Yesterday, I visited Dent’s Meadow, the spot where John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold first set across the Potomac River. What follows is the short video clip that I made while standing on that Maryland shoreline:
Further images will come later as I complete a Crossing the Potomac Picture Gallery. In the meantime, here is an animated image of the spot in 1901 and now:
EDIT: One reader was a little confused regarding the location where I shot my video versus the location of Henry Woodland in the photograph taken by Osborn Oldroyd in 1901. I created this little map to hopefully alleviate that confusion:
“As I was in the act of shoving the boat off Booth exclaimed, “Wait a minute, old fellow.” He then offered me some money. I took eighteen dollars, the price of the boat I knew I would never see again. He wanted me to take more, but I said no, what I had done was not for money. In a voice choked with emotion he said, “God bless you, my dear friend, for all you have done for me. Good-bye, old fellow.” I pushed the boat off and it glided out of sight into the darkness. I stood on the shore and listened till the sound of the oars died away in the distance and then climbed the hill and took my way home.”
These are the words written by Thomas A. Jones as he recounted the night he put John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold onto the Potomac River. For days, Jones had tended to the fugitives as they remained hidden from Union troops in a pine thicket. Finally, on the night of April 20th, 1865, Jones brought them to a boat on the bank of the Potomac and directed them to the Virginian shore. However, Booth and Herold did not greet the morning sun of April 21st on Virginian land. Rather, they found themselves making landfall in Maryland, further away from their intended destination than before.
When it comes to the escape route of John Wilkes Booth, millions of people visit Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. every year. Ten thousand visit the Surratt House Museum in Clinton, MD. Thousands visit the Dr. Mudd House, and a few hundred participate in the John Wilkes Booth Escape Route Bus Tours put on by the Surratt House. The B.E.R.T. (Booth escape route tour)provides you with the most bang for your buck, but still has the limitations of fitting the entire route (and return trip) into a 12 hour tour. Due to this, some of the minor places in the escape are left unseen. The place where John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold found themselves on the morning of April 21s and where they stayed until dusk of April 22nd, is one of these unseen places. Today, I wanted to rectify this and see if I could at least get close to this forgotten stop during the escape.
After Booth and Herold left Thomas Jones and ventured into the Potomac, something occurred to steer the men off course. Thomas Jones attributed the flood tide and unfriendly currents as to the reason why Booth and Herold did not keep to their course. Booth dramatically wrote in his diary, “After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till I was forced to return wet, cold, and starving, with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair.” Booth may be exaggerating the reason for their return to Maryland, but something, manmade or otherwise, kept the pair from making it to Mrs. Quesenberry’s. Instead, Booth and Herold arrived northwest from their departure point and landed in Nanjemoy Creek. The exact point the two men made landfall in Nanjemoy Creek is unknown. On the map above you will see two creeks on the eastern side of Nanjemoy Creek. They are Burgess Creek (with Gumtree Cove at its mouth) to the north and King’s Creek to the south. Booth and Herold rowed into one of these creeks and hid their boat among the marshy shores. I’m of the opinion that the pair entered King’s Creek,but, again, there is no documentation one way or the other. According to reporter George Alfred Townsend (GATH) in 1884, it was after beaching the boat that, Booth and Herold, “discovered a house nearby, to which Herold made his way, the latter saw something familiar about the place, he knowing all that country well.” The pair had inadvertently reached the farm of Peregrine Davis, a verbose character in Charles County who was described by General Hooker as, “one of the noisiest” rebels in the area. The land was called Indiantown Farm, and it was tended by Davis’ son-in-law, John J. Hughes, who lived on the property with his family. Booth and Herold would spend about 36 hours on Indiantown property.
The exact details of this 36 hour layover are very much lacking. As author William Tidwell wrote, after the death of Booth, “It became common knowledge in Charles County, Maryland that Booth had visited Indiantown, occupied by Peregrine Davis’ son-in-law, John J. Hughes. Unfortunately there is no contemporary documentation of the visit.” What we know about Booth and Herold and their inadvertent return to the Maryland is largely based on three sources: David Herold’s statement after his arrest, GATH’s 1884 account of Booth crossing the Potomac, and family lore from the Hughes family.
David Herold’s Account:
After Davy Herold was arrested at the Garrett Farm, he gave a lengthy statement while imprisoned. Davy is evasive and cunning in what he tells the investigators, mixing a tale of truth and lies. Nevertheless, Davy does provide period documentation that he and Booth did not cross the river the first time and made land at Nanjemoy:
“…We started to cross the Potomac. It was very foggy. We got along the Maryland shore to Nanjemoy Creek, and went to a man’s house and wanted to buy some bread. He said he hadn’t baked, and would not bake any. He said he had nothing to drink either. I said we were wet and would like to have something to drink. I had a bottle, and asked if he would sell me some whiskey. He said he would not do it. Booth gave the man’s little boy a quarter of a dollar for filling the bottle with milk…”
Taking Davy Herold at his word would imply that John Hughes provided no aid to the fugitives at all. According to Davy, Hughes refused to give them, literally, bread and water. However, we cannot take David Herold at his word. This is the same man who claimed not to have known about the assassination until later and was then forcibly coerced by Booth to accompany him. While not trustworthy, Davy does provide evidence that there was some interaction between Hughes and the fugitives.
GATH’s article:
In April 1884, Century Magazine ran George Alfred Townsend’s article, “How Wilkes Booth Crossed the Potomac“. The article was mostly about Thomas Jones and the assistance he gave Booth and Herold in the pines and then, sending them across. GATH interviewed Jones and got the story from him. GATH was also a successful reporter who had a long history reporting on the assassination. In addition to the piece I quote before, GATH wrote the following regarding Booth and Herold on the Nanjemoy Creek shores:
“It was the residence of Col. John J. Hughes, near Nanjemoy Stores, in Maryland, directly west of Pope’s Creek, about eight or nine miles. The Potomac is here so wide, and has so many broad inlets, that in the darkness the Virginia shore and the Maryland shore seem the same. Herold went up to the house and asked for food, and said that Booth was in the marsh nearby, where they had pulled up the boat out of observation. The good man of the house was much disturbed, but gave Herold food…The keeper of the house at Nanjemoy became frightened after they left, and rode into Port Tobacco and told his lawyer of the circumstance, who took him at once before a Federal officer.”
In GATH’s account, Hughes provided food to the pair. GATH also mentions that John J. Hughes later went to Port Tobacco to report the men. While there is no documentation to support that Hughes talked to officials about the men at his house, there was a letter that the provost marshal of Washington received from a man named William R. Wilmer of Port Tobacco. In the letter, Mr. Wilmer recalled that on Friday, April 21st, he saw two men in Nanjemoy Creek, one of whom answered to the description of John Wilkes Booth. By the time the letter got to the provost marshal, Booth had already been cornered and killed, so the matter was not investigated further. However, it is possible that this report from Mr. Wilmer is the one that GATH is recalling. John J. Hughes had studied law and passed the bar himself, so it unlikely that he would have needed to consult a lawyer as GATH claims.
3. Family Lore of the Hughes family:
John J. Hughes
In 1975, assassination researcher James O. Hall interviewed one of John J. Hughes’ grandsons. According to the family story given to him, Booth and Herold did not make their presence known to the family members in the house, but somehow made contact with John J. Hughes. Hughes, uncomfortable with having the men stay at his house, allowed the pair to stay in a nearby slave cabin near the water’s edge. Hughes proceeded to take food out to the pair without the rest of the family knowing it.
By putting these different pieces together, it is possible to make a probable accounting of Booth and Herold’s time at Indiantown farm. After coming ashore and pulling up their boat, Booth had Herold make his way towards the nearest house, while the former stayed at the boat with his broken leg. Herold recognized the farm from his hunting days and somehow, secretively or otherwise, made contact with John J. Hughes. Hughes did not want the men at his house but allowed them to stay nearby in the slave quarters. During the course of the two days and one night Booth and Herold stayed there, Hughes brought the pair food and water. The fugitives may have had interactions with Hughes’ children or former slaves, as presented in Davy’s statement, or they were completely hidden from the family. After dusk on April 22nd, Booth and Herold pushed off from the Nanjemoy Creek shores, leaving John J. Hughes and Indiantown Farm behind.
With this history in my head today, I made my way down the peninsula created by Nanjemoy Creek and the Potomac River. From looking at a map, I noticed that “Blossom Point Rd.” would take me all the way down the peninsula. I planned to drive to the end of the road, hop out of my car, and take a few pictures of the shore where the Potomac meets Nanjemoy Creek. It wouldn’t be exactly where Booth and Herold landed, but it would be as close to the water as I could get. On my way back north, I planned on taking a picture of the sign for Indiantown Farms, which, like it was in 1865, is privately owned. The entrance to the farm is about a mile and a half from the water, so I knew I wouldn’t see anything except for the sign.
Though the map showed a clear road straight down to the point of the peninsula and, in truth, it probably goes there, the map did not warn me that three miles from the end of the peninsula northward is the property of the U.S. Army and is used for ordinance testing and the like. When I was presented with a fancy looking gate bearing signs stating, “Restricted Access”, I quickly turned around. I was going to have to settle for just pictures of the Indiantown Farm sign.
As I pulled my car off the road and walked towards the sign to take a picture I made eye contact with, a very kind woman who had just finished her laborious work of weed whacking a long stretch of perfectly manicured white fence, and her granddaughter. I walked up and introduced myself, asking them if I was indeed on the same property John Wilkes Booth was said to have temporarily stayed on. They replied that it was and, with their own generosity of spirit shining through, they offered to give this stranger before them a tour of the property. I was ecstatic by the offer and graciously took them up on it.
As I got in their truck and we proceeded to drive the mile and half to the water’s edge, I was struck by how much nature was around me. I saw countless deer, eagles, ospreys, kestrels, rabbits, and songbirds among the hay fields. My host was very generous in sharing what she knew about the history of the place. When we got to the water’s edge, she pointed out to me the house that is believed to have been where John J. Hughes and his family would have been living when Booth showed up. She was not certain that it was the same house, but recounted that they believed it was. While there have obviously been several additions made to the house, the chimney looks to old enough to me.
The assumed former home of John J. Hughes on the Indiantown property. The entrance to Burgess Creek by way of Gumtree Cove is to the left of the house. Burgess Creek is one of the two possible creeks that Booth and Herold could have landed at.
From the main home (which, by the way, has one of the most splendid view of the water I have ever seen) we proceeded to a place that I had seen a picture of once, but could not believe still existed: the slave cabin where Booth and Herold are said to have slept and spent time in.
The slave cabin that Booth and Herold are said to have slept in.
In the June, 1990 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine, author Michael Kauffman included this picture of the inside of the cabin: Since that time, the exterior of the cabin has been restored. The following are some of the pictures and a short video I took of the interior of this cabin:
View of Nanjemoy Creek from one of the cabin’s windows.
After departing the cabin, my host took me to where King’s Creek border’s the property. The marshy landscape of the creek and its relatively close distance to the main house and slave cabin, makes me think this was the place where Booth and Herold would have hidden their boat. My host stated that she often goes kayaking here and that Booth and Herold could have easily rowed their boat into King’s Creek and hidden it among the marshy shores. Once on land and beyond the few trees around the shore, John Hughes’ house would have been easily visible to them.
The entrance to King’s Creek from Nanjemoy Creek. King’s Creek is south of Indiantown and the supposed Booth cabin.
King’s Creek
Indiantown Farm is a quiet and tranquil place (at least when the nearby military facility isn’t blasting, my host told me). With a roof over his head and some time to rest, it seems logical that the John Wilkes Booth would take out his pocket diary and write. His last entry was dated as “Friday, 21” and, if he was being true in his dating, that would have placed his writing at Indiantown.
The Booth cabin with the Hughes house in the background.
As I departed Indiantown Farm, I thanked my generous host immensely. She was hoping to learn more about the role Indiantown Farm had in John Wilkes Booth’s escape, and so I gave her my website’s name and told her that I would be blogging about my trip later that day. I hope that I have done a decent enough job here of presenting what little is known about Booth and Herold’s largely unknown layover at Indiantown.
Indiantown Farm will continue to be one of the unseen places of John Wilkes Booth’s escape. However, today we were able to see that the history that still exists, thanks to the kindness and openness of those who live there.
A few weeks ago, I posted a thank you note that Edman Spangler wrote while incarcerated at Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas. In it, he mentioned several items he was sending along to John T. Ford as tokens of his appreciation. Spangler also included other carpentry items created by the conspirators and asked for them to be passed along to their respective families. Though undated, I deduced that the note must have been written in mid 1867, during the John Surratt trial but before Michael O’Laughlen’s death. Today, I stumbled across a related newspaper article that seems to agree with that conclusion:
While it is unknown if any of the items contained in this package exist today, there are several items on display at the Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House Museum made by Dr. Mudd (with assumed guidance from Edman Spangler) while he was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson:
In the early morning of April 23rd, 1865, John Wilkes Booth and David Herold finally managed to cross the mighty Potomac River into Virginia. This was the second attempt the two men had made to cross the river. When they departed the Maryland shores the first time, their guide Thomas A. Jones directed the pair to aim for Machodoc Creek and stated, “Mrs. Quesenberry lives near the mouth of this creek. If you tell her you come from me I think she will take care of you.” Though now on Virginian soil, Booth and Herold did not land at Machodoc Creek as directed, but rather accidentally made landfall at Gambo Creek about a mile from Mrs. Quesenberry’s home. Booth, with his broken leg mind you, stayed with the boat at Gambo Creek while Herold walked through the marshy terrain to Mrs. Quesenberry’s home, known as “The Cottage”. Elizabeth Rousby Green Quesenberry (pronounced Kwee-zen-berry) was a widow who lived in a modest home on the land of a fairly nice sized plantation. During the war, her home on the Machodoc Creek had many visitors, including Confederate agents who found it to be a hospitable place to conduct the secret mail line. Not far away from Mrs. Quesenberry’s home were stationed Confederate agents Thomas Harbin and Joseph Baden. Harbin helped run the mail line on the Virginian side of the Potomac while his brother-in-law, Thomas Jones, ran things on the Maryland side. Thomas Jones sent Booth and Herold to Quesenberry, knowing that she would put them in contact with someone who could help them further.
When Herold arrived at the Quesenberry cottage, Mrs. Quesenberry was not at home. Herold chatted with her daughter, offering is the Booth’s boat to the young lady as compensation for some assistance, while the Mrs. was sent for. According to her own statement, when Mrs. Quesenberry arrived at her home she refused to help the stranger at all. He asked for a conveyance for his injured brother, but she told him she had none. Herold then asked if she would sell him a horse, to which she callously replied that if she had wanted to help him she would have given him a horse, but that she did not want to help him and would not even sell him one. According to Mrs. Quesenberry, the man then started walking away from the house dejectedly after that. She apparently took pity on him and called to ask if he and his brother had eaten anything recently. When Herold replied no, she said she would send some dinner to them.
The man she sent to bring Booth and Herold some dinner was none other than Thomas Harbin. Booth had been introduced to Thomas Harbin in December of 1864 by Dr. Mudd. Harbin agreed, at that time, to aid Booth in his proposed kidnapping plot of Abraham Lincoln. Now, here Booth was four months later, needing his assistance. What happened next is a little fuzzy. What we know is that Booth and Herold hired a local farmer by the name of William Bryant to take them to Dr. Stuart’s house, Cleydael. Whether Bryant was another Confederate agent conscripted by Harbin to take them, or an oblivious farmer that Harbin directed Booth and Herold to approach, remains unclear.
Mrs. Quesenberry was later arrested and brought to Washington to give a statement. There is no record showing she was imprisoned, however. Her statement, which is extremely self serving, must be taken with a grain of salt. Her home had long been a stop for Confederate agents and, while she claimed to not have helped Booth and Herold, her action of sending Thomas Harbin to bring the pair some food was exactly what the fugitives needed to continue their escape.
Mrs. Quesenberry later sold “The Cottage” and moved to Texas where she died in 1896. Her body was transported back to her childhood home of Washington D.C. and she is buried in Holy Rood Cemetery in Georgetown. Her modest home was altered greatly from its 1865 appearance and, while known to descendants in the area, it was temporarily lost to historians who thought it was consumed when Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren was created . However, her house did survive outside of the boundaries of the Dahlgren Naval base and today is the home to the Machodoc Creek Marina (formerly Dahlgren Marine Works).
Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t think of something to write about. I usually correct this by going through my Boothie files and looking for a picture or an article that motivates me. However, there are still instances where, even after consulting various sources, nothing inspires me. When that happens, I usually resort to making posts like the following, which are purely just for fun.
It’s time to test your knowledge, resourcefulness, and observational skills with a game I’d like to call, What’s Missing?
Below you will find 18 different pictures of people, places, and things relating to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. All of the pictures below are present here on BoothieBarn in their corresponding Picture Gallery. However, in the pictures that follow, I have altered each image and removed a detail. Some of the details I have removed are large, noticeable things that you might figure out just from your own familiarity with the image. This would demonstrate your knowledge of the subject matter of the picture. Other missing pieces are very minor details that will probably require you to find the original image in the Picture Galleries, demonstrating your resourcefulness. Lastly, these minor details may require you to compare the altered and original images closely, testing your observational skills.
Therefore here is an arbitrary scoring guide for you to test your mettle by:
You get 3 points if you can identify the missing detail just from the picture below, without looking for or consulting the original image.
You get 2 points if you can identify the missing detail after finding the original image in the Picture Gallery without clicking it to see a larger version of it.
You get 1 point if you can identify the missing detail after finding the original image in the Picture Gallery and clicking it to view the larger version or downloading it to compare.
You get 0 points if you cannot or incorrectly identify the missing detail.
Without further ado, let’s see how knowledgeable, resourceful, and observant you all are with images relating to the Lincoln assassination:
On the morning of April 24th, 1865, John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold were being escorted through King George County, Virginia by Charley Lucas. The night before, the pair had essentially evicted the free black family of the Lucases from their own cabin after being denied lodging at the home of Dr. Stuart’s, Cleydael. Despite, or perhaps due to, the aggressive nature of these “guests”, William Lucas, the patriarch of the family allowed Booth and Herold to hire his son Charley to take carry them by wagon to the town of Port Conway.
Port Conway was a small village on the northern side of the Rappahannock River that separated King George County from Caroline County. It got its name from the Conway family of which President James Madison was descended Not only was Madison’s mother’s maiden name Conway, but the fourth President of the United States was born there on the family plantation, Belle Grove. Aside from Fredericksburg much further north, Port Conway was one of the few places one could cross the Rappahannock River via public ferry. The ferry ran between Port Conway on the north, to Port Royal to the south. When Booth and Herold were dropped off by Charley Lucas at Port Conway, they found the ferry was on the other side of the river and that they had to wait for it to return before they could cross. While the pair waited at Port Conway, anxious to get across as quickly as possible, the came across William Rollins. Rollins lived at Port Conway with his wife Bettie where he fished and ran a small store. Herold tried to arrange for Rollins to take them over the Rappahannock River and offered him $10 to ferry them over and then take them to Bowling Green. Rollins said he would consider it, but he had to go out and tend to his nets first as the shad were running. Rollins stated that, if the ferry had not returned by the time he came back, he would take the two men across. While Rollins was away fishing, three recently paroled Confederate soldiers rode up to Port Conway. They were Willie Jett, Absalom Bainbridge, and Mortimer Ruggles. Herold and Booth quickly made friends with these soldiers and ended up confiding their identities as the assassins of the President to them. The trio, with defacto leader Jett, agreed to help the two men. When Rollins returned, he saw that the ferry was making its way to Port Conway and David Herold told him his services were not going to be needed. Jim Thornton, the ferry operator, ferried the five men, two fugitives and three soldiers, across the Rappahannock river to Port Royal.
In Port Royal, Jett called on the home of Miss Sarah Jane Peyton, looking for a home in which to lodge to two men. At first, Miss Peyton agreed to let the “wounded Confederate soldiers” and his “brother”, stay and invited them into the house. For some reason, perhaps after seeing the rough condition the two men were in, Sarah Jane Peyton changed her mind. She told Jett that she could no longer house them because her brother, Randolph Peyton was not going to be at home for a couple days, and it would not be proper for two men to stay without the man of the house present. Willie Jett went across the street and knocked on the door of Mr. Catlett, once again trying to find lodging for the two men. Mr. Catlett was not at home. According to Willie Jett, it was Sarah Jane Peyton who suggested they might try Mr. Garrett’s place up the road from Port Royal. With that, all five men headed out of Port Royal and towards the Garrett farm. In the end, it was due to the gossipy nature of Mrs. Bettie Rollins back over at Port Conway that led to John Wilkes Booth’s demise. When the troops came to Port Conway and asked around, Mrs. Rollins told them that they might be able to find Willie Jett at a hotel in Bowling Green owned by his girlfriend’s parents. It was at this hotel that Jett was found, just like Bettie Rollins thought he would be, and from there he led the troops back to the Garrett farm.
Today, nothing remains of Port Conway other than Belle Grove and a church. The colonial town of Port Royal has fared far better with an active historical society and, as I posted here, a recently opened museum.
Click to see the newest galleries here on BoothieBarn:
During the months of April, May, June, and early July 1865, the front pages of the nation’s newspapers contained headlining information about the assassination, search, trial, and fate of the conspirators. Newspapers from across the nation sent correspondents to Washington to attend the trial of the conspirators in order to take down testimony and comment on the accused. With so many newspapers covering the same material, the big city newspapers found it necessary to differentiate their coverage to attract more readers. The Philadelphia Inquirer sought to set themselves apart by including engravings in their coverage of the events.
While newsworthy events had been photographed as early as the invention of the camera, it was impossible to reproduce the photographs in a newspaper until the 1880’s. Instead, photographs or drawings of events would have to be turned into engravings, a laborious and time consuming process, before they could then be printed alongside text. There were special illustrated magazines like Harper’s Weekly and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Magazine that had pages filled with such historic engravings, but these were only published on a weekly basis. Additionally, the amount of time it took to create and complete a quality engraving of an event was about a week and a half, causing a measurable delay between an event and a published engraving of it. Harper’s Weekly, for example, didn’t report on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln until their April 29th, issue because that is how long it took them to produce engravings of the characters and events.
The first engraving of John Wilkes Booth that appeared in the April 29th, 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly.
The more detailed the engraving was, the longer it took to make. As a daily newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer could not afford the time or money it would take to create incredibly detailed engravings to supplement their coverage of the trial. Instead they produced and published the following very basic engravings:
April 17th, 1865:
April 28th, 1865:
May 5th, 1865:
May 13th, 1865:
May 19th, 1865:
May 20th, 1865:
May 22nd, 1865:
June 26th, 1865:
June 27th, 1865:
There are a few more engravings of people like Jefferson Davis and Lafayette Baker that I haven’t put up here in the interest of space and focus. I’m sure several of you are thinking, “I don’t have those newspapers, but I’ve seen those before.” For one, I have most of the above conspirators’ engravings in their respective Picture Galleries. However, practically all of these pictures were also published in a book that was advertised in The Philadelphia Inquirer on July 10th, 1865:
Once the trial of the conspirators was over, there was a race to see who would be the first to publish the transcript of the trial in book form. The nation had been following the trial daily in the papers and there was money to be made by the first publisher who could provide a permanent book version of it. The publisher T. B. Peterson and Brothers was the first to bring a trial transcript book to the market debuting it only three days after the execution of four of the conspirators. Peterson’s edition is called, The Trial of the [alleged] Assassins and Conspirators at Washington City, D.C., May and June, 1865, for the murder of President Abraham Lincoln. The swiftness of this publication was due to the cooperation Peterson received from The Philadelphia Inquirer. Essentially, the Peterson copy of the trial is a direct copy of The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s coverage of the trial in book form. They acknowledge this on the first page of the book stating that, “The whole being complete and unabridged in this volume, being prepared on the spot by the Special Correspondents and Reporters of the Philadelphia Daily Inquirer, expressly for this edition.” Along with the text, Peterson included the Inquirer’s engravings above.
Though not a verbatim account as it was advertised, the Peterson version of the trial provides unique details not found in the other two editions of the trial. Peterson copied over the Inquirer reporters’ accounts of the courtroom and the little asides and actions of the conspirators during the proceedings. Though Peterson’s edition is the low man on the totem pole when it comes to use in research, those courtroom gems and the engravings still make it worth reading and consulting from time to time.
There is, however, one engraving from the Inquirer that I posted above that did not make its way into Peterson’s book. It is this engraving of “Samuel C. Arnold”:
I can understand why Peterson did not include this engraving. It looks nothing like the real Samuel B. Arnold. At first, I just assumed it was a bad engraving from a poor artist (not unlike another questionable image of Sam we’ve discussed previously). However, when compared with the engraving of John Surratt from the wanted poster, it appears that was supposed to be the subject all along:
It seems clear that the engraver used this image of John Surratt as his guide. Though flipped, the hair, features, and clothes match perfectly. Whether this misidentification occurred during the printing of the newspapers or before then, I cannot say. Regardless, it appears that Peterson noticed the discrepancy before publishing his edition of the trial and scratched the engraving entirely.
Photojournalism is something we take for granted today. Back in 1865, however, it took an immense amount of time and effort to provide readers with visuals to complement the written word.
My recent walking tour from Dr. Mudd’s house forced me to do some research on the man who was hired by John Wilkes Booth and David E. Herold to guide them across the swamp, Oswell S. Swann. As I mentioned in one of the videos, his name varies greatly in different texts and records: Oswell, Oswald, Ausy, Aussie, Oscar, Osborn, Ozzy, etc. He was born in Maryland in about 1835 and was a Wesort. A Wesort is a member of a group of people with tri-racial ancestry; Native American, Caucasian, and African American. Director of the Surratt House Museum, Laurie Verge, gives a good history of the Wesorts here.
According to Oswell Swann’s statement, he had heard about the murder of the President when Booth and Herold arrived at his house. However, he had no way of knowing that the two strangers before him were the parties responsible. It was around 9:00 pm on April 15th when Booth and Herold came up to Swann who was on foot. They asked him the way to Mr. [William] Burtles place, “Hogan’s Folly”. Burtles was a known Confederate sympathizer and his farm was used on occasion to shelter Confederate agents. Burtles’ home was only about two miles from Swann’s and the pair offered Swann $2 to guide them there. Before leaving Swann’s house, the pair asked Swann if he had any whiskey. As corroborated by David Herold in his account, Swann gave them whiskey and bread before mounting his own horse to leave. On route to Burtles’, the pair changed their minds. “They asked me if I could take them to Capt. Cox, if so they would give me $5 more.” Swann agreed to this and proceeded to take them, via Centerville Rd. (modern Route 6), across the swamp to Samuel Cox’s home of Rich Hill.
While en route, the small man, David Herold, did the talking. Noticing the crutch with the other man (Booth), “The small man said that the other man broke his leg.” Unlike the bragging the pair had done about their deed to John Lloyd at Surrattsville, it is extremely unlikely that Booth and Herold told Swann, a descendent of slaves, that the former had assassinated the Great Emancipator. If they had, the best case would have been that Swann would flee, leaving them again lost and without a necessary guide. For their own benefit, they would keep quiet to Swann about what Booth had done.
Just before reaching Cox’s house, however, Davy Herold made a threatening remark to Swann, perhaps hoping to keep him from telling anyone about this little nighttime sojourn. “Don’t you say anything. If you tell that you saw anybody you will not live long.” This was probably Swann’s first hint that there was something nefarious about these men. But Swann was a modest tobacco farmer with a wife and eight children. With so many mouths to feed he needed the money that these two men offered him for the simple job of taking them from one place to another, even if they did threaten him.
Booth, Herold, and Swann got to Rich Hill around midnight and Swann states the pair were welcomed in by Samuel Cox and stayed inside for 3 or 4 hours. Swann waited patiently by the horses during this time, not because of any devotion to the men, but because he had yet to be paid! When Booth and Herold emerged from the house hours later, they put on a masterful charade for Swann’s benefit. The pair acted disgruntled as if they had been turned away. One of the men said, “I thought Cox was a man of Southern feeling.” Swann helped Booth mount his horse again and then managed to get the money owed to him. Perhaps hoping to undo their earlier threat and eliminate Swann’s suspicion of them, Booth and Herold paid Swann $12 for his help, $5 more than what they had agreed to on route. Once he had his money, Swann departed, leaving Booth and Herold mounted but still in Cox’s yard. Booth and Herold were subsequently escorted by the overseer of Cox’s farm, Franklin Robey, to the nearby pine thicket, where they awaited Thomas Jones. Swann returned home, seemingly unaware that he had just aided the assassins of the President.
Such unawareness could not have lasted long, however. As troops poured into Bryantown over the next few days, Swann must have thought about the two suspicious men who called upon him. But still, one of the men had a broken leg and neither of the suspects to that point were described as lame. It wasn’t until the 18th that detectives first looked into the report of two suspicious men had called upon Dr. Mudd to treat a broken leg. They returned to further question Mudd on the 21st and during this visit found the boot Mudd had removed from the injured man and noticed the name J. Wilkes inscribed on it. This was the first direct piece of proof that the man with the broken leg at Dr. Mudd’s was the assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
The inside of Booth’s boot. It is inscribed, “Henry Luz, Maker, 445 Broadway, J. Wilkes”
The news undoubtedly spread like wildfire and increased their patrols around Bryantown and the surrounding area looking for the fugitives. It was in the evening of April 23rd that Oswell Swann, now fully aware of the identity of the men he aided, went to a friend in Bryantown by the name of Joseph Padgett, so that he may help him alert the authorities of the information he possessed. No threat of retribution on Herold’s part or an extra $5 from Booth would keep him silent. He went to Colonel Wells in Bryantown and told him how he unknowingly led the fugitives to Samuel Cox’s house. At about midnight on the 23rd, the troops, led by Oswell Swann, departed Bryantown for Rich Hill. They arrived there at about daybreak and arrested Samuel Cox. Cox and his servant girl Mary Swann (no relation to Oswell) denied that Booth and Herold were ever permitted entry into the house. History would prove that they both lied and that Oswell told the truth. Nevertheless, like several others who unknowingly aided the conspirators, Swann was arrested and held in Bryantown until the 27th when he was forwarded up to Washington and held in the Old Capitol Prison. He was finally released on May 18th and returned home.
After the trial was over, and the government opened up applications for those feeling they deserved a portion of generous reward money, an anonymous letter was sent to the War Department suggesting that Oswell Swann was deserving of some compensation:
“Bryantown, Md.
Sept. 1865
Respected Sir,
In awarding & making provision of the reward offered for the providing and giving information relative to the assassins of the late beloved President Lincoln Is not Oswell Swann entitled to a portion; the moment he was aware that Booth & Herold past his house and pressed him in there service he gave information to the proper authorities that they had past the neighborhood of there place and crossed the Potomac which accelerated & hasten there arrest. Oswell Swann is an honest, correct man and deserves well.”
Perhaps this letter was commissioned by Swann himself to get a share of the reward money. Or maybe his friend Joseph Padgett, who had helped Swann give his information to the authorities, felt compelled to write on his behalf after seeing the misfortune and imprisonment that befell the, “honest, correct man.” Swann did not receive any reward money, but it is nice to think that some anonymous neighbor in Bryantown thought him deserving of some.
The location of Oswell Swann’s house at the corner of Cracklingtown Road and Burnt Store Road near Hughesville, MD
Oswell Swann died on May 2nd, 1890 at the age of 55. According to the death certificate he had been living in D.C. for the past ten years, residing off of Pomeroy Rd. in Anacostia. It took me forever to decipher the cause of death which ended up being the Greek word for tuberculosis. In a bit of serendipitous luck for me, as I was working on all of this, I got a call from Jim Garrett. Jim Garrett and his co-author Rich Smyth (both of whom are big supporters and commenters here on BoothieBarn) wrote the book, The Lincoln Assassination: Where Are They Now?, which documents the burial places of people associated with Lincoln’s death. Jim was out and about in DC when he called me, and I told him that I was looking at the death certificate for Oswell Swann which stated he was buried at Mt. Olivet cemetery. Mt. Olivet is the final resting place of Mary Surratt and John Lloyd among others. Jim was kind enough to stop by Mt. Olivet to check out the lead that Oswell Swann may be there. Jim and a cemetery employee had to go into the old, old books but, with the date of burial I provided him, they managed to find that Oswell is indeed buried in Mt. Olivet. It will take further digging to find out which specific section of the cemetery he is in. Oswell must have been close to destitute when he died as his grave is marked as a “free grave site” in the record books. Due to this, Oswell Swann’s grave will have no marker or headstone on it.
In 1869, a correspondent to the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper visited the country that I walked through a few days ago. There he spoke with, “an intelligent gentleman, living in the neighborhood of Doctor Mudd.” This correspondent’s unnamed informant recounted, with only limited accuracy, the story of Oswell Swann. Part of his narrative, however, correctly summarizes Swann and his role in Booth and Heorld’s escape. Of the terrain the fugitives found themselves in, the man stated, “Any one who has seen the country and appreciated its wild network of roads, can understand the demand [for a guide].” Booth and Herold had become lost, disorientated and needed help from anyone they could find to get them across the Zekiah Swamp. It was this need and sheer bad luck that brought Booth and Herold to Oswell Swann’s door. Enticed by an easy way to make some money, Oswell Swann agreed to take the two strangers where they wanted to go, “not knowing, of course, the sort of work he was contracting for.” Oswell Swann made an anonymous deal with the Devil, as it were, and though Swann tried his best afterwards to help the soldiers track him down, he still spent about a month in prison for it.
LincolnConspirators.com 
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