Alan, I'm not an accomplished historian, but I'll go with my assessment. Booth's original plan was to kidnap Lincoln, as you'll recall. When that plan seemed not feasible, Booth decided, as he said, to "put him through!" He picked the participants, planned the attacks, and assigned Herold, Paine, etal. their tasks and targets. Paine was thwarted by Stanton's neck brace, and Herold chickened out on Johnson. And yes, I've read about Dahlgren's part in the raid attempt on Richmond. Weren't there some incriminating papers on his body? Stan