Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN•235In the midst of all this mystery, wild rumors sprang into existenceand newspapers broadcast them over the land. Booth'shead and heart had been deposited in the Army Medical Museumat Washington—so said the "Boston Advertiser." Otherpapers stated that the corpse had been buried at sea. Still othersdeclared it had been burned; and a weekly magazine publishedan "eye-witness" sketch, showing it being sunk in the Potomacat midnight.Out of the welter of contradiction and confusion anotherrumor arose: the soldiers had shot the wrong man, and Boothhad escaped.Probably this rumor arose because Booth dead looked so differentfrom Booth alive. One of the men Stanton ordered to goaboard the gunboat Montauk on April 27, 1865, and identifythe body, was Dr. John Frederick May, an eminent physicianof Washington. Dr. May said that when the tarpaulin that coveredthe remains was removedto my great astonishment, there was revealed a body inwhose lineaments there was to me no resemblance to theman I had known in life. My surprise was so great that Iat once said to General Barnes: "There is no resemblancein that corpse to Booth, nor can I believe it to be that ofhim." ... It being afterwards, by my request, placed in asitting position, standing and looking down upon it, I wasfinally enabled to imperfectly recognize the features ofBooth. But never in a human being had a greater changetaken place, from the man whom I had seen in the vigorof life and health, than in that of the haggard corpse whichwas before me, with its yellow and discolored skin, itsunkempt and matted hair, and its whole facial expressionsunken and sharpened by the exposure and starvation ithad undergone.—Other men who saw the corpse did not recognize Booth even"imperfectly," and they told their doubts about the city. And therumor traveled fast.Matters were not helped by the secrecy with which the Governmentguarded the body, the speed and mystery of its burial,and Stanton's refusal to give out any information or to denyugly tales.The "Constitutional Union," a paper published in the capital,said the entire performance was a hoax. Other papers joined in