| Related sites for http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln74.html |
| 23_Skidoo A listing of 23 in major news stories and occult settings. | | St_Aardvark_the_Carpeted_vs__Texe_Marrs An interview with NWO-watcher and preacher Texe Marrs, and a leap into the wilder worlds of conspiracy, Aardvarks and Ayn Rand. | | TheConspiracy A nearly complete archive of Brian Redman's 1994-1998 Conspiracy Nation newsletter. | | The_Truth_Seeker Behind the headlines - conspiracies, cover-ups, and ancient mysteries. Real news and perspectives that one won't find in the mainstream media. | | Truthseekers_Network Articles, video and audio on a wide range of topics. | | University_of_Toronto_Fraud Explains how the University of Toronto and the media conspire to keep a fraudulent affair hidden from the public. | | Violently_Racist_Music Site detailing how the MTV Video Music Awards have been given to artists who promote messages that call for the murder of whites. | | Weirdload Essays from the edge, covering secrets and conspiracies from those involving the Roman Catholic Church to UFOs, space and metaphysics. | | Xenophobic_Persecution_in_the_U_K_ Exposes an MI5 operation of illegal harassment through the UK media, public molestation, and verbal abuse. | | You_Be_The_Judge_and_Jury Online book documenting crimes committed by the Federal Reserve, IRS, U.S. Government. | | Discrimination_Against_Transgendered_People Summary of existing case law in the U.S., including employment discrimination, parental issues, marriage, immigration, and prison issues; authored by Shannon Minter, senior staff attorney, National Ce | | Transgender_Equality__A_Handbook_for_Activists_and_Policymakers Guide to passing transgender-inclusive non-discrimination legislation with introduction to transgender issues, language for legislation, talking points, comprehensive resource listing. 96-page book i | | Transgender_Issues_and_ual_Orientation A 1997 issue of the National Journal of ual Orientation Law, including three articles, and a brief to the European Court of Human Rights in the case of X,Y, and Z v. UK. | | Transgender_Law_and_Policy Up-to-date listing of all U.S. laws that are transgender-inclusive; quality articles and resources on legal issues affecting transgendered and gender variant people. Intended for activists, policymake | | Transgender_Law_Center Civil rights organization advocating for transgender communities. Features mission, board, staff, services, clients and client stories. Based in San Francisco, CA. | | Air_Force_Technology_Industry_Projects Project profiles. | | Air_Refueling_Operations_Planning Describes a computer program that enables rapid planning and optimization of Air-to-Air Refuelling operations for military Tanker and Receiver aircraft. | | Hampton_Roads_Squadron_-_Association_of_Naval_Aviation Advocate for naval aviation, carrier projection, maritime patrol, rotary wing, special mission, and logistics support. Includes mission, headquarter information, and museum details. | | NATO_Tiger_Association Information and news concerning selected aviation units. | | The_BIKE_sight_of_Life Personal page of a biker with a memory of his motorcycle and a little warning for other bikers. | | 10%er_Brotherhood Mission - to educate people to the fact that being a "biker" isn't bought. It's a piece of history - it's a lifestyle - it's a brotherhood. | | The_Harley Jerry's Harley Davidson Motorcycle and Pictures of Sturgis, Bean Blossom, 95th Reunion, and many other events. | | In_the_Wind_Forum An MSN forum for bikers. | | InjuredBiker_-_Support_for_Downed_&_Disabled_riders Support, rehab assistance, resources, news, & fun for downed Bikers and their friends. | | Jerry_Palmer JP Audio, a professional sound and lighting company. Classic collection of leather biker jackets and motorcycle boots. Harley Davidson Motorcycles. Skydiving Pictures. | | Mad_Maps Maps and roadtrip information by bikers for bikers. | | Milk_bar_cowboys_of_the_1940\'s,1950\'s,1960\'s Photos and reviews of the groups known as milk bar cowboys, unruly motorcycle groups in the 1940's to 1960's. | | Motorcycle_Menace__Media_Genres_and_the_Construction_of_a_Deviant_Culture Doctoral dissertation on the motorcycle and outlaw biker clubs in American culture. Explores how images are exploited in the mass media, whereas biker magazines such as Easyrider celebrated biker life | | Open_Road_Radio Internet radio show featuring motorcycle news and events. | | Steel_Horse Official web site for Steel Horse television and Indiana's online biker community. Provides local coverage on motorcycle news, events, hot spots, weather, merchants, people and places. | | World_Wide_Toy_Run Call to action. Global effort to bring toys to children whose parents are deployed. Join the Bikers for Freedom Against Terrorism make the holidays good for children the world over. | | Blood_Dance__Goth Azhrarn gives a detailed description of modern Gothic culture and its history, featuring images and articles. | | The_Dark_Side Image database, text files, net-goth gallery, club listings, and links. | | DarkHeaven Angel and MyLo host a Gothic forum and provide brief articles on Gothic themes, including music, dark books and movies. | | An_Early_History_of_Goth Pete Scathe outlines the beginnings of the Goth movement between 1979 and 1984, and looks at the influences on its development, including bands and fashion. | | Goth_To_Be_Different A site dedicated to the people who reign the night, the Gothic people. | | Goths_for_Jesus Inverted Goth's articles on Jesus and Christianity from the view of the dark culture, and a forum. | | Release_Me Hundreds of pictures of abandoned places, thousands of haunting places, serial killers, phobias, ghostly pictures, and urban legends. | | RelgiousTolerance_org__The_Goth_Culture B.A. Robinson dispels some of the myths and preconceived notions about Goths, with references. | | Sunlight_and_Shadow__Understanding_the_Gothic_Subculture Jennifer Pitcock aims to dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding the Gothic subculture, in an effort to promote tolerance and understanding. |
|
Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy Theories
Jump To:
A One Page Summary of the Lincoln Assassination
Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy Theories
Lincoln Escapes Death in 1864
Abraham Lincoln's Pre-Assassination Dream
Abraham Lincoln's Last Day
Abraham Lincoln's Autopsy
The Route of Abraham Lincoln's Funeral Train
---
The Life and Plot of John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth's Movements on the Day of the Assassination
John Wilkes Booth's Final Hours and the Positive Identification of his Body
The Text of John Wilkes Booth's Diary
John Wilkes Booth's Weapons
John Wilkes Booth's Autopsy
---
The 1865 Conspiracy Trial
Did John Wilkes Booth and Other Conspirators Attend Lincoln's Second Inauguration?
The Text of John Surratt's 1870 Lecture on the Conspiracy
John F. Parker: The Guard Who Abandoned His Post
A Booth Saves a Lincoln
---
The Strange and Eerie Events in the Years Following the Assassination
The 1876 Attempt to Steal Mr. Lincoln's Body
Boston Corbett: The Bizarre Soldier Who Killed John Wilkes Booth
Mr. Lincoln's Casket Opened and the Remains Viewed in 1901
---
Mary Todd Lincoln's Nightmare at Ford's Theatre
The Fifteen People Who Turned Down the Lincolns' Theater Invitation
Private John Millington's Eyewitness Account of the Chase and Capture of John Wilkes Booth
George Atzerodt's Lost Confession
---
Photographs Related to the Assassination
Photographs of the Convicted Conspirators
Adjusting the Ropes Prior to Hanging
Hanging of Conspirators
Box Where Lincoln was Assassinated
Close-Up of Paine (Powell) on the Gallows
Ford's Theatre in 1865
Lincoln's Rocking Chair at Ford's Theatre
Petersen House (where President Lincoln Died)
---
Samuel Arnold
George Atzerodt
David Herold
Dr. Samuel Mudd
Michael O'Laughlen
Lewis Paine (Powell)
Edman Spangler
John Surratt
Mary Surratt
---
ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSASSINATION SITE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN RESEARCH SITE
MARY TODD LINCOLN RESEARCH SITE
LINCOLN ASSASSINATION THEORIES: A SIMPLE CONSPIRACY OR A GRAND CONSPIRACY?
John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, and questions arose almost immediately. Was Booth solely responsible for the assassination? Or was Booth simply a tool in a much larger conspiracy? Just who may or may not have been involved with Booth has been the subject of profound speculation among writers, historians, and others for over 140 years now. With the publication of new books and articles in the 1980's, 1990's, and beyond, the quest to find what really happened has continued. This page will attempt to outline the major conspiracy theories (in no particular order) that have been promulgated since 1865.
THEORY #1
ANDREW JOHNSON WAS INVOLVED WITH BOOTH
Approximately seven hours before shooting the president, Booth dropped by the Washington hotel which was Vice-President Andrew Johnson's residence. Upon learning from the desk clerk that neither Johnson nor his private secretary, William A. Browning, was in the hotel, Booth wrote the following note: "Don't wish to disturb you Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth." Browning testified before the military court that he found the note in his box later that afternoon. Did Johnson and Booth know each other? In the 1997 publication "Right or Wrong, God Judge Me" The Writings of John Wilkes Booth edited by John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper it is stated on p. 146 that Booth had previously met Johnson in Nashville in February, 1864. At the time Booth was appearing in the newly opened Wood's Theatre. Also, author Hamilton Howard in Civil War Echoes (1907) made the claim that while Johnson was military governor of Tennessee, he and Booth kept a couple of sisters as mistresses and oftentimes were seen in each other's company. Lincoln had essentially ignored Johnson after Johnson's embarrassing behavior on Inauguration Day. Mary Todd Lincoln felt Johnson was involved. On March 15, 1866, she wrote to her friend, Sally Orne:
"...that, that miserable inebriate Johnson, had cognizance of my husband's death - Why, was that card of Booth's, found in his box, some acquaintance certainly existed - I have been deeply impressed, with the harrowing thought, that he, had an understanding with the conspirators & they knew their man... As sure, as you & I live, Johnson, had some hand, in all this..."
Mary Todd Lincoln to her friend, Sally Orne, in a letter dated March 15, 1866
Some members of Congress also thought Johnson was involved and a special Assassination Committee was established to investigate any evidence linking Johnson to Lincoln's death. Nothing suspicious was ever found by the committee; yet a belief by some Americans that Johnson was somehow involved with Booth continued for many years.
THEORY #2
LINCOLN DIED BY WAY OF A SIMPLE CONSPIRACY ORGANIZED BY JOHN WILKES BOOTH
This theory has John Wilkes Booth as the mastermind and that all remaining conspirators, with the one exception of John Surratt, were either hanged or sent to prison at Ft. Jefferson. Among the books that have supported this theory are Clara Laughlin's The Death of Lincoln: The Story of Booth's Plot, His Deed, and the Penalty, David M. DeWitt's The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Its Expiation, and George S. Bryan's The Great American Myth. The simple conspiracy theory paints Booth as a Southern patriot and racist who originally planned to kidnap the president, take him to Richmond, and hold him in exchange for Southern prisoners of war. When the kidnapping plans fell through, Booth turned to assassination as his means for revenge. The entire plot consisted simply of John Wilkes Booth as the leader of a small band of co-conspirators. In 2004 Michael W. Kauffman's encyclopedic American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies was published. Kauffman paints Booth as a master at manipulating people, not as a stooge for others.
THEORY #3
LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION WAS THE RESULT OF A CONFEDERATE PLOT
The idea that Lincoln was killed as part of a grand conspiracy of Confederates arose almost immediately after the assassination. Coded letters found in Booth's trunk back at the National Hotel tied him to the Confederacy. This theory has undergone a marked revival in the past 20 years. In 1977 a statement conspirator George Atzerodt made before the trial in 1865 was uncovered. In it Atzerodt told of Booth's knowledge of a Confederate plot to blow up the White House. The hypothesis of a Confederate grand conspiracy was detailed in 1988 by William A. Tidwell, James O. Hall, and David Winfred Gaddy in Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln. Tidwell supplied further evidence in 1995 with the publication of April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War. (Another work which stresses Confederate involvement, but lacks the detail of the aforementioned books, is Larry Starkey's Wilkes Booth Came to Washington.) Proponents of the Confederate grand conspiracy point out that as the Confederacy's situation deteriorated, more daring and reckless planning was needed. Lincoln was viewed as a legitimate wartime target. This was especially true after the Union's failed Dahlgren raid on Richmond that had been approved by Lincoln himself and was evidence of Lincoln's increasing determination to take whatever steps were necessary to end the war. Colonel Ulrich Dahlgren was killed in the raid, and on his person several documents were found, one of which said, "The men must be kept together, and well in hand, and once in the city, it must be destroyed and Jeff Davis and his cabinet killed." Lincoln had hand-picked Dahlgren for the raid, and the Confederate government now believed the Union president had ordered Davis's death.
Confederate grand conspiracy theorists feel Judah Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, was deeply involved in the plot to kidnap/kill Abraham Lincoln. He burned all of his records before Richmond was evacuated. Benjamin escaped to England, and he was the only member of the Confederate government never to return to the United States. He practiced law in England until 1883 and died in Paris on May 6, 1884.
The theory of a Confederate grand conspiracy portrays Booth as a rebel agent working to organize a band of men to kidnap Lincoln. When Richmond fell, the plans turned to assassination. First, there was the failed effort to blow up the White House followed by the successful effort to kill Lincoln at the theater. Just as Lincoln may have ordered the killing of Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet by Ulrich Dahlgren and his men, Judah Benjamin and Jefferson Davis were involved in the plans to kidnap and later assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The theory of Confederate complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is accepted by many of the current Lincoln assassination historians, scholars, researchers, and writers. The actual trigger for Booth's actions was the April 10th capture of explosives expert Thomas F. Harney who was on his way to Washington to bomb the White House. Booth, knowing Harney's mission had failed, tried to make up for Harney's disaster by taking matters into his own hands and killing the president at Ford's Theatre. For details on this theory see the articles entitled "Who Ordered Lincoln's Death?" by James E.T. Lange and Katherine DeWitt in the June 1998 edition of North & South magazine and "The Lincoln Assassination Revisited" by William Hanchett and "Risking the Wrath of God" by Edward Steers, Jr. in the September 2000 issue of North & South. Confederate plans to blow up the White House seem to be confirmed by George Atzerodt's Lost Confession.
THEORY #4
LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION WAS THE RESULT OF A CONSPIRACY OF POWERFUL INTERNATIONAL BANKERS
This theory is that Abraham Lincoln was killed as a result of his monetary policies. John Wilkes Booth would be seen as a hired gun. In its simplest terms, the theory is that Lincoln needed money to finance the Civil War. Bankers in Europe led by the Rothschilds offered him loans at high interest rates. Rather than accept the loans, Lincoln found other means to fund the war effort. More importantly, the British bankers opposed Lincoln's protectionist policies. Some Englishmen in the 1860's believed that "British free trade, industrial monopoly and human slavery travel together." Lincoln's policies after the Civil War would have destroyed the Rothschilds' commodity speculations. After the war, Lincoln planned a mild Reconstruction policy which would have enabled a resumption of agriculture production. The Rothschilds were betting the other way on high prices caused by a tough Reconstruction policy toward the South. Lincoln was viewed as a threat to the established order of things, and he was assassinated as a result. The goal was to weaken the United States so the Rothschilds could takeover its economy. An article titled "The Rothschilds' International Plot to Kill Lincoln" was published October 29, 1976, in New Solidarity.
THEORY #5
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WAS BEHIND LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION
In 1886 an ex-priest by the name of Charles Chiniquy (pictured to the left) wrote a book titled Fifty Years in the Church of Rome which portrayed the assassination of Lincoln as a Catholic grand conspiracy. Chiniquy maintained that Jefferson Davis had offered $1,000,000 if someone would "kill the author of the bloodshed." Chiniquy wrote that the money could be offered, but that "...the Jesuits alone could select the assassins, train them, and show them a crown of glory in heaven..." Booth was the tool of the Jesuits. He was corrupted and directed by the Vatican. In 1906 Chiniquy said, "The President, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated by the priests and the Jesuits of Rome." In 1856 Lincoln had defended Chiniquy in court. Chiniquy had quarreled with his bishop and then was sued for slander by one of the bishop's friends (the bishop himself having nothing to do with the complaint). A morals charge was also involved. The case was heard May 20-22, 1856, in Urbana, Illinois. Lincoln arranged for a compromise settlement, but Chiniquy interpreted the settlement as a victory over the church. He felt some Jesuits held Lincoln responsible for the settlement. In 1897 Thomas M. Harris, a member of the 1865 military commission, wrote a book entitled Rome's Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Other books that involve the Roman Catholic Church in Lincoln's assassination include DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE The Jesuits' Attempt to Destroy the Popular Government of the United States: The True Story of Abraham Lincoln's Death by C.T. Wilcox and The Suppressed Truth about the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Burke McCarty (1924). McCarty's opening sentence was, "In all the bloody history of the Papacy, perhaps in no one man, as in Abraham Lincoln, was there concentrated such a multitude of reasons for his annihilation by that system." An Inquiry into the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Emmett McLoughlin was published in 1963. Among other points, McLoughlin maintained that the majority of American Catholics were in favor of slavery and opposed to Lincoln. The author said the totalitarian Papacy considered Lincoln a major enemy, and that the Church for centuries had "been involved in numerous instances of the forcible removal of heads of state whom it condemned."
THEORY #6
SECRETARY OF WAR EDWIN STANTON WAS THE MASTERMIND BEHIND LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION
In 1937 Otto Eisenschiml's Why Was Lincoln Murdered was published. The book espoused the hypothesis that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was directly involved in Lincoln's death. It alleged that Stanton was against Lincoln's mild Reconstruction policies and wanted him out of office so a more radical Reconstructionist policy could be employed. On the day of the assassination Ulysses S. Grant was expected to attend Our American Cousin with the Lincolns. Eisenschiml argued that had Grant attended, the military guards who protected him would never have allowed Booth to enter the State Box at Ford's Theatre. Eisenschiml further argued that Grant's refusal of the Lincolns' theater invitation was due to an order by Stanton to change his plans for the evening. Eisenschiml's theory was that Grant's absence left Lincoln vulnerable. Stanton was also alleged to have known that conspirators were meeting at the Surratt boardinghouse, and that he refused to release from duty the powerful Major Thomas T. Eckert after Lincoln asked for him as a bodyguard (falsely stating that Eckert had vital work to do at the War Department's Telegraph Office). Eisenschiml continued from there to make a case against Stanton by examining an entire series of events following Booth's shot. Nearly every move Stanton made is seen as suspicious and containing an ulterior motive. Among these behaviors and events were not alerting the security at the Navy Yard Bridge (over which Booth escaped), the mysterious interruption of telegraph communications, secretly arranging to have Booth killed before being brought to trial, and the suppression of evidence by removing pages from Booth's diary. Between the publication of Why Was Lincoln Murdered and the late 1970's, other books were published which supported and amplified Eisenschiml's hypothesis. For example, Theodore Roscoe's The Web of Conspiracy (1959) found Stanton's behavior very suspect. Other high government officials were also implicated.
Further evidence against Stanton was discovered by chemist Ray Neff who found cipher messages allegedly written in 1868 by Lafayette Baker, head of the National Detective Police, which implicated himself, the Secretary of War, and many others including Congressmen. David Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier's 1977 publication, The Lincoln Conspiracy, was made into a major motion picture. However, during the past 20 years, research has clearly tended to vindicate Edwin Stanton. In hindsight, behavior by Stanton that appears to be linked to a conspiracy has been shown to be innocent and in some cases, fabricated. Current scholarship indicates plausible explanations for the actions Eisenschiml and other authors of the 1937-1977 era found suspicious. One good source for those wishing to read about the vindication of Edwin Stanton is Section 3 of Part Five (pp. 170-177) of Stephen B. Oates' Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths. Also, there is a page on the web on this subject CLICK HERE. A recent book which revives the Stanton suspicions is Robert Lockwood Mills' 1994 publication of It Didn't Happen The Way You Think. The Lincoln Assassination: What The Experts Missed.
Dr. William Hanchett's closing sentences in The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies are as follows: "Lincoln would not have enjoyed the extravagant and pseudoreligious praise being offered in his name by so many Americans. Possibly he would have been reminded of some anecdote by which to deflate the absurdities of such exaggerations. But one suspects that if he could learn of the slush written about the suggested involvement of his secretary of war in his own death he would simply become angry."
Other groups and individuals that have at times been implicated in Lincoln's assassination include Freemasons, domestic bankers, financiers and businessmen, Copperheads, certain Radical Republicans (either on their own or in concert with Edwin Stanton), the B'nai B'rith, and the Knights of the Golden Circle. Major Henry R. Rathbone, John F. Parker, and Mary Todd Lincoln have not totally escaped suspicion. Speculation that Booth's motivation was to avenge the hanging of Confederate John Yates Beall is not proven. (For details please see the November 2000 edition of the Surratt Courier.) Although it's been over 140 years since the assassination, any kind of closure on all of the circumstances surrounding the event still seems a long way in the distance. Judging simply by e-mail messages to me over the past thirteen years, the general public favors theories 2 and 6 mentioned above. The preponderance of recent published material by scholars and writers supports numbers 2 and 3. Some experts would combine the two saying that, although Booth had strong ties to the Confederacy, the actual events of April 14, 1865, were planned by Booth, not Richmond. Most everyone admits there is circumstantial evidence that ties Confederate agents to Booth; the difference comes in the interpretation of this evidence. It seems certain that the controversy will continue well into the current century. Future studies and interpretations are a surety. Perhaps all the answers will never be known. In his 1999 publication entitled The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Professor Thomas Reed Turner (author of Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln) notes the recent trend of professional historians who have been researching and writing about the assassination. On p. 78, Turner says:
Although this trend is a very positive one, those who continue to hope that the assassination may be "solved," in the same manner as a murder mystery may be solved, are destined to be disappointed. The century which has passed, makes any new and definitive solution to the crime doubtful. It is unlikely that a smoking gun will surface even though there may still be new sources which will be discovered.
For the full text of Mary Todd Lincoln's letter to Sally Orne, see p. 345 of Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters by Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner. For a detailed examination of many of the theories surrounding Lincoln's assassination, see Dr. William Hanchett's The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies. Also, Dr. Hanchett's article titled "Persistent Myths of the Lincoln Assassination" in the Winter 1997 edition of The Lincoln Herald (published by the Lincoln Memorial University Press) is an excellent source. Thomas Reed Turner's Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln is very good. For more on the life of Judah Philip Benjamin, see the August 2000 issue of Frederick Hatch's Journal of the Lincoln Assassination.
The sketch at the top of the page is a Currier and Ives print (Library of Congress).
LINCOLN ASSASSINATION BOOK
Dr. Edward Steers, Jr., a renowned authority on the Lincoln assassination, has written a book entitled Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. For information please CLICK HERE.
This page is a part of the Abraham Lincoln Research Site. Questions, comments, corrections or suggestions can be sent to R. J. Norton, the creator and maintainer of this site. All text except reprinted articles was written by the webmaster, ©1996-2009. All rights reserved. It is unlawful to copy, reproduce or transmit in any form or by any means, electronic or hard copy, including reproducing on another web page, or in any information or retrieval system without the express written permission of the author. The website was born on December 29, 1996.
Web design by Andrew Patel.
|
|
