Confederate Complicity
In the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
By John C. Fazio

From May, 1984, until his arrest in November, 1985, Jonathan Pollard, a 31-year old head of the Middle Eastern desk at the U.S. Navy’s Suitland, Maryland, Intelligence Complex, spied for Israel. The classified documents that he gave Israel access to would fill a space 10 ft. by 6 ft. by 6 ft. (360 cu.ft.). It was said that he did it for money and jewelry, but we may be certain that he did it for political reasons as well. His treachery is said to have caused one of the worst security disasters in United States history.  In 1987 he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. All efforts to have him paroled or pardoned have failed.

What is significant is that from the date of his arrest until 1998, Israel insisted that his activities were a rogue operation. In 1998, then Prime Minister Netanyahu admitted that it wasn’t so, that in fact Pollard was, at all relevant times, an Israeli intelligence agent and that Israeli intelligence had recruited him and handled him, i.e. supervised his activities, until he was caught.

Does anyone suppose that United States intelligence services, or any intelligence service in the world, for that matter, bought the “rogue operation” explanation? Of course not. Why not? Because all intelligence services know that the business of intelligence is incredibly complex and sophisticated, that it is imperative that agents follow orders at all times, especially when major policies of a government can be and likely will be affected by their actions, and that “rogue operations” are all but unknown in the intelligence world.

So let it be with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The notion that it was a rogue operation by a disgruntled actor and a little band of cut-throats, mental retards and cowards is ridiculous on its face, and the evidence that it was not this is very strong to overwhelming.

CONTINUE ARTICLE>>

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on the CCWRT website in 2008 and has since prompted much discussion within the Roundtable.  It, in fact, was at least partially responsible for the debate that took place at our June meeting.  Whether or not you're a believer in the complicity of the Confederate government in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, this article provides an excellent overview of the argument.

To Mrs. George G. Meade

I have received your letters of the 22d and 23d insts. Such exhibitions as are now being made of the body of Mr. Lincoln, are always in my judgment in bad taste, and are never solemn or impressive. Still, as public ceremonies, I suppose they always will be, as they ever have been, necessary for the masses of people.

Before this arrives, you shall have heard the news received this morning of the capture and untimely demise of John Wilkes Booth, the actor, after desperate chasings through the mud of Maryland and Virginia. Should the lesser conspirators maintain silence, we may never know the impulses of that rich and handsome young man. I cannot imagine the motives of the perpetrators of such foul deeds, or what they expect to gain.

You must remember meeting him at a rather desperate soiree of Canning’s, who found it more lucrative to be Booth’s agent than to improve upon his practice of law in Philadelphia? How providential that I did not take up Booth’s offer to join him, and his musical friend from Cleveland, whose name I have misplaced, in the Dramatic oil company. You chided me upon their early success, but remained quite silent when they accidentally exploded their only well, the Wilhelmina, in November last. Booth lost his entire investment. Perhaps there is a connection between the oil business and the mad assassination of the President. The whole affair is a mystery. Let us pray God to have mercy on our country and bring us through these trials.

I may tell you of an odd occurrence last night. A disreputable character was escorted to my tent shortly after one in the morning. He was clad in farmer’s rags, leaning heavily on a stick, for his leg was injured, and gave altogether the impression of a man anxious to avoid prolonged examination. Not yet having word of Booth’s fate, there was much excitement spread through the camp that this was the fugitive. Crowds of soldiers gathered to hear my stern interrogation.

The man said he was a Union soldier, medically discharged at Petersburg, by name John St. Helen from Texas. This accounted for his southern accent, but he was unable to explain why his left hand bore a tattoo, which I made out as JWB, though it was recently much scratched about and scarred. Unaware that Booth was already dead, I sensed that a great and signal triumph was to be mine. I was saved from embarrassment by Private Kowell, who astutely observed that the tattoo might not read JWB if examined from another angle. I saw at once that 8MI could indicate the confederate 8th Mississippi. Taxed with this, St. Helen admitted that I was too sharp. He was a sergeant of that regiment, of company K, the Ellsler Invincibles, he said with a curious smile. Something about that name was strangely familiar but, given my successful closure of the war, I graciously dismissed him to continue his forlorn journey to Texas.

I hope I may not one day regret promoting Kowell to sergeant for his deed. This morning’s telegraph confirms Booth’s death but also lists the 8th Mississippi as giving their parole just yesterday at Greensboro, North Carolina. A man without a wounded leg could not reach Burkettsville from there so swiftly, and it is not at all in the way to Texas. It must be that he made an early exit when it was clear that all was lost, and that at first he went quite in the wrong direction, until I set him properly on the road.

MORE MEADE>>

Note: In the more than 100 years since his decease, the General has been busy reconstructing from memory his secret, lost letters which shed new light on topics of great interest to the members of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable. He currently is living in Bloemfontein South Africa working on a complimentary biography of General D. E. Sickles (decs'd) and may be contacted at Majgenlmeade @ aol.com.

There are relatively few Civil War sites in Florida, but for 3 days every winter Sarasota is the center of the Civil War universe. This past January, my wife, Marie, and I attended the Civil War Education Society’s 18th Annual Civil War Symposium at the Helmsley Sandcastle Resort on Lido Beach in Sarasota, Florida. For most of us, the Civil War is best studied on the field of battle—be it Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, Ft. Sumter, or Vicksburg—but in the midst of an Ohio winter the beach on Lido Key is a better than fair substitute. This was our fifth symposium, spaced over the past 8 years, and it has become a January tradition.

The event begins with a reception on Wednesday night. The symposium presentations run Thursday and Friday until mid-afternoon—allowing plenty of time for personal pursuits—and conclude by noon on Saturday. This year’s faculty was excellent, including Ed Bearss, William “Jack” Davis, Joseph Glatthaar, Gary Ecelbarger, Robert Krick, Charles Roland, Dale Phillips, and Terrence Winchell. Jeffrey Wert was a last-minute scratch. Each year the symposium attracts about 100 participants, Civil War enthusiasts from all around the U.S., though the biggest representation is from Florida and the southeast. This year, Marie and I were the only representatives from the Buckeye State.

CONTINUE ARTICLE>>

Blue and Gray on the Silver Screen
By William F.B. Vodrey

Michael Kraus, curator of the Pittsburgh Soldiers & Sailors Monument and Museum, offered a very interesting and original program at the Roundtable's October 14 meeting. He spoke about the Civil War on film, and his own involvement in the productions of Gettysburg and Cold Mountain. Hollywood turned to the Civil War as a dramatic topic very early on, with dozens of movies (most of them very short) being made about the war annually by the 1920s. Kraus discussed how Lost Cause mythology took early root on the Silver Screen, with both Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind sympathetically reflecting it. (He was intrigued afterwards when I told him that a 10-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. had sung with the Ebenezer Baptist Church choir at the segregated premiere of GWTW in Atlanta in 1939.)

He said he usually has only a few weeks' notice when a production company needs his help as a consultant. He got involved in Gettysburg, for instance, on very short notice. The 1993 Turner Entertainment film was originally called by the Michael Shaara novel's name of The Killer Angels, but studio research showed that the title confused potential audiences, so it was changed. Much of the movie was filmed on Pennsylvanian countryside near Gettysburg that was very similar to the battlefield itself, but Pickett's Charge was filmed on the actual hallowed ground. (The on-set rumor was that Ted Turner used his White House contacts to get an order for the Park Service, with great reluctance, to let them film there). The scene of Gen. Robert E. Lee riding along the lines and being cheered by his men was completely spontaneous, with cameras rushed in to capture it. Kraus said that actor Martin Sheen, as Lee, was a little taken aback - if not scared - by how loud and excited the troops were.

CONTINUE ARTICLE>>

In the Shadow of the Civil War:
Passmore Williamson and the Rescue of Jane Johnson
By Nat Brandt with Yanna Kroyt Brandt

William Still

It was "very warm," William Still thought, "intensely hot" in fact for a mid-July day in Philadelphia. Still was wearing a top hat as a shield against the blazing late-afternoon sun, but otherwise he had chosen to don the jacket of the suit he wore to work. It couldn't have been comfortable in the heat, for Still was striding quickly down Fifth Street, an urgent note in his hand. A "colored boy" he had never seen before had handed him the note at the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.

Still was the society's clerk, a title that belied his critical duties. He was entrusted with running the storefront operation at the society's headquarters at 31 North Fifth, where he distributed abolitionist literature and sold books, tracts, and subscriptions to newspapers dedicated to the abolitionist cause. But more importantly, he was the society's "receiving agent." He kept in touch by mail with abolitionists in other northern states as well as with sympathizers in the South, becoming widely known in abolition circles as a go-between, forwarder of information, and arranger of escapes. A journalist would describe him as "somewhat tall, neat in figure and person" with, as the journalist added, "a smiling face."

It is doubtful that Still was smiling that day. The note he was carrying demanded immediate attention. Still served as secretary of the society's General Vigilance Committee. One of its functions-a controversial one that brought it into direct conflict with the federal government-was to inform slaves brought by their owners into Pennsylvania, a free state, that they were entitled to their freedom "without another moment's service." The committee would assist them and even provide "counsel without charge" if' requested.

CONTINUE ACTICLE>>

Editor's Note: This article is excerpted from the book In the Shadow of the Civil War: Passmore Williamson and the Rescue of Jane Johnson and appears here through the courtesy of the authors.  Nat Brandt spoke to the CCWRT at its March 2010 meeting.