FASCINATING LETTER REGARDING LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION AND JOHN SURRAT'S INVOLVEMENT
[Abraham Lincoln]. Almarin C. Richards Autograph Letter Signed "A.C. Richards." Two pages, front and back, Eustis, Florida; April 26, 1898. D.C. Police Superintendent and attendee at Ford's Theatre the night of President Lincoln's killing, Richards writes to Louis Weichmann, the prosecution's chief witness. He discusses Surratt's involvement in the assassination and his publications that defamed Weichmann for testifying against his mother Mary Surratt. It reads in part:
"...Your letter as published in the Washington Post is an admirable refutation of the dastardly and scandalous attack upon your character by John H. Surratt under the cognomen 'Hanson Hiss.' The 'hiss' part of the cognoment is appropriate. In it I note the sinuous course of a serpent and fancy I can hear his 'hiss.' Your letter is entirely appropriate and well-conceived and the testimonials you submit are of the best and are conclusive. In any opinion Surratt had better have kept out of this last conspiracy to defame you. You will be fully justified in revealing the entire plot for the assassination of the noble Lincoln with all its attendant incidents and circumstances as you related them to me. It is your duty to vindicate your character and standing as a man and a citizen by unveiling the truth. Truth is the unassailable vindication. You know of course that at the trial of conspirators as a witness you could not give all the facts in your knowledge nor narrate incidents and circumstances as they transpired. In your proposed history of that vile tragedy give everything. Withhold nothing. Let the blow fall. Surratt essays a self-vindication at your expense and tries to make a picture of you..."
Weichmann's account of the assassination was published in 1975 (years after his death), entitled, "A True History of The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the Conspiracy of 1865".