Otto
Eisenschiml
was
born in Austria in 1880. After obtaining
a university degree in Vienna he emigrated to the United States in
1901. He worked as a chemist and eventually became president of the
Scientific Oil Compounding Company.
Eisenschiml took a keen interest in the assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln. In his book, Why
Was Lincoln Murdered? (1937), he suggested that Edwin
Stanton, the secretary of war, had engineered the plot to kill
the president. The evidence for this theory
included the employment of John Parker
to guard Lincoln, Stanton's failure to close all the roads out of
Washington, the shooting of John
Wilkes Booth, tampering with Booth's diary, and the hooding of
the conspirators to stop them from talking.
The book sold well but was attacked by professional historians. J.
G. Hamilton described it as "four hundred and thight-eight dreary
pages of rambling and disconnected implication and innuendo."
Otto Eisenschiml died in 1963. However, the influence of his book
remained and inspired d the book by David Balsiger and Charles E.
Sellier, The Lincoln
Conspiracy (1977) and the motion picture of the
same name.
(1)
Otto
Eisenchiml, Why Was Lincoln Murdered?
(1937)
The man who died at Garrett's
Farm was stripped of his belongings before he was dead. The things
that were taken from him were of nopwere of no great consequence,
with the sole exception of a diary in which he had written some declamatory
descriptions of his experiences and sentiments. This diary was subsequently
to become the centre of a fiery controversy, not so much because of
its contents as because it had been kept hidden fro the public.
For two years the little volume lay locked up in the archives of the
War Office. In the meantime Baker had been dismissed and had written
his book, The History of the Secret Service. Therein repeated references
were made to Booth's diary, creating a sensation in all circles. The
judiciary committeee of the House, then in session, seized upon the
item with alacrity, and bade Baker take the stand and repeat his statements
under oath. There the detective exploded another bombshell: the the
diary had been mutilated since it had been taken from the body at
Garrett's Farm.
(2) Otto
Eisenchiml, Why Was Lincoln Murdered?
(1937)
Another
bizarre feature in the story of Booth's pursuit is the failure of
the War Department to prosecute some people who had sheltered Booth
and helped him in his flight. Again, the House of Representatives
Committee, debating the distribution of rewards, was puzzled. In a
proclamation dated 20 April, Stanton had declared that "All persons
harboring or secreting the conspirators or aiding their concealment
or escape, will be treated as accomplices in the murder of the President
and shall be subject to trial before a military commission, and the
punishment of death.
(3) Otto
Eisenchiml, Why Was Lincoln Murdered?
(1937)
When
Johnson became the Chief Executive of the nation the Radicals began
to have pleasurable visions of wholesale massacres and executions
that would depopulate the South; for the new President had expressed
his hatred of traitors in terms that were immoderate and unmistakable.
Yet week after week passed and, except for the hanging of the so-called
conspirators and of Captain Wirz, the former commandant at Andersonville,
no deed of violence took place. On the contrary, pardon followed pardon;
and worse than that, the President undertook to re-establish state
governments along the lines Lincoln had advocated. At first the Radicals
were bewildered; then astonishment gave way to unbridled fury.
(4)
Otto
Eisenchiml, Why Was Lincoln Murdered?
(1937)
There was one man who profited greatly
by Lincoln's death; the man who was his secretary of war, Edwin M.
Stanton. Brusque, insolent, cruel, Stanton was without doubt the most
unpopular member of Lincoln's administration; but the President in
spite of strong pressure, had been loath to let him go while the conflict
was raging; he seemed to think that no one else could do the work
as well.
After the war was over, however, it seemed only a question of time
when Lincoln would divest himself of a secretary who was fast becoming
both a personal and a political liability to him. It was to his advantage
to have the President out of the way; it would mean a continuance
in office, increased power over a new and supposedly weak Chief Executive
and a fair prospect of replacing the latter at the next election.
As secretary of war Stanton failed in his duty to protect the President's
life after he was convinced that there was danger in the air. He bluntly
denied Lincoln's request to be protected by Major Eckert and did not
provide a proper substitute.
It was probably due to the efforts of Stanton that all evidence of
negligence on the part of John F. Parker was carefully suppressed.
He directed the pursuit of Booth and allowed it to be conducted in
a manner that, but for the assassin's accidental injury, would have
allowed his escape.
The actual pursuit and subsequent capture of Booth were silenced by
unusual methods and were subsequently removed from contact with the
public, either by infliction of the death penalty or by banishment
to a desolate fortress. Other prisoners, of at least equal guilt,
escaped punishment.
Plausible as such an indictment may seem, it would stand no chance
of surviving a legal attack. There is not one point in this summary
than can be proven; it is all hypothesis. Circumstantial evidence,
at best, is a dangerous foundation upon which to build.
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