My Journey on Lincoln's Assassination

[L Verge]

One thing that most authors don't tell you is that the War Department had copies generated of Booth's photograph and distributed them to the patrols. You can bet that the 16th NY had a copy since they were sent out specifically to the Caroline County area.

When the dying Booth was dragged out of the barn, that photo was put next to his face and everyone could see. One of the Garretts later spoke about there being no doubt that it was Booth.

As for Weichmann, my opinion is that he followed the first rule of nature - self-preservation. Like his landlady, he had to be pretty dense not to know that something strange was going on, but he kept quiet except for the one time of reporting to a superior.

He was also an employee of the gov't. in the division that maintained records of Confederates in POW camps. How convenient when at least two plots to free those prisoners were being hatched (Hines in charge of the Northwest plan and I believe Bradley Johnson of Maryland considering Point Lookout in Southern Maryland). Wouldn't it be nice to know numbers of prisoners involved, number of guards and troops to contend with, etc.?

When the kidnapping was aborted and young Surratt was sent to Elmira (which had a POW camp...), Weichmann lost his only "in" of the group. When the assassination occurred, he had to be running scared and would likely do anything to cooperate with the Feds and save his own skin. Personally, I bet that 75% or more of Americans today would do the same thing.