Finis L. Bates

Uncommon card · No. 129905

Finis Langdon Bates (August 22, 1848 – November 29, 1923) was an American lawyer and author of The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (1907). In this 309-page book, Bates claimed that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, was not killed by Union Army Soldiers on April 26, 1865, but successfully eluded capture altogether, and lived for many years thereafter under a series of assumed names, notably John St. Helen and David E. George.

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