My Journey on Lincoln's Assassination

[mikegriffith1]

(10-15-2018 09:01 AM)Tom Bogar Wrote:  Mike, I think it's commendable that you are exploring these issues in your "journey." I would caution, however, against anyone at the remove of 153 years drawing any definitive conclusions, especially regarding chronology. What I wrote, as all historians must do, is informed conjecture based on recalled testimony of contemporary participants. Time can easily shift one way or the other, and words can be misinterpreted. For instance, Gifford and Spangler were doubtless working, and Spear lounging, with Booth seated calmly at the prompter's table while chatting with them. But Gifford and Spangler could have been lying to cover for Booth, and Spear may have been half-drunk. The fact is, we weren't there, so we can never know with certitude. But for what it's worth, I have never considered Weichmann an entirely credible witness, as he had his own agenda and his own interests to protect.

I agree that Gifford and Spangler could have been lying to cover for Booth, but, as you know, other witnesses likewise put Booth at Ford's Theater at different points in the general timeframe under discussion (2:30 to 5:00 PM and 7:45 to 10:10 PM).

---

We should not be surprised that Weichmann told so many lies, given what we know about the extreme, illegal pressure that was applied to him. John T. Ford, owner of Ford’s Theater, made a written record of what he saw and heard while he was (unjustly and illegally) imprisoned at the Old Capitol Prison, and Ford and others witnessed (ear-witnessed) this pressure firsthand.

In early May, while in Old Capitol, Ford heard the notorious thug Lafayette Baker warn Jake Rittersbach, a Ford’s Theater stagehand and former Union soldier, that he would be imprisoned indefinitely if he did not say what Baker wanted him to say. On another occasion, Ford and his brother Harry, and Ford employee James Gifford heard Weichmann being subjected to similar pressure. On yet another occasion, Ford employees Gifford, Jimmie Maddox, and Lou Carland overheard a guard threaten Weichmann with death if he did not say more than what he had already said. I quote from Thomas Bogar’s book Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination:

Quote:One day that week John Ford overheard an egregious instance of “witness preparation” in the prison yard: [Lafayette] Baker going at Rittersbach, putting words in his mouth. Whereas Rittersbach had actually heard Ned Spangler that night [April 14] say, “Hush your mouth. You don’t know whether it’s Booth or not,” Baker now told him to add that Spangler had slapped him across the face and warned, “For God’s sake, shut up! And don’t say which way he went.” If Rittersbach would not so testify, Baker threatened, he would be thrown definitely into the general prison population at Old Capitol. This approach by Baker, Ford believed, would unnerve anyone, “and cause him to think he believed he heard what did not.” Even though Rittersbach was self-motivated to testify and required little prodding, he was hauled before Colonel Burnett on the eve of the trial for another conversation. No notes exist of its nature.

Ford, his brother Harry, and Gifford witnessed the same sort of pressure brought to bear within the prison on a terrified Louis Weichmann, a Booth associate who had boarded at Mrs. Surratt’s. Weichmann would in due course provide exceedingly incriminating testimony, which led to the conviction and execution of several of the conspirators. A day later, Maddox, Gifford, and Carland overheard an officer in Old Capitol tell Weichmann “if he didn’t swear to more than he had told, he would be hung.” (Weichmann shortly after the trial would confess to Carland that he had perjured himself to save his skin, and tell Gifford “I’d give a million dollars if I had had nothing to do with it.”) As John Ford recorded in his ever-lengthening jail house manifesto, “Another damnable feature in this prison is that if a prisoner will not or cannot give such information as may be demanded of him, he is ordered to his room or cell and handcuffed and tortured into a more compliant witness or informer.” (pp. 180-181)