Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination by Thomas A. Bogar

Author:Thomas A. Bogar [Bogar, Thomas A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621571742
Publisher: Regnery Publishing

One day that week John Ford overheard an egregious instance of “witness preparation” in the prison yard: Baker going at Rittersbach, putting words in his mouth. Whereas Rittersbach had actually heard Ned Spangler that night say, “Hush your mouth! You don’t know whether it’s Booth or not,” Baker now told him to add that Spangler had slapped him across the face and warned, “For God’s sake, shut up! And don’t say which way he went.” If Rittersbach would not so testify, Baker threatened, he would be thrown indefinitely into the general prison population at Old Capitol. This approach by Baker, Ford believed, would unnerve anyone, “and cause him to think he believed he heard what he did not.” Even though Rittersbach was self-motivated to testify and required little prodding, he was hailed before Colonel Burnett on the eve of the trial for another conversation. No notes exist of its nature.4

Ford, his brother Harry, and Gifford witnessed the same sort of pressure brought to bear within the prison on a terrified Louis Weichmann, a Booth associate who had boarded at Mrs. Surratt’s. Weichmann would in due course provide exceedingly incriminating testimony, which led directly to the conviction and execution of several of the conspirators. A day later, Maddox, Gifford, and Carland overheard an officer in Old Capitol tell Weichmann “if he didn’t swear to more than he had told he would be hung.” (Weichmann shortly after the trial would confess to Carland that he had perjured himself to save his skin, and tell Gifford “I’d give a million dollars if I had had nothing to do with it.”) As John Ford recorded in his ever-lengthening jail house manifesto, “Another damnable feature in this prison is that if [underlining his] a prisoner will not or cannot give such information as may be demanded of him he is ordered to his room or cell and handcuffed and tortured into a more complaisant witness or informer.”5

It would take Selecman six days to decide to testify as required; Maddox, ten (with a final personal “appeal” by Holt, who up to that point kept Maddox on his list of conspirators to indict); and Gifford, eleven; but they, too, would come around to provide testimony for the prosecution and be unconditionally freed. John and Harry Ford, along with Carland, would testify only for the defense in an effort to spare Ned Spangler. They would continue to pay a price for their intransigence.6

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