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Bethany and 'Tlr. Watson 9 s Father
Mr. Watson, I went to Thomson the day
you came home from Congress, as thousands
of others did, and I saw a man on the street
and was told that it was your father. I went
to him and congratulated him on having such
a noble son.
If I was misinformed he did not make it
known to me. I have never had any doubt
about it until I read in Bethany, on the sixth
page, where you said your father had died
of pneumonia the March after the Septem
ber in which you were born, and also on page
300, where you speak of your father being
dead.
Some of my neighbors have been impressed
.just as I have and say they would like to
hear from you on it.
Then, on page 307, why did your mother
sign her name, Mrs. Horton? Has she been
married again to a Mr. Horton?
Very truly yours,
J. SAM. CHAPMAN.
(Note: In writing “Bethany,” I had to
use the license usual among writers of fiction.
For the purposes of the story, I made my
self several years older than I was, and had
my father to die when I was a lad, whereas
he lived until 1995.
No doubt he was the man whose hand was
shaken by Mr. Chapman on that memorable
day in 1892.
The lovers in Bethany were my uncle and
a distant cousin. The very sad ending of
their courtship was precisely as stated in the
book. The very first incident that is clear
in my mind is the funeral of the young lady.
Later there was some dispute in our own fam
ily as to where she was buried, and my mother
said her grave was in the family graveyard
near the house. But I remembered a long
line of vehicles in a straight sandy road, and,
sure enough, the memory of the child was cor
rect. The beautiful young lady had been
borne to another cemetery, some two miles
away, and this graveyard was reached by a
road which had a long, straight sand-bed in
it.
I shall never forget the morning when the
negro 11 Hello’d” at the front gate, and fath
er went out to get the message that the lady
was dead. The dying soldier, my uncle, had
crept to the door of his sick-room and was
holding on to door-frame and door to support
himself, while he eagerly listened, trying to
catch what the Sbgro was saying to father.
Nor shall I ever get out of my ears the
tone of voice in which the sick man asked,
as father came back to the house:
“John, what did that boy say?”
Not having the heart to tell him, father
tried to invent a different message—but to
no purpose.
“No, it wasn’t that,” said the young sol
dier. “He came to say that Jennie is
dead.”
Then he had himself undressed, and went
THE JEFFERSONIAN.
to bed; and the sod had scarcely settled over
his sweetheart before he, also, was under the
ground.)
BURIAL PLACE OF BOOTH.
What Became of the Body of the Assassin of
President Lincoln.
(Col. F. H. Phipps, in Army and Navy
Journal.)
In the Journal of Saturday last I note a
letter from. Olive Ennis Hite, in which she
relates a story told her by an officer of the
navy as to the disposition made of the body
of Wilkes Booth, in which it is stated as a
fact, “never having been disputed,” that the
body of Booth —in a gunny sack—was taken
aboard the Montauk in the Potomac River
and cast overboard at a point below Indian
Head.
How such a story could have originated I
fail to understand, and that it may not be
accepted without dispute, let me state the fol
lowing :
After the assassination of President Lin
coln and the arrest of the conspirators, the
latter were tried in the old Washington pen
itentiary building, and after their execution
they were buried just outside the walls of the
building. When these buildings, with the ex
ception of the warden’s and deputy warden’s
quarters —as well as the surrounding walls —
were turn down, these bodies were taken up
and buried in one of the old storehouses at
the Washington Arsenal, in a locked room
and underneath a stone flagging, and by their
sides were placed the bodies of Wirtz, the
Confederate jailer, and also the body of Booth,
the latter having been delivered at the arsenal
in a gunny sack at the little boathouse off the
Washington Arsenal grounds. The place of
burial was marked so as to identify where the
bodies were placed.
Just before Andrew Johnson’s term as
President expired, Edwin Booth applied to
him for permission to have Wilkes Booth’s
body exhumed and turned over to him for bu
rial at Baltimore. The President gave in
structions through the Secretary of War, to
Gen. George D. Ramsay, the commanding offi
cer of Washington Arsenal, to exhume this
body and satisfy himself —there having been
several stories about that Booth had never
been killed, and had been seen here, there,
and elsewhere —that the remains turned over
were those of J. Wilkes Booth. The com
manding officer of the arsenal directed me to
personally superintend the transfer of these
remains.
With a party of enlisted men, the remains
were taken up in my presence, the lid of the
box removed, and the remains of Booth pos
itively identified beyond any question. The
black hair, the shape of the skull, the color
and condition of the clothes, the riding boots,
and the remains of the boot cut off at the
ankle all indicated without doubt that the
body was that of Booth. In addition to this
identification, a dentist in Baltimore had pre-
viously stated that he could identify Booth
anywhere by a tooth, the cavity of which he
had filled and built up, it being so unusual
that he could identify Booth anywhere by this
tooth. This identification, I understand, was
subsequently made.
Later on the friends of the other conspira
tors —Mrs. Surratt, Paine, Harold, Atzerott,
and also of Wirtz, the Confederate jailer—
applied for and received similar permission,
the bodies being removed under my personal
supervision, the lids of the boxes being re
moved in each case.
A LEADER OF THE GREAT FIGHT
AGAINST THE TOBACCO TRUST.
Adams, Tenn., Nov. 11, 1907.
Hon. Thomas E. Watson, Thomson, Ga.
My dear Sir: In answer to yours of recent
date, will say that I have communicated with
Messrs. Love and Henry, the proprietors of
the Black-Patch Journal, and they will com
municate with you as to advertising. I am
not connected except that I have contributed
liberally to its' columns at their solicitation.
I take the Weekly Jeffersonian and the Jef
fersonian Magazine, and would not be with
out either for any reasonable consideration.
W ith so much slush and trash to hunt through
for some food for thought you may imagine
how eagerly I devour everything you write
and then feel a pain at having finished. The
only consolation is that I wait a while and
re-read, and then file away, and I now have all
the magazines preserved, and will have them ’
bound. From your writings I have gained a
great lot of information handed out in the
most entertaining and charming style, and at
the same time, suggestions and enticement into
fields of thought, which I perhaps would have
never entered had I not been so fortunate as
to have read your writings. For the past
three years I have spoken many times in the
tobacco growing states of Tennessee, Ken
tucky and Virginia and wherever I go I find
that your magazine is doing its work. You
are arming the great common people with the
weapons of truth, and sharpening their hatch
ets, and in my opinion the day is not far dis
tant when the heads of Plutocrats, Silk-Hat
Patriots, Wall street Bank liars, and
Gamblers will fall like the leaves of autumn.
Keep knocking at the wall and it will fall,
without the braying of a single jackass or
the lone blast of a ram’s horn. I am send
ing you a check for $5.25, for which please
renew my subscription to the Weekly Jeffer
sonian, and Jeffersonian Magazine, and send
me Bethany and Life of Napoleon.
Yours truly,
JOEL B. FORT.
ANNOUNCEMENT.
To the Voters of the Northern Judicial Cir
cuit :
I announce my candidacy for the office of
Solicitor-General of the Northern Judicial
Circuit, subject to the primary to be held for
that purpose. I assure you that I will appre
ciate your support.
L. D. M’GREGOR.
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