544

Lincoln Assassination Letter

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:500.00 USD Estimated At:NA
Lincoln Assassination Letter
“Winners will be notified after the auction ends and once all bids have been processed to determine the winner for each lot”
Historically detailed 1898 five page letter written from ''A.C. Richards'', police superintendent and witness to Lincoln's assassination at the Ford's Theater. Addressed to Louis Weichmann whose controversial testimony was the key evidence in convicting Mary Surratt. Richards gives his first hand account of the the hours after the assassination and uncovering the conspiracy: ''…it so happened that I was in Ford's theater on the night of April 14th 1865 at the time of the assassination of President Lincoln. It became my duty at once to seek and ascertain the identity of the President's assassin. Within a short time, less than an hour I had positive and undoubted information that the man who had been seen to vault from the box occupied by the President and others was Wilkes Booth. Very soon thereafter I was authentically informed that Booth had frequently been in the company of John H. Surratt and … to have frequently visited the house of John. H. Surratt's mother. Between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock that night in company…of my officers…visited the house of Mrs. Surratt…and conversed with her giving her, as I then presumed the first information she had received of the assassination of the president. You were sleeping in Mrs. Surratt's house that night…within a few hours [you] believed that you were in presence of facts and knowledge of circumstances that proved….a band of men had for some time been concocting a plot to assassinate the President…you gave names, dates, incidents and circumstances connected with the plot…the course you pursued…was of intrinsic value in aiding in establishing the fact of a conspiracy…'' Each page measures 8'' x 10''. Minor separation at folds and toning else very good.