A little-known person

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-26-2021 04:51 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(07-24-2021 08:48 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  The last one also has the beginning of the James A. McDevitt testimony.

Thank you to Steve Whitlock for sending the McDevitt testimony at the 1867 John Surratt trial. In it he does not say a tipster in the street directed the group of detectives to the Surratt boardinghouse.

Steve also included the Clarvoe testimony. I am including the beginning of this testimony in which Clarvoe does not say anything about a tipster talking to the detectives.

Thus, it appears neither man testified a tipster in the street cited the Surratt boardinghouse as a suspicious place. Apparently McDevitt saved that story for newspaper interviews years later, but he did not include it when he testified. And Clarvoe says nothing about it. McDevitt also testified at the 1865 conspiracy trial, but he said nothing about a tipster. Unless more information is available, we are left with McDevitt's claim in interviews that there was a tipster in the street in the wee hours of April 15. At this point I do not see any backing for McDevitt's claim.

In the matter of the McDevitt tipster I have a few more thoughts, but first I should note that I threw away the half-eaten crow and call 'take-backs' for my apologies to James A. McDevitt and his descendants. He lied, but why?

As Tom Bogar and Mike Kaufman have already shown, John B. McCullough was not in DC for Apr 14-15, 1865. In support of that are a few clippings. There are several mentions of McCullough in theatrical performances at Ford's Theater for Jan-Mar 1865, including "The Apostate" which is mentioned by Lewis Weichman in his testimony. That performance was 18 Mar 1865. His last performance was in another play on 22 Mar 1865. The testimony of 2 clerks, Henry E. Merrick and G. W. Bunker, establish that McCullough signed out of the National Hotel on the 26th of Mar 1865, the same day that Lewis Weichman finally settled on after cross examination for the conspiracy trial and the John H. Surratt trial as being when he saw Booth and McCullough together at the hotel. All mention of J. B. McCullough in both trials seems spurious as to dates, and then there is mention in the affidavit of John McCullough read in court that McCullough was not in DC, as has been verified by prior researchers. I'm merely adding support with documents to their findings.

We then must return to the article that Steve Williams found for the interview of Daniel Gleason, in which he states that he and Joshua W. Sharpe went to Gen. Angier after learning that president Lincoln had been shot and upon Gleason's information a guard was dispatched to Mary Surratt's house. It would then appear that the guard must have been McDevitt, Clarvoe and those accompanying them. The order would have gone to Richards, who then dispatched his detectives.

Why then did he fabricate an informant? REWARD! The word comes up frequently while researching Clarvoe and McDevitt. They even wrote a joint letter stating they were the only ones to go to the Surratt home for the other conspirators upon McDevitt's tip, thus reducing potential reward recipients. McDevitt was evasive, in my opinion, because there was no tipster. Had there been his superiors all the way up to Stanton would have demanded that person be named and arrested as a potential co-conspirator. Weichman and Holohan from the Surratt house greatly assisted the investigation, and were both in prison for about 30 days. Why wasn't McDevitt's tipster in there with them? Because there was no tipster beyond Weichman informing Gleason, who informed the War Dept.