Louis Weichmann

[Susan Higginbotham]

Does this sound like a man who would conspire to kidnap the President?

"I had almost forgotten to tell you that I called on your friend. Mr. Wm. Underwood, at the Carver Hospital. He has nearly recovered from his wound, though it has not yet quite healed. He intended going home in a week or two, and perhaps he may be there now, as it has been over a week since I saw him.

"Have you heard from your Uncle James [a Union soldier] lately ? There has been some very hard fighting out West recently, and you know, Cousin Bell, that the foe has very little regard where he directs his bullets. May God preserve him, and grant that he may see the end of this unholy war without harm."

Yet the writer of this letter (and other quite charming letters), John Surratt, certainly did plot to kidnap the President, and perhaps worse than that.

I think that under the right (or perhaps more aptly, wrong) circumstances, particularly in wartime, just about anybody is capable of anything.

I can't claim as a proven fact that Weichmann supplied John Surratt with confidential information, but I think it's possible that he did. Gilbert Raynor, the clerk whose statement you kindly pointed me to, did mention that Surratt visited Weichmann at work and that Weichmann boasted of ways he could make a large sum of money, and Colonel Foster mentioned "large quanties of envelopes, with the official frank of the office of the Commissary General of Prisoners," being found in the room Weichmann and Surratt shared. Maybe two or three envelopes were used by Weichmann as bookmarks, but large quantities?