Louis J. Weichmann, A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865, Special Ed.

Description

Louis J. Weichmann was a War Department employee, resident of Mary Surratt’s boarding house, and best friend of her son, Confederate courier and spy John Surratt. In the 1890s, he’d wrote a secret memoir, which he never published. The discovery and publication of his typed manuscript in 1975 caused a sensation. This is that secret memoir. 

Weichmann testified against both Mary and John in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial, helping send Mary Surratt to the gallows. Two years later, Weichmann testified at the trial of John Surratt.

The page inserted here (typed folio with a few pencil corrections) covers Madame Surratt personally receiving field glasses from Booth. That she drove out to Surrattsville to deliver them to her tenant there, John Lloyd, with a message from Booth that the “shooting arms be held in readiness….” This became “conclusive proof” at the trail that Surratt knew of the existence of the carbines; “it sent a thrill of indignation and horror through the courtroom.”

This remains one of the scarcest (and attractive) books on the assassination; most copies disappeared into institutional collections. With: Original, decorated slipcase.

As New!!

Louis J. Weichmann, A TRUE HISTORY OF THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND OF THE CONSPIRACY OF 1865., NY: Knopf, 1975, Special Ed., 492p.