Louis Weichmann

[Susan Higginbotham]

(09-15-2015 03:06 PM)L Verge Wrote:  The new research librarian at Surratt House is pulling out Weichmann material faster than we can blink our eyes! Pamela - I'll be sending you an email shortly about copies that you may want. In the meantime, I'm getting addicted to Lou once again (the late-1970s was the last time). Here are some things to share:

1. I had forgotten that Louis J. Weichmann originally signed letters to priests, etc. as Aloysius H. Wiechman. Did anyone ever find out why? It appears that he registered as Aloy. H. Wiechman at St. Charles College in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland on March 1, 1859, at age 16. There are also letters signed by him as Aloy, and John Surratt addressed one to him as "Dear Al."
2. St. Charles College was equivalent to junior and senior year high school curriculum.
3. The school was established by the French Order of Sulpicians in 1848, and it appears that nearly 100% of the faculty spoke French and required six years of study by the students. (That should have been beneficial to Surratt when he had to deal with Canadians.)
4. Sulpicians were intent on teaching only those headed for the priesthood. The order does not take special vows, but is composed of priests who prefer communal service instead of parishes. They are free to leave the Society whenever they wish.
5. We have very poor copies of original letters in the church files now in the holdings of the Maryland Historical Society. These were obtained by Pep Martin in 1977. There are instructions from the Sulpicians that the letters are not to be reproduced, and it is our policy to obey such instructions. Most of the letters pertain to Louis trying to get back into seminary starting in 1863 (was he afraid of the draft?).
6. The gist of one letter from Fr. Menu to Bishop Dubriel at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore says that Louis wanted to go to the Diocese of Richmond because the Bishop there had paid all expenses for other students in similar situations until the war began. Menu says, "His talents are more than ordinary. His conduct was not satisfactory - especially towards the end." He also says that the the head of St. Charles (Fr. Jenkins - any kin to Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt?) did not favor him.
7. There are several other letters written during the summer of 1863 by Louis showing that his patience is wearing thin. He wants to know why his pleas to reenter a seminary are being ignored, and in one assumes that it is because his entrance fees cannot reach the Bishop of Richmond because of the blockade. I had to snicker at that one and wonder why he didn't give the money to friend Surratt to deliver to Richmond...
8. The piece de resistance, however, is Joseph George's full "The Days Are Yet Dark," L.J. Weichmann's Life After the Lincoln Conspiracy Trial (1984) -- complete with 57 source citations. These include bits from the numerous pieces of correspondence that Weichmann maintained with Judge Holt (clearly a benefactor - arranging for "donations" from gov't coffers even when not employed) until the late-1880s as well as Dr. George's correspondence with Floyd Risvold.
9. I went for some gossip regarding Annie Johnson Weichmann. "He was then 28; his fiancee said she was 32." Other than the wedding announcement, no other mention of Mrs. Weichmann is found in the Holt Papers. Floyd Risvold knew nothing about Louis having been married when Dr. George contacted him. It appears that Weichmann's sisters never mentioned Annie to Lloyd Lewis when he interviewed them for his Myths After Lincoln. The City Directory for 1880 shows Lou had moved out of the house and that Annie was taking in boarders. When he lost his government job in 1886, he moved to Anderson, Indiana, without Annie, and it appears that she seldom, if ever, heard from him after that. The Philadelphia City Directory of 1895 listed her as "widow of Lewis J. Weichmann." The mistake was not corrected until 1899. In 1904, she was correctly listed as his widow. The final listing for her was in 1916, as Weichmann's widow. She died in Philadelphia in 1920, and the death notice indicated no children and that there had never been a divorce.
10. Victor L. Mason did an article for Century Magazine in 1896, stating that Weichmann was the "most important government witness..." "....who wove the thread of testimony which closed upon Mrs. Surratt, and in so doing, escaped the gallows himself." This was the year after David Miller DeWitt's Judicial Murder of Mary Surratt had declared that Weichmann was frightened and testified as a government witness to "clear his own skirt...and save his own neck." Five years later, Louis called Mason "the most contemptible dog that ever lived." He added, "if I ever meet him face to face, I will give him a good pounding."
11. Mike Kauffman covered some Weichmann anecdotes in American Brutus: Stanton had begun to suspect Weichmann and was mad that he had been allowed to go to Canada to search for Surratt. Stanton suspected that Weichmann would be sheltered by the Catholic Church as well as the Southern sympathizers north of the border. The John T. Ford Papers in the Maryland Historical Society also refer to fellow prisoners at the Carroll Annex to the Old Capitol Prison as hating him and teasing him about hanging too.

The more I read, the more I wonder how Louis J. Weichmann managed to keep his sanity after April 14, 1865. He reportedly did have a nervous breakdown in Anderson that forced him to close his school for about six months, but I can easily see why he imagined himself on a hit list and afraid to walk down the street.

---

Hiding in plain sight under my nose. We had been pondering where to find George Alfred Townsend's article that he wrote about Weichmann in 1867, after a chance meeting with his school mate. We reproduced it and Weichmann's reply to that article in the August 1991 issue of the Surratt Courier, courtesy of Dr. Joseph George, Jr. The original appeared in the New York Tribune on May 20, 1867, p. 5. with Weichmann's reply on May 24, 1867, p. 2.

If you own the three-volume set of books composed of the best assassination articles from the Courier between 1977 and 2000, the articles are in the third book.

---

Gene, you are on your own to wade through the trial testimony (all three versions and I recommend Benn: Perley Poore) as well as the testimony related to John's trial. I would rather digest broken glass than go through those deadly pages again!

---

Gene - did you rescind your questions after I posted a reply?

---

(09-15-2015 07:40 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(09-15-2015 05:44 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(09-15-2015 05:23 AM)Gene C Wrote:  After reading all these different comments about Weichmann, I feel like I've been watching an old episode of "To Tell The Truth".
Will the after real Louis Weichmann please stand up?

In all honesty, I never seriously thought about Weichmann possibly being a counter agent until Herb brought it up. Now I am giving it some thought. Have we ever discussed exactly why a person with Weichmann's education and intelligence got a job as a clerk in the War Department? Yes, the pay was better than what he had been making, but it also seems a good choice for a person who was/or wanted to be a counter agent.

This site:
http://m.heraldbulletin.com/community/hi...l?mode=jqm
...claims that "men he had worked with" regarded Weichmann as someone "who was not to be trusted".
Does anyone know a/the source or any further details? Thanks!

In Mr. Hall's files, there is a handwritten note that he left for further investigation: "Weichmann. Clark letter of 16 Apr. says Weichmann in on it. accomplice. Reel 2, LAS, F921 (referring to NARA files) Clark clerk in AGO"
Another note does not give a name: "Wiechman Did he know of plot? Statement of fellow employee. LAS Roll 6 Frame 102 and see 6, Frame 500."

Are copies of "The Days Are Yet Dark" available? If not, I'm going to try to scare up a copy in one of the university libraries here.