Daily Richmond Whig. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1865-1869, 1865-05-22

overcoming the difficulty heretofore expert
1Oth February, 1868. Received February
IL, 1865.
The handwriting of Davis was identified
and proved by witnesses from the War De-
partment who were familiar with it.
The Baltimore american of Saturday says:
Yesterday a large number of witnesses
were again examined in the trial of the con-
spirators. A letter written in the cipher
used by the late confederate States" was
identified by Colonel ]. II. Taylor rs having
been found in Booths trunk. q. III. Rosch
testified TO finding.a coil of rope eighty
feet long in carpet sack belonging TO Span
gler when he was arrested at his residence.
W. Wallace detailed the circumstances OF
ULaughlin's arrest in this city stating that
he confessed he had endeayOred TO elude the
officers by changing his boarding house
James Clifford, the stage carpenter oil ford
Theatre, described the bar which was found
across the private bOx on the night oil the
assassination, placed there by Booth to pre-
vent pursuit he thought the hole IN the wall
which kept the bar in its place had been
made with pocket knife, and he did not
know how the lock on the door of the Pres
ident's box had become loose. MAJOR Sew
ard. Sergeant +. Robinson, W. Ii. Welles
and others testified AZ to the circumstances
attending the attempted assassination Of Sec
retary Seward, by Payne, aud Colonel Nor
gan gave the particulars of his subsequent
arrest at the house of Mrs. Surratt.
The Washington correspondent of the
Boston Advertiser says:
Probably all readers of the evidence have
been somewhat puzzled by the testimony OF
the important witness Weichman, and have
wondered how a clerk in the War Depart
mept could see so much at the Surratt'S,
and not suspect more, and how he could
leave his office for such frequent dives into
the country with his landlady. | understand
that this gentleman had his suspicious
aroused by the secret conferences at Mrs.
Surratt's many months ago, and Inferred
from what he knew Of the family that
grand misunderstanding scheme and tobacco
speculation was in progress. be immediate
" reported what he had seen and what he
suspected to the Secretary of War, who
commended his vigilance and directed him
TO continue boarding with the SurrattS, TO
observe all he could, and to report any deli
mite results.
Weichman's business was so arranged that
he was not held to account for his frequent
absences in this secret service. There was
for weeks Government spy stationed IN the
very heart of the great conspiracy, OF the
real object of which he was nevertheless ig-
norant until the terrible elimination Of the
plot. Weichman's familiar intimacy with
the Surratt family caused suspicion to fall on
him soon after the murder, and he was even
arrested and put in irons at his desk in the
War Department, but soon after released by
orders from Secretary Stanton and sent with
the detectives to Canada as decoy to aid in
the capture of Surratt. This story furnishes
the only plausible explanation Of the mys-
terry about Weichman's relations with the
Surratts, and the War Department is prob
ably su bstantially correct, although Judge
Holt did not deem it best to bring out the
facts in the court room.