By the summer of 1866, the political climate was stultifying as Johnson and Congress continued to battle over the shape of the post-war government. Such intense, hate-filled language only deepened the dark mood in Washington City among its working citizens, including Louis Weichmann. He had immediately returned to his job as a War Department clerk after testifying against Mrs. Surratt and the other conspirators. Rarely a day went by without some rude accusation that his words had killed an innocent widow. Faceless members of the crowd pushed and shoved him along busy streets. Weichmann received letters containing death threats, which, though he tried to laugh off, made his natural affectations of nervousness even worse.
Walking to his boardinghouse from the War Department one day, he saw standing on the building stoop a woman who lived in an adjoining room. She waved at him. Assuming it to be a friendly greeting, Weichmann waved back.
“No! No! Run!” she screamed pointing to the other side of the street.
He turned to see a man, wearing a large hat that shaded his face, aim a revolver at him. Just as he crossed the threshold of the building, Weichmann heard a bang. Looking at the doorframe, he noticed a bullet hole.
“They almost got you that time, Mr. Weichmann,” the neighbor lady said.
“This is driving me mad,” he whispered.
“Get out, get out while you can.” Her voice was firm. “Go to your family. Family has to take you in during times like this.”
The next day Weichmann left his desk at the War Department and walked upstairs to Secretary Stanton’s office. He rapped lightly at the door but did not wait for an invitation to enter.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Stanton looked up with a scowl. “Well, come in and shut the door before anybody sees you.”
He did as ordered and sat nervously on the edge of a wooden chair in front of Stanton’s desk. “You’ve got to get me another job, out of town. Someone shot at me last evening.”
“I can’t do anything right now. All the job openings I have are still in this building.” He paused, and then wagged a thick short finger in the young man’s face. “Don’t be so nervous. That’s been your problem all along. You’re too nervous.”
“If I’m shot at again, I’m going to the newspapers. I’ll tell them you personally put a noose around my neck and threatened to hang me if I didn’t say Mrs. Surratt told me things. Things about the plot. I knew she never had a part in it, but you made me lie. Get me a job in Philadelphia. My father and mother live there. I could live with them.” He thought a moment then shook his head. “No, everyone knows I’m from Philadelphia. They’ll just follow me up there.” He put his head in his hands. “God, I’m so scared I can’t think straight.”
“Do you have any place to go for just a month or so until I can find a good job for you?” Stanton spoke in soft, conspiratorial tones. “Customs office. They always have clerk openings up and down the coast. Even out West.” He leaned over the desk. “And the customs office pays a good wage. Maybe the money will make you braver.”
Weichmann looked up to see a cynical smile on Stanton’s thin lips. “My brother is a priest. He recently took a post in Anderson, Indiana, a small town in the middle of cornfields. No one would suspect me living there.”
Stanton leaned back. “Then go visit the virtuous Father Weichmann for a while. It will be good for your soul.”
And for his first week in Anderson, Weichmann indeed felt a burden lift from his shoulders. He made countless visits to the confessional where his brother leant a sympathetic ear. Most townspeople acted as though they did not even make the connection between their beloved padre Weichmann and the man in the nation’s capital who testified about a woman involved with the recent unpleasantness. Then on Sunday night of the second week, all that changed.
As he lay in bed in the spare room of the parsonage, Weichmann heard a voice from outside the open window.
“Run for your life!”
His eyes opened wide, and he looked around. It was a moonless night so he had trouble defining shadows in the inky blackness. A slight breeze blew the curtains. He rose from his bed and went to the window, pausing a moment before sticking his head out. Just as he studied the yard’s gloom, a rock struck the pane above his head. Shards of glass pricked the back of his neck.
“Run!” the disembodied voice repeated.
All reason escaped his mind as he rolled out of the window onto the ground, not remembering that all he wore were ill-fitting long johns. Another rock hit the small of his back.
“Run!”
Looking around him wildly, Weichmann could not decide which way to go. To the left was downtown Anderson, completely deserted by that hour of night. Straight ahead of him was the town’s livery stable, probably locked up. To the right were the countryside and a farmer’s full field of cornstalks. Another stone flew at him. This time it hit his arm, causing him to wince in pain.
“I said run!” The voice became angrier.
His lips trembling in fear, Weichmann ran toward the cornfield, hoping to find some measure of protection among the stalks. No matter how fast he ran, the voice seemed to stay close, now laughing maniacally. Taking an abrupt left into the cornfield, Weichmann hoped he had eluded his pursuer. He slowed to catch his breath. As soon as he did, he felt a body throwing itself against his back, knocking him to the ground.
A hand grabbed locks of his curly hair and repeatedly slammed his face into the loosened soil of the field. All he could do was wait to be strangled, to feel his neck snap from a twist administered by strong hands or to feel a knife plunge beneath his ribcage.
“You deserve to die,” the voice whispered into his ear. Many people deserve to die for what they did to Mrs. Surratt.”
Weichmann felt spittle on his cheek as the man spoke. The voice sounded familiar. If his wits had not left him, surely he could identify it. Its tone had a certain melodious quality. Shuddering as the name came to him, Weichmann could not believe that a dead man was back from the grave and lying on top of him hissing threats.
“I should kill you tonight, you craven, lily-livered coward. How should I accomplish the good deed? Perhaps I should twist your head until your neck snaps. Or push your face down into the ground, forcing you to inhale dirt until you choke to death. I have a knife. I could slit your throat from ear to ear. No, I think I shall save that execution for a person far more evil than you. I know. I could impale you on a spiked wooden pole, and let the good citizens of Anderson find you in the morning, hanging among the cornstalks like a human scarecrow.”
Weichmann began to cry. “Please, please, don’t kill me. They made me lie about Mrs. Surratt. They were going to hang me right then and there if I didn’t agree to lie.”
“Who were they?” the voice demanded.
“Stanton. Secretary Stanton.”
“I’m not surprised.” The man lessened the pressure on Weichmann’s back, allowing him to breathe more easily. “I don’t think I’ll kill you now after all. Watch the newspapers for mysterious deaths of some famous people. Do you know who James Lane and Preston King are?” He slapped the back of Weichmann’s head. “Answer me!”
“Uh, uh, they’re congressmen, aren’t they?” he mumbled.
“Something like that. But now they are nothing at all. They are dead. So will Lafayette Baker be dead.”
“Him? He scares me. He’s mean.”
“Well, you won’t have to be scared of him very much longer. He’s going to die eventually.” He paused to lean down to Weichmann’s ear again. “And Edwin Stanton.”
“Good.” His voice was small and scared. “I hate him too.”
“Don’t think you have nothing to worry about. I have merely postponed your execution. One day, perhaps when you are an old man and no one really cares whether you live or die, I will return to put you out of your misery. Or maybe not.” He slapped Weichmann in the head again. “Can you count to one hundred?” He paused, but there was no response. “Can you count to a hundred?”
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
“Do it. Then you may go back to your bed. Pleasant dreams.”
Weichmann did not want to take any chances so he counted slowly—very slowly—to two hundred. When he finished, he carefully stood to look around the cornfield. Gingerly he stepped into the narrow lane leading into Anderson. No one was there.