As
the organizer of internal security, Edwin
M. Stanton was blamed for the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln on 14th April 1865. Stanton immediately summoned Lafayette
Baker, head of the National Detective Police (NDP) to Washington
with the telegraphic appeal: "Come here immediately and see if
you can find the murderer of the President." Baker arrived on
16th April and his first act was to send his agents into Maryland
to pick up what information they could about the people involved in
the assassination.
Within two days Baker had arrested Mary
Surratt, Lewis Paine, George
Atzerodt and Edman Spangler. He
also had the names of the fellow conspirators, John
Wilkes Booth and David Herold. When
Baker's agents discovered had crossed the Potomac near Mathias Point
on 22nd April, he sent Lieutenant Edward P. Doherty and twenty-five
men from the Sixteenth New York Cavalry to capture them.
On 26th April, Doherty and his men caught up with John
Wilkes Booth and David Herold on
a farm owned by Richard Garrett. Doherty ordered the men to surrender.
Herold came out of the barn but Booth refused and so the barn was
set on fire. While this was happening one of the soldiers, Sergeant
Boston Corbett, found a large crack
in the barn and was able to shoot Booth in the back. His body was
dragged from the barn and after being searched the soldiers recovered
his leather bound diary. The bullet had punctured his spinal cord
and he died in great agony two hours later. Booth's diary was handed
to Lafayette Baker who later passed
it onto Edwin M. Stanton. Baker was
rewarded for his success by being promoted to brigadier general and
receiving a substantial portion of the $100,000 reward.
On 1st May, 1865, President Andrew Johnson
ordered the formation of a nine-man military commission to try the
conspirators involved in the assassination of President Abraham
Lincoln. It was argued by Edwin M. Stanton,
the Secretary of War, that the men should be tried by a military court
as Lincoln had been Commander in Chief of the army. Several members
of the cabinet, including Gideon Welles
(Secretary of the Navy), Edward Bates
(Attorney General), Orville H. Browning
(Secretary of the Interior), and Henry
McCulloch (Secretaery of the Treasury), disapproved, preferring
a civil trial. However, James Speed,
the Attorney General, and Joseph Holt,
the Advocate General of the Army, agreed with Stanton and therefore
the defendants did not enjoy the advantages of a jury trial.
The trial began on 10th May, 1865. The military commission included
leading generals such as David Hunter,
Lewis Wallace, Robert
Foster, August Kautz, Thomas
Harris and Albion Howe. The Attorney
General, James Speed, selected Joseph
Holt and John Bingham as the government's
chief prosecutors.
Mary Surratt, Lewis Paine, George
Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel
Mudd, Michael O'Laughlin, Edman
Spangler and Samuel Arnold were
all charged with conspiring to murder Lincoln. During the trial Joseph
Holt and John Bingham attempted
to persuade the military commission that Jefferson
Davis and the Confederate government had been involved in conspiracy.
Joseph Holt attempted to obscure the fact
that there were two plots: the first to kidnap and the second to assassinate.
It was important for the prosecution not to reveal the existence of
a diary taken from the body of John Wilkes
Booth. The diary made it clear that the assassination plan dated
from 14th April. The defence surprisingly did not call for Booth's
diary to be produced in court.
On 29th June, 1865 Mary Surratt, Lewis
Paine, George Atzerodt, David
Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael
O'Laughlin, Edman Spangler and
Samuel Arnold were found guilty of being
involved in the conspiracy to murder Abraham
Lincoln. Surratt, Paine, Atzerodt and Herold were hanged at Washington
Penitentiary on 7th July, 1865. Surratt, who was expected to be reprieved,
was the first woman in American history to be executed.
The decision to hold a military court received further criticism when
John Surratt, who faced a civil trial
in 1867, was not convicted by the jury. Michael
O'Laughlin died in prison but Samuel Mudd,
Edman Spangler and Samuel
Arnold were all pardoned by President Andrew
Johnson in 1869.
(1)
The
correspondent of the New York World,
was highly critical of the military commission that tried Mary
Surratt, Lewis Paine, George
Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel
Mudd, Michael O'Laughlin, Edman
Spangler and Samuel Arnold
(26th May, 1865)
The
commission has collectively an imposing appearance: the face of Judge
Holt is swarthy; he questions with slow utterance, holding the witness
in his cold, measuring eye. Hunter, who sits at the opposite end of
the table, shuts his eyes now and then, either to sleep or to think,
or both, and the other generals watch for the occasions to distinguish
themselves.
Excepting Judge Holt, the court has shown as little ability as could
be expected from soldiers, placed in unenviable publicity, and upon
a duty for which they are disqualified, both by education and acumen.
Witness the lack of dignity in Hunter, who opened the court by a course
allusion to "humbug chivalry", of Lewis Wallace, whose heat
and intolerance were appropriately urged in the most exceptional English;
of Howe, whose tirade against the rebel General Johnson was feeble
as it was ungenerous! This court was needed to show us at least the
petty tyranny of martial law and the pettiness of martial jurists.
The counsel for the defense have just enough show to make the unfairness
of the trial partake of hypocrisy.
(2)
General David Hunter and the Military
Commission that tried the Lincoln conspirators sent a message to President
Andrew
Johnson
about the case of Mary Surratt (29th June, 1865)
The
undersigned members of the Military Commission detailed to try Mary
E. Surratt and others for the conspiracy and the murder of Abraham
Lincoln, late President of the United States, do respectively pray
the President, in consideration of the sex and age of the said Mary
E. Surratt, if he can upon all the facts in the case, find it consistent
with his sense of duty to the country to commute the sentence of death
to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life.
(3)
General
Thomas
Harris, letter to the
The New York Sun (4th August, 1901)
It
must be remembered that on the night of 17th April Payne returned
to her house, with pick-axe on the shoulder and cap made from his
shirt sleeve on his head.
The very act of this red-handed murderer fleeing to her home at such
a time, was in itself, the strongest and most damning evidence against
her.
Take away these two items of evidence - the terrible story of the
shooting irons and Payne's return, wipe them out, remove them for
the record, and Mr. Weichmann's evidence as to what he saw and heard
in Mrs. Surratt's house falls harmlessly to the ground.
(4)
The
New York Sun (21st December, 1892)
Although
Lloyd's testimony was most damaging against Mrs. Surratt, and probably
condemned her, he himself never believed in Mrs. Surratt's guilt,
and said she was a victim of circumstances. Her association with the
real conspirators, he always held, was the cause of her conviction.
(5)
Captain Christian Rath, was placed in charge of the execution of Mary
Surratt, Lewis Powell, George
Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael
O'Laughlin, Edman
Spangler and Samuel Arnold.
He was later interviewed about his role in the event.
I
was determined to get rope that would not break, for you know when
a rope breaks at a hanging there is a time-worn maxim that the person
intended to be hanged was innocent. The night before the execution
I took the rope to my room and there made the nooses. I preserved
the piece of rope intended for Mrs. Surratt for the last.
I had the graves for the four persons dug just beyond the scaffolding.
I found some difficulty in having the work done, as the arsenal attaches
were superstitious. I finally succeeded in getting soldiers to dig
the holes but they were only three feet deep.
The hanging gave me a lot of trouble. I had read somewhere that when
a person was hanged his tongue would protrude from his mouth. I did
not want to see four tongues sticking out before me, so I went to
the storehouse, got a new white shelter tent and made four hoods out
of it. I tore strips of the tent to bind the legs of the victims.
(6)
William Coxshall, a member of the Veteran Reserve Corps, was assigned
the task of dropping the trapdoor on the left side of the gallows.
The
prison door opened and the condemned came in. Mrs. Surratt was first,
near fainting after a look at the gallows. She would have fallen had
they not supported her. Herold was next. The young man was frightened
to death. He trembled and shook and seemed on the verge of fainting.
Atzerodt shuffled along in carpet slippers, a long white nightcap
on his head. Under different circumstances, he would have been ridiculous.
With the exception of Powell, all were on the verge of collapse. They
had to pass the open graves to reach the gallows steps and could gaze
down into the shallow holes and even touch the crude pine boxes that
were to receive them. Powell was as stolid as if he were a spectator
instead of a principal. Herold wore a black hat until he reached the
gallows. Powell was bareheaded, but he reached out and took a straw
hat off the head of an officer. He wore it until they put the black
bag on him. The condemned were led to the chairs and Captain Rath
seated them. Mrs. Surratt and Powell were on our drop, Herold and
Atzerodt on the other.
Umbrellas were raised above the woman and Hartranft, who read the
warrants and findings. Then the clergy took over talking what seemed
to me interminably. The strain was getting worse. I became nauseated,
what with the heat and the waiting, and taking hold of the supporting
post, I hung on and vomited. I felt a little better after that, but
not too good.
Powell stood forward at the very front of the droop. Mrs. Surratt
was barely past the break, as were the other two. Rath came down the
steps and gave the signal. Mrs. Surratt shot down and I believed died
instantly. Powell was a strong brute and died hard. It was enough
to see these two without looking at the others, but they told us both
died quickly.
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