Some Strange activities associated with Elmira.

[RJNorton]

(08-27-2017 08:28 PM)SSlater Wrote:  We are led to believe that it was Thompson who sent Surratt to Elmira. I am willing to bet E.G.Lee was the one who sent him. (I wonder if Thompson knew that??? Are you aware that E.G. was trying to raise an Army ? His promotion to General depended on that.)

John, you are correct. It was Lee.

Michael Shein writes:

"At his trial for the murder of Abraham Lincoln, Surratt presented an Offer of Proof, outlining the proposed testimony of General Edwin G. Lee, after General Lee’s testimony about Surratt’s whereabouts was ruled inadmissible. General Lee offered to testify that on April 12, 1865 he dispatched Surratt on a secret surveillance mission:

. . . to visit Elmira [N.Y.] with the intent to ascertain the position and condition of the Confederate prisoners confined at or near said town of Elmira & to make sketches of the stationing of the guards, and of the approaches to said prison, [unreadable] the numbers of the forces stationed there . . .. "

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/159100