Louis Weichmann

[Susan Higginbotham]

(09-19-2015 08:40 AM)L Verge Wrote:  We do know that Mrs. Surratt had financial matters with the Calvert family that were pressing her to get settled quickly (the Calverts were trying to settle an estate and needed things that had been dangling for 13 years to be cleared up). Mr Calvert testified to that in court.

I think she planned on making the trip anyhow. If Weichmann had not been available, there was the hired man who could have taken her. It was just opportune for Booth that she could deliver instructions and his field glasses at the same time.

Would her fate have been the same without Weichmann to testify about that trip? I doubt that Lloyd's testimony alone could have hanged her (his word against hers). By the way, local lore down here (that I heard long before I worked at Surratt House) was that the feds threatened to hang Lloyd by his thumbs from a tree in the front yard if he did not divulge what he knew. Wonder how many similar threats or promises the higher-ups made to Weichmann in order to get him to testify? Herb, I'm in agreement with you as to the pressures Mr. Stanton and Judge Holt could bring to bear.

John T. Ford claims here to have heard that Lloyd was threatened with torture.

https://archive.org/stream/jstor-2510176...1/mode/2up

In "They Have Killed Papa Dead," Anthony Pitch writes that James Owens, an employee of tavern owner Austin Adams, "tried stonewalling Colonel Wells until overcome by terror when told he would hung by his handcuffed arms." His source is a letter from Wells himself. EDITED: Found Wells' letter in the Rewards Files. He encloses a statement by Owens and adds, "He did not make it until he was handcuffed and threatened to be hung up."

James R Ford in a handwritten document called "Recollections of Carroll Prison" found at the Maryland Historical Society quotes a deputy keeper at the prison, a Mr. Tom S___ (I can't make out the last name) as saying that "Weichmann was the most frightened witness he had ever seen--and he believed he knew as much about the assassination as any one of the Confederates."