Escape speculations

[RJNorton]

(06-15-2015 05:43 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I do agree that the Surratt boardinghouse had been under suspicion for quite some time. I asked Mr. Hall once why the authorities didn't shut it down earlier. He said that it was often easier to monitor things the way....

This reminded me of what Louis Weichmann maintained in his book. He wrote that his friends kept asking him why he didn't simply move out of a house in which something wrong was going on. Weichmann wrote that his reasoning was as follows:

"No, in the hour of danger the true soldier does not desert his post, but rather stays and watches the movements of his enemies. I was a sworn officer of the Government, and held a remunerative position under it; so did my father in the United States arsenal in Philadelphia, and I was bound by every consideration of honor to remain where I was, and if anything came up again to renew my suspicions to report it at once to the War Department."