Mr. Lundahl is Unfamiliar with Battlefield Archeology and the Use of Archeology at Garrett Farm – The Site Where John Wilkes Booth was Killed
Kevin R. Henke
October 28, 2022
In Henke (2022bh) and Henke (2022b), I stated the following:
“Mr. Lundahl fails to realize that ancient histories by themselves cannot be trusted, especially if they were written centuries or millennia after the supposed event that they are describing or if the documents are copies of copies of copies of copies... and not the originals. Even if an ancient history happens to be an original copy describing an event that occurred at the time that the document was written, unless a claim in an ancient history is confirmed with independent external evidence, either in another manuscript or from archeology, there’s no reason to accept it as reliable history. There’s a big difference between an historical claim and a reliable historical claim.” [my original emphasis in italics; my emphasis in bold]
Mr. Lundahl in Lundahl (2022t) initially makes the following comments about my bolded statements:
“If there weren't, the other manuscripts wouldn't add it and archaeology is too easy to reinterpret to be the arbiter of historic fact. Only very few types of claims can actually be checked by archaeology. Hittites were a culture with wide span of influence (deduceable from a Hittite at King David's court) - confirmed by archaeology. Solomon built a temple. Confirmed by recent archaeology. Christ died on a cross on Calvary and lay an a rock grave that was since then emptied - confirmed by the Holy Patroness of archaeologists, St. Helen, the mother of Constantine. But Christ cured a leper - how could archaeology confirm that?
I responded to this paragraph in my previous essay, Henke (2022jb). In Lundahl (2022t), Mr. Lundahl continues his response by making the following ill-informed comments about archeology and John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln:
“Or this:
John Wilkes Booth was a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland; though he never joined the Confederate army, he had contacts with the Confederate secret service.[300] After attending an April 11, 1865 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, Booth hatched a plot to assassinate the President.[301] When Booth learned of the Lincolns' intent to attend a play with General Grant, he planned to assassinate Lincoln and Grant at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln and his wife attended the play Our American Cousin on the evening of April 14, just five days after the Union victory at the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse. At the last minute, Grant decided to go to New Jersey to visit his children instead of attending the play.[302]
On April 14, 1865, hours before he was assassinated, Lincoln signed legislation establishing the United States Secret Service,[303] and, at 10:15 in the evening, Booth entered the back of Lincoln's theater box, crept up from behind, and fired at the back of Lincoln's head, mortally wounding him. Lincoln's guest, Major Henry Rathbone, momentarily grappled with Booth, but Booth stabbed him and escaped.[304] After being attended by Doctor Charles Leale and two other doctors, Lincoln was taken across the street to Petersen House. After remaining in a coma for eight hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 in the morning on April 15.[305][k] Stanton saluted and said, "Now he belongs to the ages."[310][l] Lincoln's body was placed in a flag-wrapped coffin, which was loaded into a hearse and escorted to the White House by Union soldiers.[311] President Johnson was sworn in later that same day.[312]
Two weeks later, Booth, refusing to surrender, was tracked to a farm in Virginia, and was mortally shot by Sergeant Boston Corbett and died on April 26. Secretary of War Stanton had issued orders that Booth be taken alive, so Corbett was initially arrested to be court martialed. After a brief interview, Stanton declared him a patriot and dismissed the charge.[313]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#Assassination
I am not asking how many of these details are known from contemporary documents in the original - far more than any details from Moses' or Caesar's time, no doubt - but simply : what can archaeology do to confirm these?
Nothing.”
In my essays, I often mention the need to confirm claims about the past with external evidence. For events that occurred hundreds or thousands of years ago, the external evidence is inevitably largely limited to archeology. Fortunately, the U.S. Civil War is recent enough to have plenty of photographs, newspaper articles and other information to confirm or refute claims about events in that war.
When it comes to archeology confirming events in the U.S. Civil War and John Wilkes Booth, in particular, Mr. Lundahl is actually very wrong. Archeology can do a lot. Records indicate that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Lincoln, died on Richard Garrett’s farm in Virginia on April 26, 1865. This website discusses the archeological investigations that were done on that farm to better understand the environment where Booth died. This website also discusses the artifacts and archeology associated with assassinations, including President Lincoln and Julius Caesar. Furthermore, archeological investigations of battle sites are very important. As another example, see here. Although there are a lot of useful photographs and records from the U.S. Civil War, much earlier conflicts, such as the American Revolution, lack this crucial evidence and archeology is even more important in deciphering what happened and confirming any scarce written records. Archeology is also very important in clearing up errors and contradictions in ancient histories, as I stated in Henke (2022a):
“Using the two Babylonian tablets and the Astronomical Diaries, Marciak et al. (2020a, pp. 538-539) were able to derive more precise and consistent dates than what could be derived from [the histories of] Arrian and Plutarch alone. Their results are September 18, 331 BC for the panic, which they think probably coincided with Alexander’s crossing of the Tigris River, the lunar eclipse was on September 20, 331 BC and the Battle of Gaugamela occurred on October 1, 331 BC. Marciak et al. (2020a, pp. 539-543) then correct and reconcile the accounts in Arrian and others with their results. In another study, Polcaro et al (2008) used an astronomy computer program to confirm that the lunar eclipse would have been visible in the region where Alexander the Great, his troops and his opponents were located shortly before the Battle of Gaugamela and that it would also have been observed by the Babylonian astronomers on the evening of September 20, 331 BC.”
So, Mr. Lundahl needs to realize that archeology has an important role in confirming and discovering claims about the past.
References:
Marciak, M., M. Sobiech and T. Pirowski. 2020a. “Alexander the Great’s Route to Gaugamela and Arbela” Klio, v. 102, n. 2, pp. 536-559. Also: Marciak, M., M. Sobiech and T. Pirowski. 2020b. “Erratum: Alexander the Great’s Route to Gaugamela and Arbela” Klio, v. 103, n. 1, p. 408. The erratum deals with acknowledgements and the authors’ affiliations, and is not important to the arguments of the text.
Polcaro, V.F., G.B. Valsecchi, and L. Verderame. 2008. “The Gaugamela Battle Eclipse: An Archaeoastronomical Analysis”: Mediterranean Archeology and Archaeometry: v. 8, n. 2, pp. 55-64.