JULY 8,
1865:
Americans have had a
long love affair with conspiracy theories. The earliest conspiracy theory
regarding a President’s death surrounded the sudden passing of President
Zachary Taylor in July 1850 after he ingested iced milk and cold cherries on a
hot summer’s day. It’s most likely the milk --- standing outdoors and
unpasteurized, of course --- had gone bad and that the President died of
then-untreatable food poisoning. But given his strong objections to Popular
Sovereignty and the spread of slavery, the idea that he was poisoned just
months into his Presidency cannot be fully discounted.
Until
the death of John F. Kennedy in 1963 at the hands of Lee Harvey Oswald (born
Robert E. Lee Harvey Oswald), the crown jewel of all American conspiracy
theories was the Lincoln assassination. And with good reason. The Confederacy
had many, many reasons to want the Union President dead, and there were
certainly enough enemies of Lincoln and his various policies, to carry out a
State-sanctioned murder. Lincoln had enemies in the North as well. Copperheads,
Radical Republicans, frustrated patronage seekers, even members of his own
Cabinet like Salmon P. Chase, positioned themselves in opposition to Lincoln,
to the war, and to Emancipation at various times during his first
Administration.
Vice-President
Andrew Johnson was briefly investigated regarding Lincoln’s death when it was
discovered that John Wilkes Booth had left a calling card for the
Vice-President at the Kirkwood Hotel on the day of the assassination. George
Atzerodt’s subsequent “refusal” to kill Johnson was seen by some as a
smokescreen to elevate Johnson to the Presidency. As a Southerner, Johnson was
suspect in many Northern eyes as a fifth columnist for the Confederacy, and
Johnson’s “Restoration” policy, which put most of the power structure of the
antebellum South back in place in 1865, did nothing but inflame these fears.
Johnson,
however, is a most unlikely plotter. The man was a blunt instrument without
political acumen, without grace, and without the cunning inherent in the makeup
of any conspirator of note.
Of
somewhat more interest as a conspirator is Edwin M. Stanton, the irascible and
inflexible Secretary of War. In 1937, Otto Eisenschmidt published Why Was Lincoln Murdered? his study on
the assassination. He laid the blame for Lincoln’s death on Stanton, who, he
claimed, knew of the John Wilkes Booth plot of April 14th but refused Lincoln’s
request for a particular bodyguard --- Thomas T. Eckert --- that Friday night.
Eisenschmitt also claimed that General Grant (who was supposed to have attended
the theatre with the President) was encouraged to leave town by Stanton, thus
denying Lincoln the protection of Grant’s protective detail. Eisenschmitt puts
Stanton’s actions down to monomania, a hatred of Lincoln, and a thirst for
power. Eisenschmitt underscores Stanton’s disdain of Lincoln in the 1850s and
his notable lack of response to the first reports of trouble at Ford’s Theatre
as evidence of his involvement.
This
of course utterly ignores the fact that Stanton and the President were close
friends and had been for years as of 1865. It also does not take into account
that Stanton had been receiving reports of various disturbances all through the
raucous, celebratory night of April 14th.
Subsequent
scholarship has exploded Eisenschmitt’s theory. Historians have determined that
Thomas Eckert was not stationed in Washington City at that time. Logic further
erodes Eisenschmitt’s arguments, for Lincoln sent his close friend and
bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon away that weekend and had given his official White
House bodyguard George Crook the night off. If Lincoln had really wanted a
bodyguard, as Commander-in-Chief he could have issued orders for a man, several
men, a Division, or the entire Army of The Potomac to guard him that night. Or not gone to the theatre at all.
A
second theory involving Stanton revolves around the Dahlgren Letters, the
orders supposedly issued by Lincoln (or Stanton, with or without Lincoln’s
knowledge) to capture or kill Jefferson Davis in 1864. The originals do not
exist. When Richmond fell, Stanton had them seized from the Confederate
archives and destroyed. It is entirely possible that Stanton issued the orders
on his own, and thus he may be inadvertently
responsible for the revenge shooting of the President.
The
Dahlgren Letters conspiracy theory advances the idea that Stanton undertook a
particularly clumsy conspiracy to have Lincoln removed from power. In this
theory, Stanton sent Captain Ulric Dahlgren to Richmond with the letters as
part of a raiding party to seize Davis (this much is true), but the theory then
posits that Stanton made certain that the letters fell into the right
Confederate hands when Dahlgren was killed on the raid. How he did so is
unknown.
Critical
thinking explodes this theory. First of all, if Stanton wanted the Letters
leaked he could have just as easily had them published in the Richmond Press,
or simply sent them down the well-known smugglers’ route that ran through
Surrattsville, Maryland. Secondly, if he wanted to silence a co-conspirator,
why select Captain Ulric Dahlgren as the fall guy? Dahlgren was a popular,
politically and militarily well-connected officer (his father was Admiral John
Dahlgren the inventor of the Dahlgren Gun) whose death would draw extra
attention to itself. Third, how could Stanton be certain that Dahlgren would
die? And fourth, how could Stanton be certain that the Letters would survive
the encounter or reach the Confederate upper echelons?
The
idea that Stanton planned the death of Lincoln via the leakage of the Dahlgren
Letters is as absurd as arguing that Robert E. Lee planned the defeat of the
Confederacy by “losing” a copy of his Battle Orders prior to Antietam so that
George McClellan would find them.
The
Papacy has come in for examination as a possible source of conspiracy:
According
to one idea, Lincoln’s death was repayment for the outcome of a legal case back
in 1856, when Lincoln’s client prevailed in a slander suit over a Catholic
Bishop in Illinois, and the Church had to pay a significant sum in damages.
This seems too petty a matter to attract the attention of the Vatican.
According
to a second idea, the Church sanctioned the assassination due to Emancipation
which placed free blacks into direct economic competition with poor white
Catholic immigrants in the United States. This rationale for murder seems too
amorphous to contemplate seriously.
A
third idea, that Pope Pius IX had Lincoln killed for offering Italian patriot
and unifier Guiseppe Garibaldi a commission in the Union Army during the war
makes little sense. The Papacy was in fact fighting to hold on to the Papal
States and was opposed to Garibaldi, but had Garibaldi taken Lincoln’s offer
and left Italy his absence would have aided, not harmed, the Church.
Proponents
of all these theories point to the fact that John Surratt was made a Papal
Zouave after the assassination. A Papal Zouave was a minor honor, and was conferred
to place Surratt (who claimed to be innocent) under the protection of his
Church at a time when he almost certainly would have been hanged for his part
in the John Wilkes Booth conspiracy. In
his later trial, Surratt was effectively exonerated.
Not
surprisingly, some pseudo-historians argue that the Jews (or the Rothschilds,
or “powerful international bankers” unnamed, depending on the source) had a
hand in killing President Lincoln.
According to one theory, Lincoln was killed because the Confederacy had borrowed millions of unrecoupable dollars from the Rothschild interests; another theory posits that the end of the war was going to throw the cotton market into turmoil leading to massive financial losses for moneyed interests. Exactly how killing Lincoln was going to fix any of this goes unexplained.
A third theory, that Lincoln was murdered on the orders of the B’nai Brith for espousing anti-Semitism and undercutting the “international Jewish cabal”, is laughable. Lincoln was no anti-Semite. He was a noted Judeophile, and was alternately praised by some and damned by others for his inclusive positions. As for the “cabal,” it belongs in the dark corners of raving minds.
According to one theory, Lincoln was killed because the Confederacy had borrowed millions of unrecoupable dollars from the Rothschild interests; another theory posits that the end of the war was going to throw the cotton market into turmoil leading to massive financial losses for moneyed interests. Exactly how killing Lincoln was going to fix any of this goes unexplained.
A third theory, that Lincoln was murdered on the orders of the B’nai Brith for espousing anti-Semitism and undercutting the “international Jewish cabal”, is laughable. Lincoln was no anti-Semite. He was a noted Judeophile, and was alternately praised by some and damned by others for his inclusive positions. As for the “cabal,” it belongs in the dark corners of raving minds.
Other,
even crazier, theories argue that Mary Lincoln wanted her husband killed, that
the Freemasons were involved, and that Major Henry Rathbone was a Booth
conspirator.
 |
| Lincoln's ghost hovers protectively over Mary in this early "proof" of supernatural manifestation |
Returning
to the realm of sanity, more thoughtful conspiracy theorists argue that the
President’s death may have been a Copperhead plot, a Knights of The Golden
Circle Plot, or a lower-level Confederate plot directed from Canada. It is known that John Wilkes Booth visited
the Confederate spymaster, Jacob Thompson, in Canada. But if Booth was planning
on fleeing to Canada, as some speculate, why did he head south? Where, in fact, was he going when he fled Ford’s Theatre?
It
is also known that John Surratt made a very quick trip to Liverpool, possibly
for funds. Did James Dunwoody Bulloch, the Confederate spymaster extraordinaire fund the assassination of
the President his nephew Theodore Roosevelt so admired?
Was
this plot approved by Richmond or was it merely thrown together by field
operatives? Did it even exist, or are we chasing shadows?
Lewis
Powell advised his interrogators that they had barely scratched the surface of
the assassination. Was he making an admission or just being dramatic?
Given
the passage of time and the loss of so much evidence it is likely we may never
know.
