Mike Griffith
Sergeant
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2014
From the time I began to study the Civil War, the traditional version of the Lincoln assassination never made sense to me. Why in the world would any genuine Confederate assassination conspiracy target Abraham Lincoln when it was well known that Lincoln wanted a lenient, conciliatory reconstruction? And why in the world would any Confederate in his right mind also try to kill William Seward, who supported lenient, conciliatory reconstruction and who had been an outspoken advocate of compromise before the war? Why would any genuine Confederate assassination conspiracy perform actions that would give the Radicals a golden excuse to impose a draconian reconstruction on the South? It has never made any sense to me.
As I learned more about the Civil War, other questions about the Lincoln assassination occurred to me. Wouldn't a genuine Confederate conspiracy try to kill Edwin Stanton first and foremost? Wouldn't any rational Confederate conspiracy target the leading Radical Republicans in Congress, such as Benjamin Wade, Henry Wilson, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens, men who were known for their hatred of the South and for their desire to brutalize and subjugate the South? These men would have been the top targets in any genuine Confederate assassination conspiracy.
My first inkling that John Wilkes Booth was a double agent came in an article by Civil War scholar Clyde Wilson in which Wilson indicated that he suspected that Booth was a double agent. But Wilson said nothing else on the matter. When I read this, I thought, "What?! Well, that would explain a lot!"
Not long after I read Wilson's intriguing statement, I became aware of the fine scholarship of Otto Eisenschiml, a scientist and Civil War scholar who wrote in the early 1900s. I read Eisenschiml's book Why Was Lincoln Murdered? which makes a strong circumstantial case that the conspiracy that killed Lincoln was not a Confederate conspiracy but a Radical Republican conspiracy led by Edwin Stanton. Eisenschiml also raises questions about Booth's true allegiance and suggests that he was in fact a double agent for the Union. Eisenschiml followed up Why Was Lincoln Murdered? with In the Shadow of Lincoln’s Death in which, among other things, he expands on some points made in the first book.
Then, recently, I stumbled across two more books that present additional evidence that Booth was a double agent and that leading Radical Republicans were behind the assassination. The books are Theodore Roscoe’s Web of Conspiracy: The Complete Story of the Men Who Murdered President Lincoln and The Cosgrove Report: Being the Private Inquiry of a Pinkerton Detective into the Death of President Lincoln.
Roscoe was a noted author and scholar in the mid-1900s. Among other things, he was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to write two histories of submarine and destroyer warfare in World War II: United States Submarine Operations in World War II (1949) and United States Destroyer Operations in World War II (1953), Roscoe’s Web of Conspiracy was published in 1959. It is arguably the most scholarly book ever written that posits a Radical Republican conspiracy in the Lincoln assassination. He discusses numerous actions by Stanton that seem to defy innocent explanation and that point to a deliberate attempt to conceal facts and spread disinformation about the assassination.
The Cosgrove Report was edited by former CIA analyst George O’Toole. O’Toole edited a manuscript written by a private detective named Michael Croft, and Croft’s manuscript was based on a manuscript and other materials written and collected by Nicholas Cosgrove, a detective for the Pinkerton Detective Agency during and after the Civil War. The manuscript and materials were handed down to Croft by an attorney named Raymond Lawson, who was one of Cosgrove's grandchildren. O’Toole arranged for the book to be published in 1979 and was recently reprinted.
One thing that is so fascinating about the book is that Cosgrove made some claims that seemed unlikely, if not fantastic, at the time and that were only verified much later. Cosgrove also provided numerous small details that Croft was able to corroborate through extensive research.
Cosgrove’s claims and conclusions were so explosive that the manuscript was written as a historical novel. The novel contains much fiction, but it also contains a great deal of fact. Croft spent years researching Cosgrove’s manuscript and produced an annotated version with a detailed foreword and afterword. The novel is interesting, but the notes and the foreword and afterword are the heart and meat of the book, since they present facts to support the novel.
Croft presents the following facts:
* Booth’s sister said that her brother stated that the abolitionist John Brown was an “inspired” man and the “grandest character of this century.” Such a view of Brown was unheard of among genuine Confederates (it was also a distinctly minority view among Northerners).
* Booth’s sister also said that Booth told her that he could travel through Union lines because he received a pass signed by General Grant.
* Booth’s older brothers, Edwin and Junius, were associated with none other than Lafayette Baker, one of Stanton’s henchmen. Junius reportedly became good friends with Baker before the war.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, I know that “mainstream historians” have summarily dismissed Eisenschiml’s and Roscoe’s research, and they have scoffed at the idea that the Lincoln assassination conspiracy was anything but a Confederate conspiracy. I have read many of the “mainstream” reviews of the Eisenschiml and Roscoe books, and not one of them makes any substantive effort to address the evidence that Eisenschiml and Roscoe present; instead, they make a giant appeal to authority and stress that “no reputable historian” agrees with Eisenschiml and Roscoe. (Actually, Eisenschiml’s research team included a professional historian.)
As I learned more about the Civil War, other questions about the Lincoln assassination occurred to me. Wouldn't a genuine Confederate conspiracy try to kill Edwin Stanton first and foremost? Wouldn't any rational Confederate conspiracy target the leading Radical Republicans in Congress, such as Benjamin Wade, Henry Wilson, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens, men who were known for their hatred of the South and for their desire to brutalize and subjugate the South? These men would have been the top targets in any genuine Confederate assassination conspiracy.
My first inkling that John Wilkes Booth was a double agent came in an article by Civil War scholar Clyde Wilson in which Wilson indicated that he suspected that Booth was a double agent. But Wilson said nothing else on the matter. When I read this, I thought, "What?! Well, that would explain a lot!"
Not long after I read Wilson's intriguing statement, I became aware of the fine scholarship of Otto Eisenschiml, a scientist and Civil War scholar who wrote in the early 1900s. I read Eisenschiml's book Why Was Lincoln Murdered? which makes a strong circumstantial case that the conspiracy that killed Lincoln was not a Confederate conspiracy but a Radical Republican conspiracy led by Edwin Stanton. Eisenschiml also raises questions about Booth's true allegiance and suggests that he was in fact a double agent for the Union. Eisenschiml followed up Why Was Lincoln Murdered? with In the Shadow of Lincoln’s Death in which, among other things, he expands on some points made in the first book.
Then, recently, I stumbled across two more books that present additional evidence that Booth was a double agent and that leading Radical Republicans were behind the assassination. The books are Theodore Roscoe’s Web of Conspiracy: The Complete Story of the Men Who Murdered President Lincoln and The Cosgrove Report: Being the Private Inquiry of a Pinkerton Detective into the Death of President Lincoln.
Roscoe was a noted author and scholar in the mid-1900s. Among other things, he was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to write two histories of submarine and destroyer warfare in World War II: United States Submarine Operations in World War II (1949) and United States Destroyer Operations in World War II (1953), Roscoe’s Web of Conspiracy was published in 1959. It is arguably the most scholarly book ever written that posits a Radical Republican conspiracy in the Lincoln assassination. He discusses numerous actions by Stanton that seem to defy innocent explanation and that point to a deliberate attempt to conceal facts and spread disinformation about the assassination.
The Cosgrove Report was edited by former CIA analyst George O’Toole. O’Toole edited a manuscript written by a private detective named Michael Croft, and Croft’s manuscript was based on a manuscript and other materials written and collected by Nicholas Cosgrove, a detective for the Pinkerton Detective Agency during and after the Civil War. The manuscript and materials were handed down to Croft by an attorney named Raymond Lawson, who was one of Cosgrove's grandchildren. O’Toole arranged for the book to be published in 1979 and was recently reprinted.
One thing that is so fascinating about the book is that Cosgrove made some claims that seemed unlikely, if not fantastic, at the time and that were only verified much later. Cosgrove also provided numerous small details that Croft was able to corroborate through extensive research.
Cosgrove’s claims and conclusions were so explosive that the manuscript was written as a historical novel. The novel contains much fiction, but it also contains a great deal of fact. Croft spent years researching Cosgrove’s manuscript and produced an annotated version with a detailed foreword and afterword. The novel is interesting, but the notes and the foreword and afterword are the heart and meat of the book, since they present facts to support the novel.
Croft presents the following facts:
* Booth’s sister said that her brother stated that the abolitionist John Brown was an “inspired” man and the “grandest character of this century.” Such a view of Brown was unheard of among genuine Confederates (it was also a distinctly minority view among Northerners).
* Booth’s sister also said that Booth told her that he could travel through Union lines because he received a pass signed by General Grant.
* Booth’s older brothers, Edwin and Junius, were associated with none other than Lafayette Baker, one of Stanton’s henchmen. Junius reportedly became good friends with Baker before the war.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, I know that “mainstream historians” have summarily dismissed Eisenschiml’s and Roscoe’s research, and they have scoffed at the idea that the Lincoln assassination conspiracy was anything but a Confederate conspiracy. I have read many of the “mainstream” reviews of the Eisenschiml and Roscoe books, and not one of them makes any substantive effort to address the evidence that Eisenschiml and Roscoe present; instead, they make a giant appeal to authority and stress that “no reputable historian” agrees with Eisenschiml and Roscoe. (Actually, Eisenschiml’s research team included a professional historian.)