Trial Room at McNair

[wsanto]

(01-21-2013 08:26 PM)J. Beckert Wrote:  Thanks John, for that side by side, but it made me think about something I read which said the conspirators were made to walk by their own graves. Unless I'm missing something in the photos, weren't the grave to the right of the scaffold? If that's the case, they would have come out of the building and immediately walked up the 13 steps.

I saw a picture today (below) on Google Images of the graves and their relation to the gallows. They are indeed on the opposite side of the gallows from the building. They were dug very near the outer wall of the arsenal behind and adjacent to the gallows. The condemned could probably see the freshly dug graves as they walked up the gallow's steps but wouldn't have walked past them

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(01-20-2013 08:54 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Here's a contemporary Smithsonian photograph of the tennis courts at Ft. McNair and Grant Hall. I think the hangings took place near the rear of the tennis courts (?)

Here is another image I hadn't seen of the scene for perspective.



You can use the two chimneys for reference points. They obviously added windows and changed others.