1. oath of a Freeman
1. Linda Sillitoe and Allen Roberts, Salamander (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1988), 87.
2. Robert Lindsey, A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Money, Murder, and Deceit (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 66.
3. Ibid., 65–68.
4. Hugh Nibley, quoted in ibid., 69.
5. Sillitoe and Roberts, Salamander, 251.
6. Ibid., 289–291.
7. Ibid., 292.
8. Simon Worrall, The Poet and the Murderer (New York: Plume Group, 2002), 4.
9. Ibid., 249.
10. Edward Steers Jr., “A Puttin’ on (H)airs,” Lincoln Herald 91, no. 3 (fall 1989): 86–90.
11. Worrall, The Poet and the Murderer, 45–46.
12. Todd Axelrod, The Handbook of Historical Documents (Neptune, N.J.: TFH Publications, 1992).
13. Worrall, The Poet and the Murderer, 48.
14. Justin G. Schiller, “In the Beginning … A Chronology of the ‘Oath of a Freeman’ Document as Offered by Schiller-Wapner,” in The Judgement of Experts, ed. James Gilreath, 9 (Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1991).
15. Ibid, 11.
16. “Preliminary Report on the Examination and Analysis of the ‘Oath of a Freeman,’” in Gilreath, ed., The Judgment of Experts, 22.
17. James Gilreath, “Schiller-Wapner Galleries Offers the ‘Oath’ to the Library of Congress,” in Gilreath, ed., The Judgment of Experts, 58.
18. Marcus A. McCorison, “Found at Last? The ‘Oath of a Freeman,’ the End of Innocence, and the American Antiquarian Society,” in Gilreath, ed., The Judgment of Experts, 69.
19. Excerpts from the interviews appear in Gilreath, ed., The Judgment of Experts.
20. Roderick McNeil, “Scanning Auger Microscopy for Dating Two Copies of the ‘Oath of a Freeman,’” in Gilreath, ed., The Judgment of Experts, 119.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 116.
23. www.mormoninformation.com/hofmann.htm (accessed 2011).
2. Pearl Harbor
1. Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), 539–540.
2. Walter Davenport, “Impregnable Pearl Harbor,” Collier’s, June 14, 1941, 11.
3. Quoted in George Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007), 171.
4. When war did break out, the navy estimated it needed seventy thousand new officers to fight a Pacific war. It was able to accomplish this incredible increase in its officer corps through an ingenious program dubbed V-12.
5. Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth, 189.
6. “United States House of Representatives elections,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections, 1942 (accessed 2011).
7. Quoted in Prange, At Dawn We Slept, 584.
8. Prange, At Dawn We Slept, 587.
9. Ibid., 587.
10. Ibid., 588.
11. Ibid., 589.
12. Ibid., 594.
13. Roberts Commission, “Attack upon Pearl Harbor by Japanese Armed Forces: Report of the Commission Appointed by the President of the United States to Investigate and Report the Facts Relating to the Attack Made by the Japanese Armed Forces upon Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941,” 77th Congress, 2nd sess., U.S. Senate, Document No. 159 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1942), 1 (cited hereafter as Roberts Commission report). Prange, At Dawn We Slept, 595–599.
14. Roberts Commission, “Attack upon Pearl Harbor,” 1.
15. Ibid., 20.
16. On May 25, 1999, the U.S. Senate attempted to set the record straight, passing a resolution exonerating Kimmel and Short by a 52 to 47 vote. The resolution stated that the success of the Japanese attacks was “not a result of dereliction of duty” by Short or Kimmel.
17. Former secretary of the navy Frank Knox died of a heart attack on April 28, 1944. Roosevelt appointed James V. Forrestal as his replacement on May 19, 1944.
18. Prange, At Dawn We Slept, 81.
19. Ibid., 681.
20. Quoted in ibid., 675–676.
21. Ibid., 682.
22. Quoted in Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth, vii.
23. Victor, The Pearl Harbor Myth, 302.
24. Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Landis, USNR (ret.), and Staff Sergeant Rex Gunn USAR (ret.), Deceit at Pearl Harbor (N.p.: 1st Books Library, 2001).
25. Francis L. Loewenheim, Harold D. Langley, and Manfred Jonas, eds., Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (New York: Dutton, 1975).
26. The Gestapo is mistakenly believed by most people to have been headed by the infamous Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was head of the entire Reich security agency, of which the Gestapo was only one section.
27. Robert S. Wistrich, Who’s Who in Nazi Germany (London: Routledge, 1995), 49–50.
28. John Lukas, “The Churchill-Roosevelt Forgeries,” American Heritage, November–December 2002, 66.
29. Ibid., 65–67.
30. Ibid., 66.
31. Gregory Douglas, Gestapo Chief: The 1948 Interrogation of Heinrich Müller, 3 vols. (San Jose, Calif.: Bender, 1998).
32. Douglas, Gestapo Chief, 3:50.
33. Ibid.
34. The original transcript used the letter “A” for FDR, and the letter “B” for WSC. The initials are used here so as to avoid any confusion.
35. The base was located in Tankan Bay at Etorofu in the Kurile Islands, the northernmost chain of the Japanese archipelago.
36. This force presumably was to attack the Philippine Islands shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
37. The complete transcript of this alleged telephone conversation appears in Douglas, Gestapo Chief, 3:78–82.
38. Landis and Gunn, Deceit at Pearl Harbor, 235.
39. Ibid., 225.
40. Lukacs, “The Churchill-Roosevelt Forgeries.”
41. “John Lukacs,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lukacs (accessed 2011).
42. Lukacs, “The Churchill-Roosevelt Forgeries,” 66–67.
43. In a search of the wartime correspondence between Roosevelt and Churchill, I found that Roosevelt began his communications with the salutation “Dear Winston” on at least three occasions, while Churchill began his correspondence with the salutation, “Dear Mr. President” on one occasion. The remaining 1,700-plus communiqués lack any salutation. None of the correspondence contains the salutation “Franklin.” See Francis L. Lowenheim, Harold D. Langley, and Manfred Jonas, eds., Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (New York: Saturday Review Press/Dutton, 1975).
44. Lukacs, “The Churchill-Roosevelt Forgeries,” 67.
45. Loewenheim et al., eds., Roosevelt and Churchill, 164–166.
46. Ibid., 166–167.
47. Douglas, Gestapo Chief, 3:98.
48. Lukacs, “The Churchill-Roosevelt Forgeries,” 65–67.
3. Hah Hitler!
1. Hans Bauer, Hitler at My Side (Houston, Tex.: Eichler), 184.
2. Ibid., 184.
3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Trevor-Roper (accessed 2011).
4. Kristen Robinson, “Trevor-Roper, Hugh,” in The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, vol. 2, ed. Kelly Boyd, 1024–1025 (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999).
5. H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 243–246.
6. James P. O’Donnell, The Bunker (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 232.
7. Linge’s and Guensche’s interrogations by Stalin’s NKVD agents may be found in Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, eds., The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler’s Personal Aides (New York: Public Affairs, 2005).
8. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler.
9. Recent DNA testing on the skull fragment believed to be Hitler’s determined the sex of the fragment to be female, leading to the conclusion it came from Eva Braun Hitler’s skull.
10. Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens, eds., Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944: His Private Conversations (1953; reprint, New York: Enigma Books, 2008).
11. Robert Harris, Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), 19.
12. The letters turned out to be “FH,” but Heidemann and others confused the gothic letter “F” with “A” at first. It was not until much later that experts pointed out that the forger made a mistake and purchased the letter “F” thinking it was an “A.”
13. Charles Hamilton, The Hitler Diaries: Fakes That Fooled the World (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1991), 19.
14. Harris, Selling Hitler, 101–102.
15. Ibid., 93.
16. Ibid., 114.
17. Ibid., 116.
18. Ibid., 118.
19. Priesack was disappointed at the diary’s mundane content. See ibid., 118.
20. Ibid., 135.
21. Cameron and Stevens, eds., Hitler’s Table Talk.
22. Harris, Selling Hitler, 158–159.
23. Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Second Book, ed. Gerhard Weinberg (New York: Enigma Books, 2006).
24. Harris, Selling Hitler, 158–159.
25. Ibid., 241–248.
26. Ordway Hilton quoted in ibid., 193.
27. Quoted in ibid., 196.
28. Harris, Selling Hitler, 195.
29. Quoted in ibid., 24.
30. Ibid., 258.
31. Trevor-Roper quoted in ibid., 261.
32. Hamilton, The Hitler Diaries, 108.
33. Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994); Hitler, Hitler’s Second Book, ed. Gerhard Weinberg.
34. Harris, Selling Hitler, 266.
35. Schulte-Hillen quoted in ibid., 281.
36. Harris, Selling Hitler, 307.
37. Deborah E. Lipstadt, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), xvii–xviii. See also Richard J. Evans, Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (New York: Perseus Books, 2001).
38. Harris, Selling Hitler, 320.
39. Russell Watson with Theodore Stanger, Ron Moreau, Maks Westerman, and Tessa Namuth, “Uncovering the Hitler Hoax,” Newsweek, May 16, 1983, 56–57.
40. Hamilton, The Hitler Diaries, 75.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid., 76.
43. Ibid.
44. Harris, Selling Hitler, 321.
45. Ibid., 322–323.
46. The telegram from Hitler to Mussolini is one example.
47. Harris, Selling Hitler, 368.
48. Ibid., 324–325.
49. Ibid., 345.
50. Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932–1945, 4 vols. (1962; Mundelein, Ill.: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997).
51. Harris, Selling Hitler, 355.
52. This is the same Kenneth Rendell that authenticated the famous “Salamander Letter” for Steve Christensen and the poem by Emily Dickinson for Daniel Lombardo, the curator of Special Collections at the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts. In his defense, Rendell was not alone. The forger of those two documents, Mark Hofmann, had fooled all the experts.
53. Kenneth Rendell, “Cracking the Case,” Newsweek, May 16, 1983, 58–59.
54. Friedrich Zimmermann quoted in Harris, Selling Hitler, 357.
55. Harris, Selling Hitler, 377.
56. Ibid., 378.
57. Hamilton, The Hitler Diaries, 159.
58. Ibid., 171.
59. Ibid., 136–137.
60. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_Heidemann (accessed 2011).
61. Rupert Murdoch quoted in Harris, Selling Hitler, 368.
4. The Shroud of Turin
1. Joe Nickell, Relics of the Christ (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2007).
2. The report is reproduced in part in Joe Nickell, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin: Latest Scientific Findings (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998), 12–13.
3. Margaret de Charney was later excommunicated for her refusal to return the shroud and for her sale of it to the House of Savoy (Nickell, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, 19; Nickell, Relics of the Christ, 130).
4. Quoted in Nickell, Relics of the Christ, 131.
5. Nickell, Relics of the Christ, 116.
6. Barnabas Lindars, John (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 63.
7. Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible (Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing, 1985), 355.
8. The Illuminated Bible, King James Version (Chicago: Columbia Educational Books, 1941), St. John 19:38–42, 20:1–7.
9. M. Balter, “Clothes Make the (Hu) Man,” Science 325, no. 5946 (September 11, 2009): 1329.
10. David Sox quoted in Nickell, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, 35.
11. David Sox quoted in Nickell, Relics of the Christ, 134. Sox resigned from the British Society for the Turin Shroud when he concluded the shroud was a forgery.
12. Such preparation, however, would presumably entail cleaning the body prior to applying the oils and spices. This is in keeping with Jewish custom and the biblical description given in John 19:40.
13. Nickell, Relics of the Christ, 132.
14. The report is quoted in Walter McCrone, Judgement Day for the Shroud of Turin (Chicago, Ill.: Microscope Publications, 1996), 5–12.
15. Ibid., 134.
16. McCrone was the founder and director of the McCrone Research Institute, located in Chicago, Illinois. Among the many artifacts McCrone evaluated was the Vineland Map, owned by Yale University, which he concluded was a forgery based on his chemical analysis of certain pigments and inks. McCrone died in 2002.
17. Nickell, Relics of the Christ, 151.
18. McCrone, Judgement Day, 78–79.
19. Ibid., 156.
20. Ibid., 156–157.
21. Ibid., 166.
22. The refractive index is a measure of the speed at which light passes through a substance. It is expressed as a ratio of the speed of light through a vacuum over the speed of light through the test subject. The refractive index of water is 1.33. The light may also change the angle of its direction as a result of the medium through which it passes. This is another test of the subject medium. It should be noted that McCrone was the only researcher/examiner who tested the refractive index of the material on the shroud.
23. McCrone, Judgement Day, 151.
24. Agreement reproduced in ibid., 74.
25. Ibid, 152.
26. W. C. McCrone and S. A. Skirius, “Light Microscopical Study of the Turin ‘Shroud,’” Part I, Microscope 28, nos. 3 and 4 (1980): 105; W. C. McCrone, “Light Microscopical Study of Turin ‘Shroud,’” Part II, Microscope 28, nos. 3 and 4 (1980): 115; W. C. McCrone, “Light Microscopical Study of the Turin ‘Shroud,’” Part III, Microscope 29, no. 19 (1981): 19.
27. “STURP—Shroud of Turin Research Project,” http://www.shroudstory.com/topic-STURP.htm (accessed 2011).
28. “A Summary of STURP’s Conclusions,” Final Report (1981), available at “STURP—Shroud of Turin Research Project,” http://www.shroudstory.com/topic-STURP.htm (accessed 2011).
29. Kenneth L. Feder, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008), 296–297.
30. Nickell, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, 150.
31. Radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik/radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin_note-Damon_Nature-48.
32. Feder, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries, 303.
33. Nickell, Relics of the Christ, 136.
34. P. E. Damon et al., “Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin,” http://www.shroud.com/nature.htm (accessed 2011).
35. McCrone, Judgement Day, 245–246.
36. Raymond N. Rogers, “Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin,” Thermochimica Acta 425 (2005): 189–194.
37. Joe Nickell, “Claims of Invalid ‘Shroud’ Radiocarbon Date Cut from Whole Cloth,” Skeptical Inquirer 29, no. 3 (May–June 2005), 14–15 (also available online at http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles [accessed 2011]).
38. Jim Barrett, “Science and the Shroud: Microbiology Meets Archaeology in a Renewed Quest for Answers,” Mission, http://www.uthscsa.edu/mission/spring96/shroud.htm (accessed 2011).
39. Thomas J. Pickett, “Can Contamination Save the Shroud of Turin,” Skeptical Briefs (June 1996), 3.
40. Barrett, “Science and the Shroud,” 5.
41. Steven D. Schafersman, “A Skeptic’s View of the Shroud of Turin: History, Iconography, Photography, Blood, Pigment, and Pollen” (2005), available at http://cybercomputing.com/freeinquiry/skeptic/shroud/schafersman_skeptics_view_of_shroud.pdf (accessed 2011). This is an excellent discussion of the evidence for and against the shroud’s authenticity.
42. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996), 418.
43. Mati Milstein, “Shroud of Turin Not Jesus’, Tomb Discovery Suggests,” National Geographic News (December 17, 2009), http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091216-shroud-of-turin-jesus-jerusalem-leprosy.html (accessed 2011).
44. Quoted in McCrone, Judgement Day, 11.
45. Nickell, Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, 85–94.
46. Ibid., 13.
47. A discussion of Frei-Sulzer’s results may be found in McCrone, Judgement Day, 27–30, along with a listing of the plant sources of the pollen in Appendix One, 291–308. Joe Nickell, “Scandals and Follies of the ‘Holy Shroud,’” Skeptical Inquirer 25, no. 5 (September–October 2001), 19–20.
48. Schafersman, “A Skeptic’s View of the Shroud of Turin.”
49. Feder, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries, 301.
5. Skullduggery
1. Colin Tudge, The Link (New York: Little, Brown, 2009), 202.
2. Ibid., 3–15.
3. Jens L. Franzen et al., “Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology,” PLoS ONE 4, no. 5 (2009), available at http://www.plosone.org (accessed 2011).
4. Ibid., 1.
5. Within months of her introduction to the general public and scientific community, Ida came under challenge. A number of experts in the field expressed doubts about Ida’s significance, pointing out that Ida is too old “to reveal anything about the evolution of humans. The earliest putative human ancestors are a mere seven million years old.” See Kate Wong, “Weak Link,” Scientific American (August 2009), 24.
6. “Missing link” is a misnomer. That a single creature spanned the change from ape to human never occurred, and paleontologists and anthropologists do not believe there is such a link. The link, if such is the case, is a series of evolutionary changes that occurred throughout several early creatures, the features of which came together in the earliest recognizable hominid.
7. Quoted in Miles Russell, Piltdown Man: The Secret Life of Charles Dawson and the World’s Greatest Archaeological Hoax (Stroud, Gloustershire, England: Tempus Publishing, 2003), 8. The fragments were estimated by Dawson and Woodward to be approximately 1 million years old, not 6 million.
8. The firm exists today as Dawson and Hart and still resides in Uckfield.
9. The Pleistocene period began a million years ago, at the end of which modern man first appears.
10. Quoted in Russell, Piltdown Man, 149. Heidelberg man is believed to have lived from the mid- to late Pleistocene, the period from 600,000 to 100,000 years ago.
11. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: J. Murray, 1871), 4.
12. Russell, Piltdown Man, 19.
13. John Evangelist Walsh, Unraveling Piltdown: The Science Fraud of the Century and Its Solution (New York: Random House, 1996), 30.
14. Quoted in Michael Farquhar, A Treasury of Deception (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 123–124.
15. Quoted in Russell, Piltdown Man, 231.
16. Quoted in ibid., 171.
17. Quoted in ibid., 190.
18. J. Weiner, K. Oakley, and W. Clark, “The Solution of the Piltdown Problem,” Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) Geology 2, no. 3 (November 1953): 139–146.
19. Weiner et al., “The Solution of the Piltdown Problem,” 146. Quoted in Russell, Piltdown Man, 196.
20. Frank Spencer, Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery (London: Natural History Museum Publications, Oxford Univ. Press, 1990).
21. Walsh, Unraveling Piltdown, 153.
22. Spencer, Piltdown, 238 n 10.
23. Quoted in Walsh, Unraveling Piltdown, 160.
24. Walsh, Unraveling Piltdown, 161.
25. Joseph S. Weiner, The Piltdown Forgery (1955; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1980), 105.
26. Walsh, Unraveling Piltdown, 13.
27. J. Winslow and A. Meyer, “The Perpetrator at Piltdown,” Science 83 (September 1983): 33–43.
28. The considerable mound of slag remaining from Roman smelting operations was used for repairing roads in the area for decades, until the material was exhausted.
29. Russell, Piltdown Man, 63.
6. The Missing Pages from John Wilkes Booth’s Diary
An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Edward Steers Jr., Lincoln Legends (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2007), 177–202.
1. In recent years, three books have appeared claiming that Lincoln’s murder was the result of conspiracies involving members of Lincoln’s own cabinet and prominent northern politicians and businessmen in league with their Confederate counterparts: Leonard F. Guttridge and Ray A. Neff, Dark Union: The Secret Web of Profiteers, Politicians, and Booth Conspirators That Led to Lincoln’s Death (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2003); Charles Higham, Murdering Mr. Lincoln: A New Detection of the 19th Century’s Most Famous Crime (Beverly Hills, Calif.: New Millennium, 2004); John Chandler Griffin, Abraham Lincoln’s Execution (Gretna, La.: Pelican, 2006).
2. Edward Steers Jr., Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2001).
3. Statement of Boston Corbett, NARA, RG94, M-619, reel 456, frames 0248–0257.
4. No such orders were given according to Lieutenant Colonel Everton Conger, the detective in charge of the search party. See Conger’s statement, NARA, RG 94, M-619, reel 455, frames 0691–0703.
5. Statement of Everton Conger.
6. For a full description of the search of Booth’s body, see the testimony of Everton J. Conger in Edward Steers Jr., ed., The Trial: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2003), 93.
7. For a list of exhibits, see Steers, ed., The Trial, ci–ciii.
8. Testimony of Lafayette C. Baker, Impeachment Investigation: Testimony Taken Before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in the Investigation of the Charges Against Andrew Johnson, 39th Congress, 2nd sess., and 40th Congress, 1st sess., 1867 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1867), 458.
9. Testimony of E. J. Conger, Impeachment Investigation: Testimony Taken Before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in the Investigation of the Charges Against Andrew Johnson, 39th Congress, 2nd sess., and 40th Congress, 1st sess., 1867 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1867), 323–324.
10. Otto Eisenschiml, Why Was Lincoln Murdered? (Boston: Little, Brown, 1937).
11. This idea is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding President Roosevelt, who critics claim knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and did nothing to prevent it.
12. Washington Evening Star, February 11, 1865, page 2, col. 4.
13. Eisenschiml, Why Was Lincoln Murdered?, 139.
14. Richard E. Sloan, telephone interview with the author, April 4, 2006.
15. Ibid.; Richard Sloan, “The Case of the Missing Pages,” Journal of the Lincoln Assassination 9, no. 3 (December 1995): 38–44. The Journal of the Lincoln Assassination is a privately printed newsletter edited by Frederick Hatch and published by Autograph Press, P.O. Box 2616, Waldorf, MD, 20604.
16. Sloan reported the story in The Lincoln Log, beginning with the November–December 1976 issue (vol. 1, no. 11) and continuing through the October–November 1977 issue (vol. 2, no. 6).
17. Richard D. Mudd, telephone interview with the author, January 3, 1998. In the same telephone conversation Richard Mudd told the author he received $1,500 to serve as a consultant to Sunn Classic Pictures.
18. David Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier Jr., The Lincoln Conspiracy (Los Angeles: Schick Sunn Classic Books, 1977).
19. Robert Fowler, “Was Stanton behind Lincoln’s Murder?” Civil War Times Illustrated 3, no. 5 (August 1961): 6–23.
20. Balsiger and Sellier, The Lincoln Conspiracy, 8.
21. William C. Davis, “Behind the Lines,” Civil War Times Illustrated 21, no. 7 (November 1981): 26.
22. Among the many items obtained by Neff is a collection of documents known as the “Chaffey Papers.” Included is an original (holograph) letterbook of James and John Chaffey whose contents date from 1831 to 1838 and have nothing to do with the Civil War or Lincoln’s assassination. The remaining papers are typescript copies made by Neff.
23. William C. Davis, “Behind the Lines: Caveat Emptor,” Civil War Times Illustrated (August 1977): 33–37; William C. Davis, “Behind the Lines: ‘The Lincoln Conspiracy’—Hoax?,” Civil War Times Illustrated (November 1977): 47–49; William C. Davis, “Behind the Lines,” Civil War Times Illustrated 21, no. 7 (November 1981): 26–28.
24. Davis, “Behind the Lines,” 26.
25. Davis, “Behind the Lines: Caveat Emptor,” 37.
26. Sloan, “The Case of the Missing Pages,” 39.
27. Ibid., 40.
28. Davis, “Behind the Lines,” 26.
29. Sloan, “The Case of the Missing Pages,” 43.
30. The two specimens of Booth’s writing supplied by the National Archives are the “To whom it may concern” letter dated 1864 and the “Dearest Beloved Mother” letter to Mary Ann Holmes Booth dated 1864. The two letters were discovered by James O. Hall in 1977 in the files of the Justice Department in the National Archives. For the complete text of these letters, see John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper, eds., “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me”: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth (Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1997), 124–127, 130–131.
31. J. Dunning, “Examination of John Wilkes Booth’s Diary,” Report of the FBI Laboratory, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C., No. 95-216208, October 3, 1977.
32. Ibid.
33. Sloan, “The Case of the Missing Pages,” 40.
34. The entire transcript of the missing pages was first published in the Surratt Courier 19, no. 10 (October 1994): 3–9, edited by Laurie Verge.
35. Laurie Verge, ed., “Those Missing Pages from the ‘Diary’ of John Wilkes Booth,” Surratt Courier 19, no. 10 (October 1994): 3–9.
36. Rhodehamel and Taper, eds., “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me,” 111.
37. Ibid., 114.
38. Junius Brutus Booth Jr., diary, 1864, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. Joe Simonds was Booth’s close friend and business partner in Booth’s oil venture.
39. Rhodehamel and Taper, eds., “Right or Wrong, God Judge Me,” 45.
40. Ibid., 83.
41. Ibid., 86.
42. There is no record that Baker employed or used Indian scouts in any of his operations.
43. Guttridge and Neff, Dark Union, 175.
44. The version in Dark Union differs slightly from the version in the Neff-Guttridge Collection, in which Conness is quoted as saying, “Oh my God, Oh my God.”
45. Guttridge and Neff, Dark Union, 175–176.
46. The excerpt from Julian’s diary currently resides in the Neff-Guttridge Collection in the Special Collections Department of the Cunningham Memorial Library at Indiana State University. The collection consists of materials collected over the years by Ray Neff, the consultant to Sunn Classic Pictures who provided the documents used to make The Lincoln Conspiracy.
47. Grace Julian Clarke to Claude Bowers, July 22, 1926, Manuscript Department, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
48. Neff donated his entire collection to Indiana State University, which unwisely accepted it and treated it as authentic.
49. Appendix 4, “George Julian’s Diary,” Neff-Guttridge Collection. See also Dark Union, “Sources on Notes,” chapter 13, page 258: “Claude Bowers, preparing his book, The Tragic Era, borrowed the 1865 diary and photographed its pages without Grace Clark’s [sic] knowledge.”
50. Appendix 4, “George Julian’s Diary,” Neff-Guttridge Collection.
51. Ibid. Although the explanatory document refers to both Guttridge and Neff being present, Guttridge stated in a telephone conversation with the author on October 15, 2003, that he was not present during the Smith interview or during the transcription of the alleged Smith copy.
52. “George W. Julian’s Journal—The Assassination of Lincoln,” Indiana Magazine of History 11, no. 4 (December 1915): 324–337.
53. Appendix 4, “George Julian’s Diary,” Neff-Guttridge Collection.
54. In addition to the research librarian’s search of the Julian and Bowers papers, the curator in charge of the Claude Bowers papers wrote the following: “we keep very complete-use files and we have no record of Mr. Neff making use of our materials, either in person or through correspondence” (Saundra Taylor to James O. Hall, May 26, 1977, Manuscript Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana).
55. Mabel M. Herbert to Charles Cooney, September 12, 1977, original in possession of William C. Davis, photocopy in the author’s files.
56. Statement of Richard Stuart, NARA, RG 153, M-599, reel 6, frame 0209.
57. The two notes were introduced as evidence at the time of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment hearing. They subsequently disappeared and were never seen again.
58. Statement of William Garrett, NARA, RG 94, M-619, reel 457, frames 0499–0525.
59. Statement of Luther B. Baker, aboard the Montauk, April 26, 1865, NARA, RG 94, M-619, reel 455, frames 0665–0686.
60. Testimony of Luther B. Baker, Impeachment Investigation: Testimony Taken Before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives in the Investigation of the Charges Against Andrew Johnson, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., and 40th Cong., 1st Sess., 1867 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1867), 478–490.
61. For an in-depth discussion of this famous quote attributed to Lincoln, see Steers, Lincoln Legends, 89–101.