So what you're saying is there is absolutely no evidence of such a warrant other than Lamon's memoir. No documents. No witnesses to Lincoln giving the order. Nothing but Lamon's word.
It has some credence because Lamon was someone whom Lincoln would use for such a task. Lincoln had appointed him US Marshal for DC and he was around Lincoln all the time.
I guess my first question is what was Taney being charged with? Because I think the answer to that would determinewho would execute the arrest, civil marshals or army soldiers.
I had thought that the only source for the Taney arrest warrant was the Lamon manuscript, but author Charles Adams says that there are two other corroborating accounts.
One is found in the 1887 book ‘Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861: A Study of War’ by Baltimore mayor George Brown. Brown spoke with Taney after the Merryman decision and Taney said that he knew that his own imprisonment had been a subject of discussion but that the danger had passed.
The second source is a Supreme Court Justice, Benjamin Robbins Curtis, who served on the Taney Court but who bitterly disagreed with Taney’s Dred Scott decision to the point that Curtis resigned from the Court. However in his 1879 memoir he praised Taney for his brave stand on Merryman against “the rash minister of State” who nearly committed a great crime.
The previously mentioned Mayor Brown explained that the crime Curtis referred to was the intended imprisonment of Taney. The “minister of State” was Seward, who hated Taney, and Brown believed that Seward was the driving force urging Lincoln to arrest Taney.