The Flimsy Case Against Mary Surratt

[RJNorton]

(01-21-2019 09:01 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote:  At this second trial, which in some respects amounted to a rehearing of Mrs. Surratt’s case, Louis Carland, a former customer at Ford’s Theater, testified that Weichmann had told him in 1865 that if he had been “let alone . . . it could have been quite a different affair with Mrs. Surratt than it was,” that his statements had been written out for him, and that he had been threatened with prosecution as an accessory if he refused to swear to them. Weichmann, under examination, denied that he had made this confession, but admitted that he had talked to Carland.

John W. Clampitt, one of Mrs. Surratt’s lawyers, a number of years after the trial wrote that Weichmann, after testifying, had been stung with remorse because he had committed perjury in implicating Mrs. Surratt in Lincoln’s murder.

Mike, is his book, Weichmann writes:

"The evidence against her (Mary Surratt) was very strong; more so than against Atzerodt, Arnold, O'Laughlin, Mudd, and Spangler. It extended from the date of her son's meeting with Booth and Mudd on December 23, 1864, to the date of her arrest on April 17, 1865." The visits of Booth, Atzerodt, Payne, Herold, and Dr. Mudd (once) to her house were shown. Her intimate acquaintance with Booth during that period was well established. Her own daughter, Miss Fitzpatrick, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Holohan, and myself testified to the presence of Payne in her house on two difference occasions, giving his name as Wood on his first visit, and taking his meals, and making his home there for four days, on his second visit."

"All this and much other matter in relation to her alleged connection to the conspiracy prior to April 14, however, would have counted but for little, had it not been for the doings on the day of the murder itself."


And quoting Laurie regarding Mary Surratt's actions on the day itself:

"Most learned scholars who do not have a sympathetic bend for Mrs. Surratt would point out to you that, even if Booth only decided to murder Lincoln on that specific day, Mrs. Surratt was still doing his bidding by the early afternoon - and that bidding was what led to her conviction and death, not what had been done previously, but what she did that day."