Chronological History of the American Civil War

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Dr. Mudd, Mudd tells John Wilkes Booth, he could get assistance from Samuel Cox. Both Booth and Herold leave out for his house. In the past, Samuel Cox was a man that had helped escaped Confederate prisoners return to the South. Boyd once lived near Mr. Cox and knew him well. Boyd was at Mr. Cox’s house when Herold and Booth arrived. Mr. Cox asked Boyd to lead Booth and Herold to a good hiding place in the pine thicket. After Booth and Herold were well hidden, Boyd informed Booth that Mosby’s Raiders (CSA) were at the Rappahannock River crossing and for three hundred dollars he could meet with Mosby and arrange for his assistance. Booth agreed. Next day Boyd, Booth and Herold meet on the Virginia side of the river. General James O'Beirne (U.S.) telegraphs Washington, he is close on their trail, but is ordered back to Washington by Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton (U.S.). Secretary Stanton sends two of his trusted men, Lieutenant Doherty (U.S.) and Colonel Conger (U.S.) to find Boyd and kill him. Because Boyd knew of Stanton’s involvement in a plan to assassinate Lincoln, he needed to be silenced (killed). Booth knew nothing of Stanton’s plan and there was no need to kill him. On April 25, the day before Doherty and his men arrived at the Garrett farm, Booth left the Garrett home for the Shenandoah Valley. That night, Herold and Boyd were sleeping in the Garrett barn when Doherty and his men arrived. You know the rest of that story. The body is never identified by family or co-conspirators. It is quickly autopsied and buried. But still today, the U.S. Army has bone samples of “Booth” that could be compared for DNA, but the government refuses to do this. Why change history? Stanton got his man…like Ruby got Oswald…covered it up before anyone knows a thing! John Wilkes Booth escapes. In 1871, in Sewanee, Tennessee, Louisa Holmes Payne met a man named Jack Booth, who claimed he was a “distant cousin” to John Wilkes Booth. Louisa fell in love, and she married Jack in February 1872. Jack confesses to her, he is really John. She makes him re-do the marriage certificate with his God-given name. And so, on February 24, 1872, a new certificate was signed in the presence of Rev. C.C. Rose, listing the marriage of John Wilkes Booth and Louisa Payne. They move to Memphis. Louisa now has a daughter and gets homesick and John moves on to Texas promising to come back for her. He never does and later moves again to Oklahoma using the names Jack Booth/John St. Helen/David E. George. While living in Texas as John St. Helen, he confesses on what he thought was his death bed to Finis Bates in 1877, but he did not die. When Booth got better, he thought he better move on again, so he moved on to Oklahoma. Finally, on January 13, 1903, in Enid, Oklahoma, a man by the name of David E. George committed suicide. In his last dying statement, the man confessed to his landlord that he was in fact, John Wilkes Booth. Upon hearing the news of this confession, Finis Bates traveled to Enid to view the body, which he recognized as the man he had known as “St. Helen.” Finis Bates claimed the body, and had the body mummified. The body appeared in carnival sideshows across the country for years as Lincoln’s assassin, with the last reported sighting in 1976. Bates published The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth in 1907, which contains an account of St. Helen’s confession. "Hurst Nation" Homestead Still Stands A few facts you might not know about the Great American Civil War. I guess it runs in the family… With pressure mounting from both Union and Confederate authorities, Col. Fielding Hurst (U.S.) submitted his resignation “due to bad health” on December 10, 1864. No action was taken, although the resignation was received by higher command on January 8, 1865. In May 1865, Major General Edward Hatch wrote to Headquarters, Fifth Cavalry Div. (U.S.) “I learn a Mr. Chandler, calling himself a Captain,

a brother-in-law of Fielding Hurst, is levying contributions upon the citizens of McNairy Co., Tennessee, amounting to $50,000. Hurst has already taken about $100,000 out of West Tennessee in blackmail when Col. of the 6th Tennessee.” But now with the War over, General Rosecrans granted Hurst a discharge through Special Order #8 on July 26, 1865, effectively backdated to his resignation. Hurst never paid for his crimes during the War, and fanatics like Tennessee’s