GDG- Killing Lincoln

[CWMHTours at aol.com]

Well Thank you-  I didn't find the reference in the  text.
 
"Just  the facts, ma'am." 

Your Most Obediant Servant
Peter  

 
In a message dated 1/16/2012 9:10:33 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
teej at nc.rr.com writes:

Esteemed  GDG Member Contributes:


Esteemed GDG Member Peter  Contributes:

My version is that the guy got all excited and had to  be  restrained for
awhile but I forget where I read it.

Kauffman relates the incident in a footnote (#41 page 437 "American  
Brutus):

"Some writers believe the story of  John W. Westfall, an officer of the 
Capitol Police, who later claimed to  have held Booth back as he lunged for 
the president. Benjamin B. French  recorded his recollection of the 
incident 
just after the assassination.  According to French, a man lunged at the 
president, and he (French)  ordered Westfall to grab him. The man insisted 
he 
had a right to be there,  and thinking he might be a new member of 
Congress, 
French told the  policeman to let him go. Benjamin French to Francis O. 
French, April 24,  1865, French Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of 
Congress. See also  Weichmann, " A True History," 90-93. A photograph of 
the 
event purporting  to show Booth and his conspirators standing close to the 
president may  have been misinterpreted. The man standing near Lincoln may 
or 
may not be  Booth; in some photographs of the scene, he does not look much 
like him.  However, Powell was in Baltimore at the time, and Herold may 
have 
been  laid up with a sprained ankle in Piscataway, Maryland. Atzerodt had 
spent  the previous night rowing across the Potomac. Though he spoke freely 
about  the activities of his fellow conspirators, Atzerodt never mentioned 
their  presence at the Capitol that day. See Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and 
Philip  B. Kunhardt, Jr., "Twenty Days (New York: Harper and Row, 1965),  
34-35."

Regards,
Teej
PS: For those on the group like me who  do not know who he was, Benjamin 
French was Commissioner of Public  Buildings.




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