Sanford Conover.

[John Fazio]

(07-07-2018 05:35 PM)SSlater Wrote:  Sanford Conover - the man who had more than one alias (Wallace, Dunham, even Conover was said to be an alias) testified, under oath in more than one trial after the war, as a Rebel, and lied, Was charged with perjury and was convicted.
Yet, in later Census records -he is married,( Wife Mary, and daughter - "Effie") living in Buffalo, N.Y. and then gets buried in the National Cemetery at Bath , New York, with full Veteran Honors, a hero.
I can't find any more than that. Can anyone explain this?

John:

His real name (supposedly) was Charles A. Dunham. He had at least 20 aliases and is one of the most extraordinary figures in history. There is a good biography of him written by Carman Cumming, titled Devil's Game. There is, not surprisingly, doubt as to where his ultimately loyalties lay, but I am of the opinion that they lay with the South. I also believe that it was he, together with George N.Sanders, both members of the Canadian contingency of the Confederate Secret Service (the "Canadian Cabinet"), who engineered the intentionally planted perjury in the trial of the conspirators, perjury that was designed to be exposed as such, which it was (and quite easily) and whose ultimate purpose was to cause the case against the Confederate leadership to collapse, which it did. Remember that Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young "and others unknown" were named in the charge and specification as co-conspirators. Because of the deliberately planted and exposed perjury, none of these men was ever sentenced. Please see pp. 357-363 of Decapitating the Union for material relevant to this issue. Please see, too, the play, later the movie, Witness for the Prosecution , for a great example of how deliberately planted and exposed perjury works an almost magical injustice.

John