking ahead or anywhere beyond a person’s field of vision at any given time. In this way, the conspiracy unfolded one day (and even one hour) at a time, just as it did in real life.

By selective filtering, I was able to find out who knew (or might know) what at any given time; what they couldn’t possibly know; and what previous events might have inspired or affected certain actions by Booth and the conspirators. In a second or two, I could sort out everything that happened, say, at the Surratt Tavern on a given day. I could also call up everything that happened there that involved a certain person or group of people. That’s how I found out that on March 18, when John Surratt, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were hiding the weapons at the tavern, they were almost caught by Atzerodt’s brother, John, who happened to be there at the same time.

Looking back, I was never able to find any account of the plot that actually laid out the conspiracy’s development in detail. Nobody had ever noticed that Booth formed a plot with Arnold and O’Laughlen, then formed a second plot with Surratt and the others. The first two conspirators knew nothing about the rest of them until they all got together at Gautier’s. That’s one reason it was such an explosive meeting. And putting things in a larger context, we can also see how Booth’s ostensible plan to capture Lincoln near the Soldiers’ Home grew into something entirely different right around January 18th. That’s when he moved Arnold and O’Laughlen to another location and started scouting around Ford’s Theatre. It’s no coincidence that the government resumed its exchange of prisoners at about that date as well. Booth no longer had an excuse for capturing Lincoln, but he never stopped plotting.

Having a computer track events was an enormous help because it wouldn’t let me omit anything unless I made a conscious decision to do so. That forced me to give some thought to even the smallest details, and I learned a lot from that exercise.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Gibson & Co., 1870; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, public domain.

How long have you been researching the Lincoln assassination?

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in Abraham Lincoln, but my thoughts really never turned to the assassination until John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963. It was an electrifying event, and soon afterward I started to see comparisons with the death of Lincoln. That was fascinating, and I read as much as I could find on the topic from that point on. I visited the Lincoln Tomb in 1965 and was absolutely hooked. But probably the turning point was in November of 1969, when I read Jim Bishop’s book The Day Lincoln Was Shot. He laid out the story so clearly and vividly, I felt I knew everything there was to know about the topic. I was already compulsive about writing, and Bishop inspired me to try my hand at writing a full-scale book about the Lincoln assassination. I typed out a couple hundred pages, and was quite pleased with myself until I actually went back and read it from the beginning. It needed work, for sure, but I had become more interested in learning about the case than writing about it. I kept at it, and as soon as I turned 18, I moved to Washington to be near the sources. I assumed I could finish the book in about a year, but it actually took a bit longer than that; the publication date of American Brutus was 30 years to the day after my arrival in Washington.

The short answer: I got serious about research at the end of 1969, and have been at it ever since.

Lewis Powell, by Alexander Gardner, 1865; Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, public domain.

The body of one conspirator went missing for over 100 years. How did that come about? And how was it discovered again?

I’ve always felt that history revolves around the people who took part in it. It’s really all about people, and if we get to know the characters in the story, we can go a long way to understanding how and why they acted as they did. As any genealogist can tell you, gravesites are often the key to unlocking a wealth of information, and I’ve gone to extremes to find and visit the final resting places of all those who figure in this drama.

To that end, I made quite a few trips to Geneva, Florida in search of information about Lewis Powell. This little hamlet is not far from Orlando, and it’s where Rev. George C. Powell and his family settled after the assassination. A few of us (Betty Ownsbey among them) always wondered whether Powell might be buried there. His body had been moved a few times after his execution, and was no longer accounted for. But my trips to Florida turned up very little, and nobody in the family would even talk to me.

It was about 18 years later, in early 1993, that I got a call from Stuart Speaker, a former park ranger from Ford’s Theatre. Stuart was then working as an anthropologist at the Smithsonian, and had just found a skull with an accession card that identified it as the cranium of a white male, Mr. P____ who was “hung” at Washington on July 7, 1865 for attempting to kill Secretary Seward.

Of course, I paid a visit the next morning, and stood face to face with Powell himself. There was no question in my mind about the identity. Powell had a strikingly asymmetrical jawline, having broken his jaw as a child, and the skull really did look like the man in the photos.

I still had the names and addresses of people in Florida, and I wasted no time in calling Lorraine Yarborough Whiting, the caretaker of the cemetery. She had been quite kind to me on my visits, and I knew that she was well acquainted with me and with the Powell relatives. I got a call back from the relatives in a matter of minutes.

The Smithsonian wanted to verify the identity, so they sent the skull to the FBI Lab, and I supplied them with ten different photos of Powell to help the process.  When the results were in, the family wrote and requested that the remains be returned to them for burial. To my surprise, the Smithsonian initially refused. Months went by, and they put forth all kinds of arguments for keeping the skull right where it was, but ultimately they sent it by Fed Ex to Powell’s next of kin, a great grand-niece.

Hanging the conspirators: the drop. Photo by Alexander Gardner, 1865; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, public domain

You even participated Lewis Powell’s reburial….

[Lewis Powell’s great grand-niece] called and asked if I would come down for a service at the cemetery on July 7th. My wife and I were expecting a baby within two weeks, so the event was postponed until our daughter was old enough to travel. Finally, on November 11, the family got together with a few friends and heard a nice eulogy by Betty Ownsbey as Louis Powell was buried next to his mother. There were no uniforms, no Confederate flags, and no references to any of the horrors of April, 1865. It was quite dignified.

We never really figured out why the skull ended up at the Smithsonian. It was turned over to them by Alfred H. Gawler, a clerk at the Army Medical Museum. Apparently the museum had acquired it sometime after Powell’s last known resting place, Graceland Cemetery, was disbanded in the 1870s and 1880s. The body had been moved there from Holmead Cemetery when the latter was developed just a few years earlier. Notices had been put in the paper, but apparently the Powells didn’t often read the Washington Star at their home in Florida, so they never claimed the remains when the rest of Holmead’s residents were evicted. (The Washington Hilton occupies the site of the cemetery today.)  And Powell wouldn’t have been at Holmead in the first place if not for a public-spirited person or group who agreed to pay for burial there when the Washington Arsenal — site of the execution and first burial — was demolished in 1869. But records are sketchy and they sometimes contradict one another. We only know where Powell’s skull ended up. And what about the rest of him? It’s anybody’s guess. It might have been decomposed too badly to recover, and then again, the Medical Museum may have taken only what they had room to store. I don’t know.

The by-product of this was the discovery of new information from the Powell family, who shared their family treasures with Betty and me.

Booth leaps from the balcony; Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, public domain.

Your book makes a good argument that the story about Booth breaking his leg when he jumped from the balcony onto the stage at the theater is a myth. How did he really break his leg?

It’s never easy being the one to tear down a good story, and the Revenge of Old Glory was one of those cherished bits of folklore that really doesn’t want to die.

I gave tours of the Booth Escape Route for 30 years or so, and on one of those tours someone asked when the authorities first learned that Booth had broken his leg. I couldn’t say for certain, but I promised to get an answer. Surely, I thought, the people in the audience at Ford’s knew the assassin had hurt himself. He limped across the stage, and by some accounts, barely got out ahead of the pursuers. At least that’s how the story usually went. But as I mulled it over, it occurred to me that in all the notices that went out in the first week after the shooting, I never saw any reference to a possible injury. Everyone was desperate to catch Booth, and the government had published minutely detailed descriptions of him in the papers as well as circulars and handbills. There was no mention of a broken leg, or even a sprain.

Going back to the database, I was struck by the complete lack of evidence about a leg injury. Eyewitnesses said that Booth ran, darted, glided, bounded or hurried across the stage — but he didn’t limp. As he mounted his horse, left foot in the stirrup, the animal pulled out from under him, and it took a tremendous amount of strength and dexterity — all balanced on that one leg — to gain control and ride off. Maybe he was still too pumped up to notice the pain, but it was quite a while before he reached the Navy Yard Bridge, and the sergeant there saw no sign of agitation or agony. He let Booth cross.

It was not until Booth reached the Surratt Tavern that he really shows signs of having injured himself. From that point on, he would tell many people that his horse tripped and rolled over on him, breaking his leg. He never gave any other explanation, but finding himself accused of a cowardly act, he wrote a brief rebuttal in his pocket diary. This was a grossly exaggerated account of the shooting and escape, and almost everything in it has been dismissed out of hand. The only exception is the phrase “in jumping broke my leg.” This has been taken to mean that he broke his leg while jumping out of the box. I suppose that’s what Booth wanted people to think.

In the course of their investigation, authorities gathered statements from many people who had encountered Booth and David Herold in their flight. They paid little attention to the details, and even less where the getaway horses were concerned. But a few things stood out, and they’ve never been contradicted. First, Booth had rented a small bay mare with a very spirited disposition. A few people called attention to her high-strung qualities during the afternoon of April 14th, and Booth always dismissed concerns with a boast about his fine horsemanship. He rode that horse out of Baptist Alley that night, and six hours later, he arrived at Dr. Mudd’s on a different horse. Booth had switched horses with Herold, whose rented mount happened to be noted for its gentleness and ease in the saddle. When Mudd’s farmhands were asked to describe Herold’s horse, they said that it was lame. It had apparently tripped and rolled on its left side, and its shoulder was swollen. The horse limped.

Booth didn’t often tell the truth, but in the case of the broken leg, he seems to have gotten as close as he ever did. He undoubtedly pushed his horse a good deal, and at some point in the darkeness, the horse stumbled and rolled on its side. Booth’s fibula had snapped sideways just a couple of inches above the ankle. It is one of the most common equestrian injuries, but one that has never been associated with a jump from a high place.

As part of your research, you jumped from the balcony to the stage in the reconstructed Ford’s theater. What was that like? Did you hurt yourself?

I actually jumped from a 14-foot ladder on the stage, and it really was no big deal. I’ve spoken with a few actors who actually did make the same jump, and they also reported it was nothing to write home about. The only exception was Jack Lemmon, who made the leap (from a studio replica of the box) on live TV in 1955. Lemmon told me that it “hurt like hell,” but was only sprained.

Major Henry Rathbone. Photo by Matthew Brady, Wikipedia, public domain.

You tell the sad story of Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, the two people sitting with the Lincolns in the balcony that fateful night. What happened to them after they married and moved to Germany?

The story of Henry and Clara is one of the most tragic episodes connected with the assassination. Henry retired from the army in 1867 and he married Clara the following day (if I remember correctly). They moved into a house on Jackson Place, across from the White House, and eventually had three children.

Henry had a restless spirit — perhaps boredom had set in, but just as likely, he was tormented by his memories of the assassination. At some point he and Clara decided to get away for a while, and they moved to Hannover, Germany. There, on the night of December 23rd, Henry went into a strange fit and Clara (who had seen this sort of thing before) yelled for their nanny to lock the children in their room. They heard screams and a gunshot, and after a period of silence, the nanny opened the door and found Henry and Clara in a heap on the floor. Clara was dead from a gunshot wound, and Henry was badly injured with a self-inflicted knife wound. It was as though he had re-enacted the assassination in some bizarre way.

Henry was taken to an asylum in the village of Hildesheim, where he lived out his days. He died in 1911.

As I always say, the list of Booth’s victims included many people, not just Lincoln and Seward. In the 1970s I contacted  a granddaughter of Henry and Clara, and she brought out some family treasures to show me. There were many reminders of those two tragedies, and it occurred to me that their lives came to be defined by what happened in Ford’s Theatre. They could never escape the feeling that they had survived, and that sense of guilt proved too much for Henry to bear. When I contacted Mrs. Hartley, she told me that nobody had ever asked about her grandparents, and she wasn’t even sure of what she might have from them. I couldn’t help thinking that for many years, nobody had dared to bring it up. It was just too unpleasant.

Has anyone ever researched the Rathbone case based on the German archives?

In the early 1990s I gave a bus tour and mentioned the fate of Major Rathbone. A woman on the bus was excited to hear it. She had grown up in Hildesheim, and her mother still lived there. Her mother enthusiastically dug out some old records and newspaper articles, and she translated them for me. Subsequently, much has been written about the Rathbones — most notably, a fine book called Worst Seat in the House, by Caleb Jenner Stephens. And, by the way, I can always recommend a work of fiction on the topic. I think that Thomas Mallon’s novel Henry and Clara is one of the finest books I’ve ever read.

Thanks so much, Mr. Kauffman, for your comments and all the work that went into your fascinating book.

Which part of Michael Kauffman’s research surprised you the most?

Birgit Hilsbos & Blaze: Cadaver Dog Team Training in Canada

Birgit Hilsbos & Blaze. Courtesy of Birgit Hilsbos.

Cadaver dog teams break missing persons’ cases

Finding the body provides crucial evidence in a missing persons’ case. Was it a natural death or a murder? If the former, the find helps bring closure to the family of the deceased. If the latter, clues on or around the body can offer valuable leads to law enforcement.

So often, it’s a pair of canine nostrils that break a case.

Detectives have used human remains detection dogs since the 19^th century, but only during the 1970s has law enforcement standardized training. Different countries have different regulations and training procedures for cadaver dog teams.

Meet the cadaver dog team Birgit Hilsbos & Blaze

This week, the cadaver dog team of Birgit Hilsbos and Blaze are checking in to tell about their training in Canada.

1. You have lived in both Switzerland and Canada. Which country are you from and how did you come to live and work in the other?

Birgit Hilsbos & her dogs. Courstey of Birgit Hilsbos.

Birgit Hilsbos: I am from Switzerland and lived almost four years in Alberta. Last December we returned to Switzerland.

2. How did you get started as a cadaver dog handler?

A dog nose at work. Courtesy of Birgit Hilsbos.

Training with the Canadian Search Dog Association

Well, I had quite a few detours. I began my canine career as a dog walker 22 years ago. I got my first dog in 1998 and trained him in competition tracking. My second dog arrived four years later, and I competed with her in obedience, tracking, and air scenting. I apprenticed with Assistance Dog International and worked with Assistance Dogs before my third dog, Blaze, came into my life. Because of some old Swiss friends, I started doing SAR [search and rescue] with her, and became a member of the Canadian Search Dog Association. Aside from searching for human scent (missing people & evidence), the CSDA also has the cadaver profile.

3. You have read my interviews of the U.S.-American cadaver dog team Cat Warren & Solo and the German team Michael Müller & Gerry. How does cadaver dog training in Switzerland and Canada compare to the United States and Germany?

The “real stuff”

The hidden prize. Courtesy of Birgit Hilsbos.

In Canada we started with the “real stuff” right from the beginning. Because members of the CSDA are certified by the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] and tasked only by law enforcement, we had a strict policy on handling cadaver material. We received parts of a burial shroud from the police, as well as other material from hospitals. I soaked a 2 x 2 cm piece of gauze with the material and put it into little tubes, sealed them – the lid has a 2 mm hole – and then introduced the scent. As soon as Blaze made the connection between the command and the scent and mastered the passive alert, I put it somewhere in the open, first in a small area, and then increased the size of the area, and either buried it or hung it in trees.

4. Has your dog’s sense of smell ever surprised you?

Found it! Blaze successfully locates the prize. Courtesy of Birgit Hilsbos.

When I first saw her doing hard surface tracking I was totally amazed. Properly trained, she will find everything I ask her for, just for the fun of a game, some treats, or simply my affection.

A good cadaver dog team is also trained to search in trees. Courtesy of Birgit Hilsbos.

Thank you Birgit, for participating in this interview, and thank you Blaze, for all your hard work!

Could you imagine doing this kind of training with your dog? Why or why not?

Pirate Flags: Ten Things You Probably Didn’t Know

Jolly Roger, (c) Lizard, shutterstock_100276868, with permission

Pull away, me lads o’ the Cardiff Rose
And hoist the Jolly Roger

Roger McGuinn’s song was the pirate song I grew up with. And the Jolly Roger – the skull and crossbones against a black background – still waves supreme over American pirate lore.

So imagine my surprise when I moved to Germany and learned a new pirate shanty, the German folksong Wir lieben die Stürme (We Love the Storms):

Unser Schiff gleitet stolz durch die schäumenden Wellen.
Es strafft der Wind unsre Segel mit Macht.
Seht ihr hoch droben die Fahne sich wenden,
die blutrote Fahne, ihr Seeleut habt acht!

(Our ship slices proudly through fierce churning whitecaps. The wind whips our sails and drives up our speed. Look high aloft how our banner is waving, the blood red banner, you sailors take heed!)

Red flag, morguefile free photos

A blood red pirate flag? Really?

Unbelieving, I asked my German husband, who assured me that the pirate flags of German lore are indeed red. Maybe, he suggested, the Jolly Roger is just an Anglo-American invention.

His comment drove me to the history books.

As so often the case, we were both right. Red pirate flags are just as entrenched in pirate history as are black ones. Here are some interesting facts I found:

Black flags

Francis Drake, Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, 3a38830r, public domain

Black pirate flags have an ancient history. Francis Drake, an English privateer, usually flew the flag of St. George, although in 1585, he flew black banners and streamers.

Red flags

Red pirate flags also have a history. In 1681, buccaneers off the islands of Juan Fernández flew a “bloody flag.”

No quarter

Red and black have two different meanings. A French flag book from 1721, containing colored engravings of both black and red pirate flags, labeled the red flag as “flag called no quarter.” Captain Richard Hawkins confirmed this meaning in 1724. His pirate ship flew the black Jolly Roger when he was willing to give quarter and the red banner when he wasn’t.

Jolly Roger

Blackbeard’s flag, pictured here, was similar to Hawkins’. Wikipedia, public domain.

The Jolly Roger doesn’t have to be the skull and crossbones. Captain Richard Hawkins described his “Jolly Roger” as a full skeleton with an hourglass in one hand, indicating limited time, and a dart in the other hand, indicating violence. Other captains flew pirate flags with similar symbols.

Origins of Jolly Roger

The term “Jolly Roger” might have come from the French jolie rouge, or “red flag.” It might also derive from “Old Roger,” which means “devil.”

Skull and Crossbones

Jolly Roger as skulls and crossbones, morguefile photos

The skull and crossbones became popular among English, French, and Spanish pirates by 1730.

National Colors

A 1684 book, Buccaneers of America, doesn’t mention black flags or skulls at all. English buccaneers in America sailed under English colors.

Red in Santa María

1725 woodcut from Charles Johnson’s “A General History of the Pyrates,” public domain

A sailor’s journal described 300 buccaneers marching on the town of Santa María in 1680. The various companies flew pirate flags of pure red, pure green, and red and yellow stripes. Red was the most common color.

Blackbeard and his flags

Blackbeard, 1725 print, LOLPPD, public domain, 3b09722r

Of Blackbeard’s squadron of five ships in 1718, two flew black flags and three flew red.

Pirate flags in fiction

Both colors appear in English fiction. Daniel Defoe’s description of pirates in his 1720 story Captain Singleton has them flying both black and red flags.

What symbols do you associate with pirates?

Literature on point:

David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life among the Pirates (New York: Random House, 1996, 1^st Harvest House ed.) 114-119.