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Susan Higginbotham · 03-19-2015, 07:40 PM

My guess is that Mary had Weichmann write the note to Nothey because she thought he could write a better business letter than she could. She was probably right, as her letters to Father Finnotti are a bit rambling, with run-on sentences, whereas the letter Weichmann wrote is short, stern, and to the point.

Pamela · 03-19-2015, 11:11 PM

(03-19-2015 07:40 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote: My guess is that Mary had Weichmann write the note to Nothey because she thought he could write a better business letter than she could. She was probably right, as her letters to Father Finnotti are a bit rambling, with run-on sentences, whereas the letter Weichmann wrote is short, stern, and to the point.

That makes sense and I guess they didn't think it mattered that he also signed her name since it was just a note. Very useful guy to have around, that Louis. I read somewhere that he wrote a legal agreement for the Surratts--maybe it was Lloyd's rental of the tavern.

RJNorton · 03-20-2015, 05:47 AM

(03-19-2015 06:29 PM)Pamela Wrote: This may have been discussed before, but in case it hasn't, I was wondering about a couple of incidents. Any thoughts about what Mary Surratt would have done if Weichmann wasn't given a half day off on April 14th? Would she have gone to his place of employment to ask him to take off work? Would she have gone to Surratt tavern by herself? Would she just not have gone? Also, she had Weichmann write the note to Nothey on the 14th including signing her name. Why did she have Weichmann write the note? Any ideas?

I really do not know. All I can say is how different history might be if Stanton had not let War Department workers off to attend religious services that Good Friday. Laurie can best answer this, but my initial thought is that she would not make such a trip all alone. But who knows!

Pamela · 03-20-2015, 06:42 PM

(03-20-2015 05:47 AM)RJNorton Wrote:
(03-19-2015 06:29 PM)Pamela Wrote: This may have been discussed before, but in case it hasn't, I was wondering about a couple of incidents. Any thoughts about what Mary Surratt would have done if Weichmann wasn't given a half day off on April 14th? Would she have gone to his place of employment to ask him to take off work? Would she have gone to Surratt tavern by herself? Would she just not have gone? Also, she had Weichmann write the note to Nothey on the 14th including signing her name. Why did she have Weichmann write the note? Any ideas?

I really do not know. All I can say is how different history might be if Stanton had not let War Department workers off to attend religious services that Good Friday. Laurie can best answer this, but my initial thought is that she would not make such a trip all alone. But who knows!

It was that last trip that was really her undoing, at least in terms of her sentence, just hours before the assassination and almost-slaughter at Seward's house, and the fact that Herold and Booth only took one of the carbines, so that afterwards investigators found the match for the one found with Booth still in the tavern. She even told Lloyd to have whiskey for the conspirators, despite her hatred for the stuff due to her husband's alcoholism. She tossed Atzerodt from her boarding house because of bottles found in his room.

Booth must have had world class charm to have kept Mary in the game after Weichmann found her sobbing for fear of John's safety the day of the attempted kidnapping. Anna was also angry at Booth for putting her brother in danger. I was surprised in reading The Evidence to see only one interrogation of Mary Surratt. There must have been more, especially since she didn't have a lawyer at first.

L Verge · 03-24-2015, 01:22 PM

Mrs. Surratt was interrogated twice. The first statement was taken on April 17 upon her arrest, and the questions are related to Booth, her son, Atzerodt, "Wood"/Payne and Herold. These are found in the National Archives M-599 Reel 6, Frames 0233 through 0257. Or, you can buy a book that we sell at the museum for $20 that covers all the War Department's files on the statements.

The second interrogation was while she was still at Carroll Prison Annex of Old Capitol on April 28. This time, Col. Olcott did the questioning and focused mainly on John, Jr. This is on Frames 0170-0200 in the same NARA files.

Pamela · 03-25-2015, 03:32 PM

(03-24-2015 01:22 PM)L Verge Wrote: Mrs. Surratt was interrogated twice. The first statement was taken on April 17 upon her arrest, and the questions are related to Booth, her son, Atzerodt, "Wood"/Payne and Herold. These are found in the National Archives M-599 Reel 6, Frames 0233 through 0257. Or, you can buy a book that we sell at the museum for $20 that covers all the War Department's files on the statements.

The second interrogation was while she was still at Carroll Prison Annex of Old Capitol on April 28. This time, Col. Olcott did the questioning and focused mainly on John, Jr. This is on Frames 0170-0200 in the same NARA files.

Thanks, I'll have to get that book. I've now read some of her second interrogation on Google books but it's always best to read transcripts word for word. From what I did read--wow, she was really in over her head. It's as if she didn't get what a big deal it was to be involved in the murder and attempted murder of heads of state. And, unlike the other prisoners, she was given her "Miranda rights", I guess out of deference to her gender.

PaigeBooth · 04-08-2015, 05:02 PM

After Louis Weichmann left Saint Charles Catholic seminary in 1862, he moved to Washington D.C. where he began work as a school teacher. Weichmann did not move into Mary Surratt's boarding house until the very end of 1864 since Mrs. Surratt did not live there until then. So my question is, where did Louis Weichmann live in Washington D.C. prior to moving into the Surratt boarding house? Thanks, in advance, to anyone who knows the answer to my question.

RJNorton · 04-08-2015, 05:12 PM

Hi Paige. In his book he says he was boarding at the corner of Nineteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in a house kept by a caterer named Purnell. Apparently it was a big house as Weichmann says he was "weary of the loneliness of the large house where I resided."

Pamela · (This post was last modified: 04-09-2015 07:33 PM by Pamela.)

After leaving school, Weichmann moved to Pikesville, MD for a few months and assisted his childhood Sunday school teacher, Father Waldron, then went to Little Texas, MD and stayed with a friend, Father William Mahoney. He responded to an ad for a teacher at St Matthew's Institute for Boys and moved to D.C. and began work as the school principal on Jan 2, 1863. He slept at the school and took meals at a nearby boarding house. Sometime during the next year, Weichmann moved to a boarding house, presumably Purnell's and in early Jan. 1864 got his job at the War Dept.

John Surratt began to visit Louis during his stint at St Matthew's and in his book, Weichmann described his friendship with a very different Surratt in the pre-Booth days. They decided to visit their alma mater, St Charles, on April 2, 1863, and afterwards visited Father Mahoney in Little Texas where they both met Sainte Marie, who later turned John in to authorities in Italy.

RJNorton · 07-08-2015, 05:21 AM

(02-12-2015 01:58 PM)RJNorton Wrote: Long ago I asked this question, and my aging brain does not recall a specific reply (not sure if there was one). For some reason I think I may have read somewhere (years ago) that Weichmann said that on two occasions bullets whizzed past his head at night in the years after the assassination. He felt someone was trying to kill him. Am I imagining this?

Last night while reading Michael Schein's new book I came across what I had read many years ago, although it's not exactly as I remembered it. But there were apparently two assassination attempts against Louis Weichmann in the years subsequent to the assassination. Weichmann's sisters were interviewed in 1926 by Lloyd Lewis. In his book Shein includes what the sisters told Lloyd Lewis:

"One evening, as he was walking home from work, a neighbor woman screamed to him to run. A man was following him on the other side of the street and began to run as soon as Lou did. The woman held the door open and pulled Lou in just as the man fired. The bullet stuck in the door. Another time he was sitting in the second-story window at home reading when a revolver went off across the street and the bullet hit the window sill and fell down into a flower-bed where a little neighbor girl was playing."

Assuming both stories are true the incidents happened when Weichmann was living in Philadelphia. Could John Surratt have tried to kill Weichmann? If not Surratt, who else might have tried?

Susan Higginbotham · 07-08-2015, 11:05 AM

(07-08-2015 05:21 AM)RJNorton Wrote:
(02-12-2015 01:58 PM)RJNorton Wrote: Long ago I asked this question, and my aging brain does not recall a specific reply (not sure if there was one). For some reason I think I may have read somewhere (years ago) that Weichmann said that on two occasions bullets whizzed past his head at night in the years after the assassination. He felt someone was trying to kill him. Am I imagining this?

Last night while reading Michael Schein's new book I came across what I had read many years ago, although it's not exactly as I remembered it. But there were apparently two assassination attempts against Louis Weichmann in the years subsequent to the assassination. Weichmann's sisters were interviewed in 1926 by Lloyd Lewis. In his book Shein includes what the sisters told Lloyd Lewis:

"One evening, as he was walking home from work, a neighbor woman screamed to him to run. A man was following him on the other side of the street and began to run as soon as Lou did. The woman held the door open and pulled Lou in just as the man fired. The bullet stuck in the door. Another time he was sitting in the second-story window at home reading when a revolver went off across the street and the bullet hit the window sill and fell down into a flower-bed where a little neighbor girl was playing."

Assuming both stories are true the incidents happened when Weichmann was living in Philadelphia. Could John Surratt have tried to kill Weichmann? If not Surratt, who else might have tried?

I don't believe Surratt was the would-be assassin (assuming there was one). He was too obvious a suspect, and after he married and had children, he had a lot more to lose.

Pamela · 07-08-2015, 07:04 PM

(07-08-2015 11:05 AM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:
(07-08-2015 05:21 AM)RJNorton Wrote:
(02-12-2015 01:58 PM)RJNorton Wrote: Long ago I asked this question, and my aging brain does not recall a specific reply (not sure if there was one). For some reason I think I may have read somewhere (years ago) that Weichmann said that on two occasions bullets whizzed past his head at night in the years after the assassination. He felt someone was trying to kill him. Am I imagining this?

Last night while reading Michael Schein's new book I came across what I had read many years ago, although it's not exactly as I remembered it. But there were apparently two assassination attempts against Louis Weichmann in the years subsequent to the assassination. Weichmann's sisters were interviewed in 1926 by Lloyd Lewis. In his book Shein includes what the sisters told Lloyd Lewis:

"One evening, as he was walking home from work, a neighbor woman screamed to him to run. A man was following him on the other side of the street and began to run as soon as Lou did. The woman held the door open and pulled Lou in just as the man fired. The bullet stuck in the door. Another time he was sitting in the second-story window at home reading when a revolver went off across the street and the bullet hit the window sill and fell down into a flower-bed where a little neighbor girl was playing."

Assuming both stories are true the incidents happened when Weichmann was living in Philadelphia. Could John Surratt have tried to kill Weichmann? If not Surratt, who else might have tried?

I don't believe Surratt was the would-be assassin (assuming there was one). He was too obvious a suspect, and after he married and had children, he had a lot more to lose.

I hadn't read about the flower pot incident. There was a third event that his sisters recounted, I believe in a newspaper interview. A man in drag came to his parent's home and his father answered the door. The "woman" asked for Lou and his father wouldn't let "her" enter. When she left, his father followed her to a street corner where she got into a carriage, I believe other men were in the carriage. The family believed the man in drag wanted to shoot Louis. Weichmann said he believed that if wasn't imprisoned for a few weeks before the trial, he would have been murdered.

I wonder how much of John Surratt's anger and contempt for his former friend was genuine. He publicized those feelings but it may have been a way to deflect criticism for bringing others into the plot, including his mother, and then making sure he was safe while others hung or went to prison. Maybe he deluded himself as well and really hated Louis so he could live with himself.

As sneaky as he was and used to taking risks, I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to kill Weichmann. Louis said, that when John and the others returned from the failed kidnapping, John leveled his gun at him, and then said something to the effect that his life was ruined and could Lou help him get a job.

Mary's lawyers made a scapegoat of Louis as part of their defense, and afterwards there was a public backlash against her execution,so I guess any number of Confederates would want to kill him.

L Verge · 07-09-2015, 09:22 AM

One of the people who "blasphemed" Weichmann the worst was Mary Surratt's (and the Church's) avid supporter John Brophy. Weichmann had to defend himself very strongly against allegations that Brophy would make to anyone and everyone. Just as I would not consider John Surratt a suspect in any attempt on Mr. Weichmann's life, I would not consider Brophy one either. However, there were any number of people who developed a strong dislike for the man - Yankees as well - because they considered him to be despicable for turning against Mary Surratt.

I don't remember ever seeing the comments about the "person in drag" who visited the Weichmann home (I assume in Philadelphia?). I would love to read that because I cannot believe that any Victorian newspaper would dare to mention such a delicate subject as that.

Pamela · 07-09-2015, 01:32 PM

(07-09-2015 09:22 AM)L Verge Wrote: One of the people who "blasphemed" Weichmann the worst was Mary Surratt's (and the Church's) avid supporter John Brophy. Weichmann had to defend himself very strongly against allegations that Brophy would make to anyone and everyone. Just as I would not consider John Surratt a suspect in any attempt on Mr. Weichmann's life, I would not consider Brophy one either. However, there were any number of people who developed a strong dislike for the man - Yankees as well - because they considered him to be despicable for turning against Mary Surratt.

I don't remember ever seeing the comments about the "person in drag" who visited the Weichmann home (I assume in Philadelphia?). I would love to read that because I cannot believe that any Victorian newspaper would dare to mention such a delicate subject as that.

It's in an article, and I don't know the date or the publication, included in the link on the first post on this thread. The writer was Alva O. Reser. Mrs Crowley (Lou's sister): "' He was hounded to death, by the secessionists because he was in that trial. The prejudice at the time of the assassination was awful....He was shot at in Philadelphia many times....My father had a tailor store with a private dwelling attached. One evening we were all in the store and the doorbell to our private residence rang. My father went outside. There was a 'lady' standing on the sidewalk. 'She' asked if Lou was home. Father said 'Yes' but that he had retired. 'She' asked if he couldn't come down and see 'her'. Father asked her to step inside the door and said to 'her' that he would call Lou. 'She' refused to step inside. Father said,'Unless you come into the store, I will not call him.' 'She' started away. Father followed 'her' to the next corner, at Sixteenth street. There was a cab standing there with four men in it. She got in the cab and it was driven away. We knew it was a man in disguise, and if Lou had come down he would have been shot. These incidents were shortly after the war had closed, not later than the early seventies....'"

I used modern terminology for the same thing. I've posted before that I think Brophy was the "trusted friend" John Surratt referred to in his lecture who he sent a messenger to connect with during the trial. His friend sent back the message to the effect of, he should sit tight and his mother wasn't in danger. I think Brophy had a meltdown when the death sentence was announced, in part because of his message to John, and wrote his affidavit.

Susan Higginbotham · (This post was last modified: 07-09-2015 02:16 PM by Susan Higginbotham.)

Some of the sisters' stories (including one about a "lady" in man's boots) are mentioned in "Myths after Lincoln" (see the link below, pp. 225-26). I find the one about Anna Surratt luring Weichmann to an address in Philadelphia to translate a letter for her to be a little far-fetched.

In her biography of Holt and in her book "Lincoln's Avengers," Elizabeth Leonard mentions Weichmann's letters to Holt, beginning in October 1865, asking for a government job as recompense for the trouble his testimony had brought on him. Leonard writes that Weichmann complained of being shunned by the Catholic Church, but doesn't quote him as complaining to Holt about attempts on his life. That seems to contradict the sisters' claim (p. 226) that Stanton obtained the government job for Weichmann (which he got in December 1865) in order to protect Weichmann better.

https://archive.org/stream/mythsafterlin...1/mode/2up