“Has He Been Hiding In Plain Sight?
John Wilkes Booth and the Richmond Grays”
(“Hiding”)
May 10, 2010
In November of 1859, amidst rumors of an invading army sent to rescue John Brown from execution, Virginia Governor Henry Wise called for a militia deployment to Charlestown. John Wilkes Booth accompanied that militia as member of the Richmond Grays. This fact was well known in Booth’s lifetime and was documented by eyewitnesses.
In The Unlocked Book, John Wilkes Booth’s sister, Asia, recounts seeing a picture of him with others dressed in their uniforms in Charlestown during the time of John Brown’s Hanging. A question arises “does Asia’s picture or any others taken of Booth in uniform while in Charlestown still exist?
On May 10, 2010, I published Hiding, which examined four Virginia militia images compiled in The Image of War: 1861-1865, Vol. 1 Shadows of the Storm. Hiding was the first comprehensive comparative analysis of those images and others attributed to Charles Town photographer Lewis Dinkle with known pictures of Booth and other individuals to ascertain if any of those pictures could be the picture Asia saw.
In The Unlocked Book, John Wilkes Booth’s sister, Asia, recounts seeing a picture of him with others dressed in their uniforms in Charlestown during the time of John Brown’s Hanging. A question arises “does Asia’s picture or any others taken of Booth in uniform while in Charlestown still exist?
On May 10, 2010, I published Hiding, which examined four Virginia militia images compiled in The Image of War: 1861-1865, Vol. 1 Shadows of the Storm. Hiding was the first comprehensive comparative analysis of those images and others attributed to Charles Town photographer Lewis Dinkle with known pictures of Booth and other individuals to ascertain if any of those pictures could be the picture Asia saw.