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John Fazio · 08-09-2015, 11:35 AM

(08-09-2015 10:07 AM)Dave Taylor Wrote:
(08-09-2015 09:18 AM)Gene C Wrote:
(08-09-2015 08:35 AM)Dave Taylor Wrote: For what it's worth, author Micheal Schein and researcher James O. Hall believed the entire Hanson Hiss interview to be a fraud.

In what way?
Did the interview never happen?

Gene,

Hall, Schein, and two Surratt researchers names James E. T. Lange and Katherine DeWitt, Jr. put forward a few pieces of evidence that cast doubt on the Hanson Hiss article being a genuine interview. They all seem to take the stance that Hanson Hiss did a great deal of research on John Surratt and then fabricated a so called interview to make his research seem as if it came straight from the horse's mouth.

Lange and DeWitt published an article in the November of 1994 Surratt Courier noting the inconsistencies in the Hanson Hiss article and the true details of John Surratt's life. Some inconsistencies are great such as the Hanson Hiss article claiming that Surratt decided to stop running, signed his real name at a hotel in Alexandria, and was arrested at the hotel while causally smoking a cigar. In truth, Surratt was identified while stuck in quarantine after his boat docked in Alexandria and was arrested then. Other inconsistencies are minor, grant you, but are ones that the real McCoy wouldn't have erred upon (such as his age in 1898).

In addition, Lange and DeWitt point to a telling piece of evidence contained in the 1909 book The Death of Lincoln: The Story of Booth's Plot, His Deed and the Penalty by Clara Laughlin. Laughlin was a friend of John Surratt's daughter and said that everything credited to John Surratt aside from the text of his Rockville lecture of 1870 was a fraud. She states, "Every now and then an alleged newspaper interview with him appears; they are all fabrications — he has never been interviewed."

James O. Hall believed the Hanson Hiss article to be fake as well due to John Surratt's well known aversion to the public eye after his trial and failed lecturing career brought him more bad than good. This also is likely why Surratt made no move to discredit the article after it was published, according to Hall, because refuting it would still bring Surratt unwanted attention. Others attacked some of the points in the Hanson Hiss article, such as A. C. Richards who vehemently denied "Surratt's" statement that a noose was placed around Weichmann's throat to get him to betray Mrs. Surratt.

Dave, Gene, Pamela, Rick, Laurie (have I left anyone out?):

Without affirming or denying the validity of the Hanson Hiss interview, I will say that judging Surratt's account of his escape to be false does not depend on the interview. (I am always wary of dismissing evidence and tradition too easily. I have seen cases of accounts dismissed as fraudulent only to see them later confirmed as authentic. An example is the famous Barlow-Gordon encounter at Gettysburg, widely reported to be an invention. I now have six accounts affirming its authenticity. The fact that Surratt never discredited the Hanson Hiss interview, despite having plenty of time and opportunity to do so, is, to me, very telling, and cannot be dismissed on a theory of avoidance of publicity. One does not ordinarily allow totally false representations to go unchallenged. Equally telling is the fact that Hiss would even put it out to the world as genuine knowing that Surratt was out there to tell the world he was a colossal liar.)

Consider that the original report of the escape from Surratt's "guards" (actually Zouave comrades) stated that the distance from the rim to the outcropping was 35 feet. The report of their superior, de Lambilly (who, of course, received his information from his subordinates) confirmed the distance at 35 feet. His superior, however (Allet), reported that the distance was 23 feet. Surratt, himself, however, later said that he found the story of the leap to be "a great source of amusement" and the distance was really only 12 feet!! Why would his "guards" say it was 35 feet and Allet say it was 23 feet if it was only 12 feet? These disparities demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the initial report was a fabrication designed to protect those who made it, i.e. Surratt's "guards", who were really his friends, and that Surratt favored the story because it in turn protected his "guards". He felt compelled, however, to shorten the distance to 12 feet, because he realized that the 35-foot and 23-foot versions were simply too much to be believed. As Jampoler said in his biography of Surratt: "It is easy to see why the Zouaves preferred to report the other escape story (the leap), one that featured a minute of sudden, astonishing derring-do by their prisoner, instead of a long night of stolid incompetence by officers and criminal conspiracy by enlisted guards, guards who saw no reason to turn over a comrade in arms to a distant, godless government."

Lastly, consider that just as Surratt had every reason to fabricate his escape story, and just as his "guards" had every reason to do the same, Lipman, a fellow Zouave, who was one of his 12 (not six) "guards" and who told a completely different and much more prosaic escape story, had absolutely no motivation to fabricate anything.

John