In the preparation of this book I have neither spared time or money, since I became satisfied that John Wilkes Booth was not killed, as has been supposed, at the Garrett home in Virginia, on the 26th day of April, 1865, and present this volume of collated facts, which I submit for the correction of history, respecting the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the death or escape of John Wilkes Booth. –Finis L. Bates, Preface (1907)

In his book The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth–The First True Account of Lincoln’s Assassination Containing a Complete Confession by Booth Many Years After the Crime (1907), Tennessee lawyer and author Finis L. Bates (1848-1923), who became acquainted with John St. Helen, claimed that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of US President Abraham Lincoln, was not killed by Union Army Soldiers on April 26, 1865, but successfully escaped and lived for many years thereafter under the assumed names of John St. Helen and David E. George, and finally committed suicide in 1903. One of the other telling revelations in this books was that the leader of the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln was Vice President Andrew Johnson.

The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth offers fascinating information for historians, students of the Civil War, and those interested in conspiracy theories.