Lincoln, the unknown

236 •LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNthe cry. "We know Booth escaped," echoed the "RichmondExaminer." The "Louisville Journal" openly contended thatthere had been something rotten in the whole show, and that"Baker and his associates had wilfully conspired to swindlethe United States Treasury."The battle raged bitterly; and, as usual in such cases, witnessessprang up by the hundreds, declaring that they had metBooth and talked to him long after the shooting affray at theGarrett barn. He had been seen here, there, and everywhere:fleeing to Canada, dashing into Mexico, traveling on shipsbound for South America, hurrying to Europe, preaching inVirginia, hiding on an island in the Orient.And so was born the most popular and persistent and mysteriousmyth in American history.almost three quarters of a century; and, to thisIt has lived and thrived forday, thousandsof people believe it—many of them people of unusual intelligence.There are even some learned men of the colleges who professto believe the myth. One of the most prominent churchmenin this country has gone up and down the land, declaringin his lectures to hundreds of audiences that Booth escaped.The author, while writing this chapter, was solemnly informedby a scientifically trained man that Booth had gone free.Of course, Booth was killed. There can be no doubt of it.The man who was shot in Garrett's tobacco barn used everyargument he could think of to save his life; and he had asplendid imagination; but, in his most desperate moments, itnever occurred to him to deny that he was John Wilkes Booth.That was too absurd, too fantastic, to try even in the face ofdeath.And to make doubly sure that itwas Booth who had beenkilled, Stanton sent ten men to identify the corpse after itreached Washington. One, as we have already recorded, wasDr. May. He had cut "a large fibroid tumor" from Booth's neck,and the wound in healing had left "a large and ugly scar." Dr.May, who identified him by that scar says:From the body which was produced by the captors,man hadnearly every vestige of resemblance of the livingdisappeared. But the mark made by the scalpel during liferemained indelible in death, and settled beyond all ques-