Foreshadowing Spangler’s Fate

“[Edman Spangler] was the subject frequently of practical jokes by his companions behind the scenes, and in this connection an incident is mentioned that in the eyes of the superstitious might be deemed to have an ominous meaning.  During the winter of 1864-65, when some new scenery was being prepared, the scene painters were in the habit of displaying the names of different employees of the establishment upon the backs of the various slips.  Spangler remarked that his name had been neglected, when one of the painters, as a joke at his expense, hauled out a piece of scenery designed to figure in connection with a prison yard, and which bore a representation of a gallows.  Upon this scene he dashes with a few broad strokes of his brush the name of Edward Spangler.” – Boston Herald, May 17^th, 1865

Luckily for Edman Spangler, the bleak future foretold by a Ford’s Theatre scene painter did not come to fruition.  Rather than the gallows, Spangler received 6 years imprisonment, the lightest sentence of all the conspirators tried by the military commission.  He would serve a little over 3 1/2 years at Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas before being pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in February of 1869.