"On April 26, 1865—12 days after he shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.—Booth himself was cornered and shot in a Virginia barn. He died from his wound that day. His body was taken back to Washington and then aboard the USS Montauk for an autopsy.
The administration, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, ordered that a single photograph be taken of Booth’s corpse, says Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography. On April 27, 1865, many experts agree, famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan took the picture.
It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown.
“Stanton was a guy who really took charge,” Zeller says. And in this case, Zeller says, he was “trying to control photographs of Booth’s body so he would not be a martyr or lionized.” In the short term, however, the absence of the image buoyed conspiracy theories that Lincoln’s assassin was still alive."
Via Ann, Belle Grove
Sic Semper Tyranus... Booth himself, as a murderer, nay, an assassin, has sealed his place in U.S. History as the greatest Tyrant of all -- the Tyrant who deprives another man of the greatest freedom of all, his very life.
ReplyDeleteIt is actually spelled "Tyrannis". Look it up.
DeleteToo bad he didn't succeed in kidnapping him the year before as the War may well have turned out differently.
Delete