Louis Weichmann

[Pamela]

I found this in They Killed Papa Dead by Anthony Pitch: "My luckiest find came in a sprawling warehouse filled with antiques from a consortium of dealers in the quaint Pennsylvania town of New Oxford, ten miles east of Gettysburg. I do not recall why I suddenly looked up after exploring rooms full of aging and rusty exhibits, but the framed page of a broadsheet newspaper caught my eye and I had to buzz the reception desk for help in hauling it down. The glass enclosed front page had columns of print about a credible plot to abduct President Lincoln and carry him off to the Confederate capitol of Richmnond. Until that moment I had dismissed a crucial prosecution witness, Louis Weichmann, as a perjurer, or at best forgetful, for having testified, "I remember seeing in the New York Tribune of March 19, the capture of President Lincoln fully discussed..." I assumed he meant 1865, the year of the assassination, and had scanned many editions of the Tribune on that and surrounding dates, looking for the story, but had always drawn a blank. Only now did I know why it had eluded me. The framed broadsheet happened to be the sme edition Weichmann had referred to in his testimony--the New York Tribune of March 19, 1864. Weichmann, it turned out, had told the truth."