Chris Ritter

[Pamela]

Chris Ritter, or Christopher C. Ritter has been discussed and researched by Erich Ewald, myself and others after Ewald came across his story in Anderson, Indiana newspapers. I think he deserves his own thread because I agree with Ewald that he was part of a conspiracy to harrass Louis Weichmann 30 years after the Lincoln conspiracy trial. Ewald pointed out that not only did Ritter's story of Booth escaping to Brazil describe Weichmann as a Confederate sympathizer, he also ignored Surratt family (John and Mary) involvement and only mentioned Booth making a last minute, unplanned decision to stop at the tavern for whiskey, not guns and whiskey. Additionally, he only added the Surratt tavern stop after his story received criticism for ignoring that key element of the conspiracy and Booth's escape.

Ritter also knew people he shouldn't have known, like Edwin Brink, an actor who was in Ford's theater on April 14th, but, not as far as I could tell, listed on the playbill, and was not a witness in either trial. Ritter said, that Brink, "by the way, is yet living." It's hard to imagine that Ritter would have access to Brink information living in Indiana and other midwest locations. Ewald also noted that an important part of Ritter's tale included a "chance" meeting with Weichmann outside a restaurant, during which they acknowledged they knew each other as Knights of the Golden Circle. This meeting occurred three months after Ritter arrived in Anderson, and two weeks prior to Ritter's opportunity to tell his tale to Edward Jones, a reporter for the Morning Herald. It could be argued that Ritter wasted no time in launching his story after achieving a conversation with Weichmann, because he became ill with a carbuncle and required hospitalization during the 2 week interval, and related his tale from a hospital bed. The reporter or "correspondent" didn't mention how he was alerted to Chris Ritter's story.

Ewald believes Ritter was a gun for hire and I agree, and in speculating about who hired Ritter to participate in this hoax, he noted the presence of Surratts in Anderson, one of which had a grocery store a few blocks from Ritter's butcher shop. It would have been useful to have a local grocer as a connection when arriving in a new town and setting up a meat store. His brother, Gorrell Surratt, fought for the Confederacy, was held in prison temporarily after the assassination because of his name. He continued on to Brazil, Indiana and became an optometrist. Ritter claimed to have lived in Brazil, among many other places, and his information suggested that that was true. According to Michael Schein, John Surratt also went to South America after his trial, and it's not much of a stretch to believe that South America meant Brazil.

I can't think of anyone other that John Surratt who would have the motivation to harrass Weichmann, to paint him as a secret Confederate sympathizer, to absolve both Mary and John of any wrongdoing and guilt in the conspiracy and have insider information about minor and major players surrounding the crime. After a few months of creating a disturbance in Anderson, dramatically announcing an imminent book containing even more details of his tale, and the arrival of addtional materials and the hiring of a stenographer, he disappeared apparently overnight and "never to return".

You can read the reporter's draft of the Chris Ritter story, which has some differences from the published version.
http://natedsanders.com/__morning_herald...30021.aspx

***After doing more research on Chris Ritter I can't find any connection to John Surratt. He got around the country quite a bit and set up new businesses but I couldn't find any visit to Baltimore and if he travelled to South America, I couldn't find any documents to support it. Ritter gave his story to newspapers two years before he went to Anderson, and maybe earlier than that, and his earlier story made no mention of Weichmann. I think it was only an opportunistic motive that brought him to Anderson and to stage a meeting with Weichmann.