The Hanging of Mary Surratt Part 1 of 2

“We can never entrust our governments with the right to think they have the wisdom to be able to decide who should die.” ~Sister Helen Prejean,

Despite unwaveringly declaring her innocence along with the support of several priests, Mary Surratt was sentenced to death. Public Domain

On Providence

“The truth is this: The march of Providence is so slow and our desire so impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.”

~Robert E. Lee, a note found in his briefcase on his death.

On July 7, 1865, 42-year-old Mary Surratt, an attractive, dark-haired widow, was hanged on the gallows at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington along with three others convicted of complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by a military court. Mary Surratt was the only woman of the four. She was, in fact, the first woman ever executed by the government of the United States. The execution of Mary Surratt was not a triumph of justice. It was a disgraceful political atrocity that still stains the national conscience and mars the American ideal of justice.

Americans have a strong tendency to whitewash history. It is more pleasant for us to believe and easier to teach our children that all our great leaders have been virtuous, that all our causes have been noble, and that all our courts have been just. No nation can long endure without a strong sense of patriotism. But genuine patriotism, a love of one’s country and endures over many generations, is undermined when truth is mangled in the service propaganda or political ambitions. Truth and love are inseparable. Patriotism without truth is a monstrous imposter.

The Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial was marked by judicial despotism, perjury, bribery, and even intimidation and torture of witnesses and the defendants. The investigation, prosecution, trial, and sentences were all managed by the War Department under its ambitious Secretary, Edwin Stanton. Four of the eight defendants were hanged, and the others were sentenced to life imprisonment on an isolated island.

A principal objective of the conspiracy trial, conducted by nine high-ranking officers picked by Stanton, was the implication of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Lincoln's assassination. But Stanton, like many of his Radical Republican allies in Congress and government, was also motivated by a consuming hatred for the South. Furthermore, he hoped to be elected President of the United States in 1868. According to the diary of Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, and biographical statements by many other Union political and military leaders, Stanton was noted for his manipulative, and often treacherous, political dealings. He had often manipulated Lincoln and other cabinet members, and for a short time, he was very successful in persuading or manipulating President Andrew Johnson into supporting his schemes for vengeance on the South.

Mary Surratt, the devout Catholic mother of three children ranging in age from twenty to twenty-four and was the owner of a boarding house in Washington. She also owned her former residence, the Surratt House and now Tavern, and some farmland in the tiny community of Surrattsville (now Clinton), Maryland, southeast of Washington. But when her husband, John Surratt, Sr., died in 1862, she was able to unmanaged the facilities and rented them to John Lloyd, a Southern sympathizer with a problematic drinking habit. The Surratt’s were Southern sympathizers. They came from the strongly pro-southern agricultural area of southern Maryland, where in better times they had owned several one hundred acres of land and as many as twelve slaves. Her twenty-four-year-old son, Isaac, was a Sergeant in the 33rd Texas Calvary, and her twenty-year-old son, John, had become a Confederate courier. Both John and her attractive twenty-two-year-old daughter, Anna, lived at the boarding house in Washington. Although Mary Surratt was pro Southern, she was not very political. Especially by late 1864, she only wanted her two sons’ home and safe. For that reason, she was not comfortable with John's career trips and intrigues.

In December 1864, John ran into Doctor Samuel Mudd, who was visiting from southern Maryland. Doctor Mudd introduced him to John Wilkes Booth, one of America's most famous actors. John became good friends with the twenty-six-year-old actor and soon became involved in Booth’s plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln to force a prisoner of war exchange or even end the war. The Confederate government had considered such a plan in 1863 but rejected it. Jefferson Davis was strongly opposed to such intrigues on both practical and philosophical grounds.

The wealthy and charismatic Booth generally stayed at the most expensive hotels in Washington, but he became a frequent visitor to the Surratt boarding house, where he befriended both the Surratt’s and their twenty-year-old border, Louis J. Weichmann, a clerk at the Prisoner of War Commissariat. His planning and recruitment for his kidnapping plot were however, mostly done at hotels or taverns. Booth managed to recruit six men for his daring abduction plot.

Through his many contacts, Booth discovered that Lincoln sometimes travelled Washington at night with very little accompaniment. Hoping to take advantage of this, he focused his band of recruits on abducting Lincoln on one of his customary routes. On March 17, he had them lying in wait at the most opportune point to intercept and abduct the President. However, Lincoln failed to show up. As a result of this disappointment, several from the group began to be disillusioned with Booth. These included John Surratt and at least three of the conspiracy defendants: Michael O'Loughlin, Sam Arnold, and even George Atzerodt, who was executed along with Mary Surratt. Lee’s surrender on April 9 further discouraged continuation with Booth’s machinations.

Before that night, John Surratt had was amused that his sister, Anna, seemed a bit infatuated with Booth. Anna and Honora Fitzpatrick, a young border about the same age, had both purchased pictures of Booth. When her brother discovered hers, he told her to destroy it, but instead she hid it behind a picture that Weichmann had purchased for her. Later Anna admitted that she had been friendly with Booth, and she said that her brother told her that he thought Booth was crazy and should attend to his own business. In addition to questions about Booth’s reliability and good judgment, John Surratt was aware of the actor's reputation for having numerous romantic interests.

According to Booth’s diary, he did not decide to assassinate Lincoln before April 13, and did not know that Lincoln was coming to the Ford’s Theater until late in the afternoon on April 14, the day of the assassination. At 8:00 p.m. that night he met with Louis Powell (alias Paine), a strapping former member of Mosby’s Confederate Rangers, David Herold, and George Atzerodt had announced his plan to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Powell would assassinate the Secretary of State Seward, who was recovering at his home from a carriage accident, and Herold would assist with his getaway. Atzerodt would assassinate Vice President Johnson in his hotel, and Booth would shoot Lincoln at the Ford’s Theatre.

Powell made a savage but unsuccessful knife attack on Seward with no help from Herold, who fled the scene earlier, leaving Powell to escape on foot. Atzerodt Wandered around the town from bar to bar without any intentions of assassinating vice president Johnson. Booth, however, shot President Lincoln in the back of the head as he sat in his theatre box. Lincoln died at 7:15 the next morning. Unfortunately, Herold ran into the escaping Booth and persuaded him to assist him in escaping to Virginia.

Before the fall of Richmond in early April, John Surratt left Washington carrying important financial instructions to Confederate Commissioners in Montreal, Canada. From there he went to Elmira, New York, to investigate the possibility of recruiting Confederate POWs there. He never returned to Washington or knew until after the fact, that Booth had changed his plans from kidnapping Lincoln to assassinating him. When he heard of the assassination, he fled to Canada and then to Europe.

Once on an early visit to the Surratt home, Louis Powell had inadvertently blurted out something about the abduction plot. John Surratt firmly berated him, saying that neither his mother nor his sister knew anything about such plans, and emphatically stressed that he did not want them to know anything. Louis Powell later proclaimed to the military court, his religious and legal counselors, and to his executioners that Mary Surratt was completely innocent of the charges against her or any wrongdoing. No one in the War Department or political chain of authority would listen, and every effort was made to isolate and silence the accused conspirators.

The government’s case against Mary Surratt was weak and circumstantial, but for some reason they made every effort not to only convict her of complicity in the assassination of Lincoln, but also to make sure she received the death penalty. To make their case, they bribed, threatened, and even tortured witnesses and defendants. They suppressed critical evidence and used completely unrelated emotional issues, such as “starving union prisoners of war,” to inflame the military court and the public against the defendants. There is substantial evidence that Secretary of War Stanton, Army Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, and several of Stanton and Holt’s associates deliberately deceived President Andrew Johnson in respect to a clemency plea for Mary Surratt, which had been urged by the majority of the officers on the military court.

The Surratt Tavern and Inn at Surrattsville was both a polling place and a post office. John Surratt Sr. had been first postmaster there. During the war, it became a stopping place for Confederate and even Union agents and couriers travelling between Washington and Richmond. Naturally, it was an ideal first stopping place in Booth’s plan to abduct Lincoln. Two days before the aborted abduction attempt on March 20, John Surratt Jr., David Herold, and George Atzerodt visited there and deposited two carbines with the proprietor, John Lloyd. Floyd was a confederate sympathizer and occasional agent and Courier when sober.

Much of the Military Commission’s case against Mary Surratt revolved around her trips to Surrattsville on April 11 and April 14, the date of Lincoln’s assassination. On April 11, Mary Surratt, pressured by George Calvert, a creditor from southern Maryland, who held a $1,000 note on the Surrattsville properties, asked her favorite border, Louis Weichmann, to accompany her in a buggy to Surrattsville to collect $479 owed to her by John Nothey. On the way there, they happened to meet her Surrattsville tenant, John Lloyd, who was accompanied in his buggy by his sister-in-law, Emma Offutt. Mary spoke to them briefly about a mutual friend, Gus Howell, a former Confederate courier, who had recently been arrested. She said she was going to encourage him to sign the Loyalty Oath, so he could be released. Later, Lloyd would testify (under duress) that Mary had told him to “get the shootin’ irons ready.” While in Surrattsville, Captain Bennett Gwynn, acting on Mary's behalf, spoke privately to Nothey about the debt, but they were unable to come to an agreement. Mary and Weichmann then returned to Washington.

On the morning of April 14, the day of Lincoln’s assassination, Mary received an insistent letter from George Calvert stating that he had seen Nothey, who was now willing to settle his debt with Mary. That afternoon, Secretary Stanton had given War Department employees the afternoon off to celebrate Good Friday. When Weichmann returned home, Mary asked him to take her to Surrattsville again to see John Nothey. Mary suggested that perhaps they could borrow Booth’s buggy, but Booth had sold the buggy and gave Weichmann some money to rent one. Just prior to Weichmann's turn with the buggy, Booth showed up and asked if she would deliver a package to John Lloyd. She agreed to carry the small package, which contained a field glass, and immediately left with Weichmann for Surrattsville. On arriving in Surrattsville at about 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon, they found neither Lloyd, Captain Gwynn, nor Nothey there. Having extremely poor eyesight, Mary asked Weichmann to write a letter to Nothey, threatening to sue him within ten days if he did not pay his debt. She signed it and dated it on April 14, 1865.

At that time, Mrs. Offutt arrived, and Mary gave her the package from Booth. In a few moments Captain Gwynn arrived, she gave him the letter Weichmann had written for her, asking him to deliver and read it to Nothey. Because their buggy needed repairs, Mary and Weichmann were delayed from leaving. Just before they left, Lloyd also returned. According to Mrs. Offutt’s later testimony, “he was very much in liquor, more so than I have ever seen him in my life.” Lloyd had brought oysters and fish back with him from Marlboro and invited Mary and Weichmann to stay for dinner, but they declined and started for Washington in drizzling rain.

They arrived at the boarding house by 7:45 p.m. to find Mary's daughter, Anna, and two of the young women renters sitting at the dining room table. By 10:00 p.m. everyone but Mary was in bed. Shortly afterwards, she heard loud voices outside. Opening a window, Mary heard a soldier shout that the President had just been shot. At about 2:30 a.m., a persistent ringing of the doorbell introduced a team of detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department demanding to search the house. They told Weichmann that John Booth had shot the President at Ford's Theater. They were seeking John Surratt.

The next morning Lou Weichmann and border, John Holohan went to the Metropolitan Police Department, where Superintendent Richards immediately placed Weichmann under arrest. Thereafter, Weichmann took two detectives to see John Lloyd in Surrattsville. When asked if he had seen Booth, Lloyd lied and said that he had not. Holohan returned to the boarding house the next day, but Weichmann remained in custody.

On Monday evening, three detectives from the War Department arrived to place Mary Surratt and everyone else in the house under arrest and took them to the headquarters of the Washington area Commander, General Augur, for examination. Before they could leave, an untimely visitor arrived. It was the fugitive, Louis Powell. He was very dirty, wearing a long coat and a skull cap, carrying a pick, and asking for Mrs. Surratt. He made the lame excuse that he had come to seek instructions for digging a gutter for her the next day. Mary raised her right hand and said, “Before God, Sir, I do not know this man, and I have not seen him before, and I did not hire him to come and dig a gutter for me.” Mary's eyesight was poor, especially in artificial light, and she was already quite upset, but several others there who knew Powell did not recognize him either. Much would be made of this at the trial of Mary’s denying she had ever seen Powell.

At General Augur’s office, Powell was immediately identified as the man who attacked Secretary Seward. After being questioned by authorities, Mary, Anna, and the other two young women were taken to the infamous Old Capitol Prison. During her two weeks stay there, Mary Surratt gained a reputation for compassionate nursing and consoling the sick and downhearted prisoners. Anna and the other two young women were soon released after their imprisonment.

John Wilkes Booth was killed in Virginia on April 26 after a twelve-day manhunt. His reluctant fellow conspirator and fugitive companion, David Herold, surrendered.

By May 1, Mary Surratt and the other alleged conspirators were incarcerated in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary. John Surratt would be at large in Europe for another two years. For all alleged conspirators except Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd, Edwin Stanton invented a new torture. While in their cells, they not only shackled, but they were forced to wear canvas hoods lined with cotton padding about one inch thick. Only a small opening at the mouth was left open for feeding, and that was sometimes difficult. Some say that Stanton’s purpose was to keep them from committing suicide, but his own statements indicated that it was to keep them from communicating among themselves or with others. Several prison doctors noted that the hoods and isolation could put men’s sanity at risk. Weichmann, who was to be a star witness for the prosecution, was in and out of custody.

It is not a mystery how the Metropolitan detectives came to call on Mary Surratt immediately after the Assassination. About a month before, Weichmann, who was putatively John Surratt’s best friend and had come to know Booth and to know Atzerodt well, had shared his suspicions about a kidnapping plot with his War Department supervisor. What is a mystery is why the War Department failed to take immediate action. Perhaps they hoped to catch bigger Confederate fish by waiting? Another mystery is why Stanton advised Grant not to go to the theater the night of the assassination but did nothing to increase the President’s protection. Grant had his own reasons for not wanting to go. Mary Todd Lincoln was sometimes subject to violent outbursts of jealous temper, which had embarrassed Mrs. Grant in the past. Still, generals do not often reject invitations by Presidents.

References and additional reading about Lincoln’s Assassination and Mary Surratt will be included at the end of part 2, The Hanging of Mary Surratt.