Was there an assassin on Grant's train?

[Pamela]

Here is a description of Surratt's coat worn in Elmira, from closing arguments in his trial, p 1200: "They all testify to the peculiar kind of coat known as a Garibaldi jacket. You saw the pattern of it exhibited in court, buttoned round the throat, and plaited in the back and in the breast, with a belt around the waist--a coat a like unto which there is none in this room, and probably none in use in the city of Washington....We bring here from Canada the tailor who swears that he made this identical coat for this man in Canada, on the 9th of April, 1865. He swears that he made it for Surratt, and we find Surratt in that coat in Elmira. He then returns to Canada, and they prove by the agent of the hotel, and the clerk who kept the register that when he came there he had on that identical coat."

I'm reading the Elmira portion of the trial now, but I tend to skip around alot. I'm not sure, but the prosecution seemed to imply that the man in the coat was a tailor (and maybe the tailor who made the coat) and not Surratt, but the witnesses from the haberdashery wouldn't admit to saying so to a Mr. Roberts who was sent to investigate.

Would a Confederate spy want to draw attention to himself with such a unique coat that he was remembered by everyone because of that coat? And why did he write in his letter dated the 12th that he bought a pea jacket?