Escape Of John Wilkes Booth!
"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."
[From *Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth* by Finis L. Bates. Memphis: Pilcher Printing Co., 1907.]
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Author Finis L. Bates 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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[From *Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth* by Finis L. Bates. Memphis: Pilcher Printing Co., 1907. pp. 210-213.]