THE HANGING OF MARY SURRATT

THE HANGING OF MARY SURRATT

Part 2 of 4

Mike Scruggs

For The Tribune Papers

The Surratt tavern and inn at Surrattsville was both a polling place and post office. John Surratt, Sr. had been the first postmaster there. During the war it became a stopping place for Confederate and even Union agents and couriers traveling 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. Lloyd 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 $1000 note on the Surrattsville properties, asked her favorite boarder, Lou 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, accompanied in his buggy by his sister-in-law, Emma Offutt. Mary spoke to them very 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 and 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. Booth had sold the buggy, however, and had given Weichmann some money to rent one. Just prior to Weichmann’s return 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 about 4:00 PM in the afternoon, they found neither Lloyd, Captain Gwynn, nor Nothey there. Having very 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 and dated it April 14, 1865.

At that time, Mrs. Offutt arrived, and Mary gave her the package from Booth. In a few moments Captain Gwynn arrived, and 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 a drizzling rain.

They arrived at the boardinghouse by 7:45 PM to find Mary’s daughter, Anna, and two of the young women renters sitting at the dining room table. By 10:00 PM all but Mary were in bed. Shortly afterwards, she heard loud voices outside. Opening a window, Mary heard a soldier shout that the President had just been shot. About 2:30 AM, 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 Wilkes Booth had shot the President at Ford’s Theatre. They were seeking John Surratt.

The next morning Lou Weichmann and boarder John Holohan went to the Metropolitan Police Station, where Superintendent Richards immediately placed Weichmann under arrest. Thereafter Weichmann took two detectives to see John Lloyd in Surrattsville. Asked if he had seen Booth, Lloyd lied and said that he had not. Holohan returned to the boardinghouse 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 take 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, Lewis 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 at the trial over Mary’s denying she had ever seen Powell.

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

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 accused conspirators were imprisoned in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary. John Surratt would be at large in Europe for another two years. For all the alleged conspirators except Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd, Edwin Stanton had invented a new torture. While in their cells, they were not only shackled, but forced to wear canvass hoods lined with cotton padding about one inch thick. Only a small opening at the mouth was left 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 for keeping them from communicating among themselves or with others. Several prison doctors noted that the hoods and isolation 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 subject to violent bursts of jealous temper, which had embarrassed Mrs. Grant in the past. Still, generals do not often reject invitations by Presidents.

On May 1, 1865, President Andrew Johnson--with the encouragement of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and other members of the Radical Republican clique--announced that the Lincoln assassination conspirators would be tried by a military commission. There was an immediate outcry from a minority in Congress and the Administration over this unconstitutional order. The Constitution does not permit military courts to try civilians, when civilian courts are in operation. The rules of evidence are much less rigorous in a military court. The rights of the accused are much abbreviated, and the court is a law unto itself with no appeal of its rulings except to the President of the United States. The protests of shocked Congressmen, former Attorney General Edward Bates, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, and countless attorneys were ignored, and on May 9, the Military Commission met for the first time.

Secretary Stanton appointed Major General David Hunter as President of the Court and Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt to act in a role that was somewhere between judge and prosecutor, most frequently the latter. But Stanton would take a keen day-to-day interest in the trial and an intense interest in its outcome. In the end, the cry for blood was louder than the cry for justice, and politics outweighed it all. More details next week.