The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt

by David Miller DeWitt

In a word, the judgment of the prosecuting officer—the retained counsel for the Government, the plaintiff in the action—ruled with absolute sway, both on the law and on the facts, the judgment of the Commission; the members of which, for that matter, were also in the pay of the Government.

It may, therefore, be readily anticipated with how little impartiality the trial was conducted.

Mrs. Surratt (as did the rest of the accused) plead to the jurisdiction of the Commission on the grounds (1) that she was not and had not been in the military service of the United States, and (2) that when the crimes charged were committed the civil courts were open in Washington; both of which allegations were admitted and were notoriously true. Whatever might be the indifference with which the rights of the men to a constitutional trial may have been viewed, it was so utterly incongruous with the spirit of military jurisprudence and so unprecedented in practice to try a woman by court-martial, that had Mrs. Surratt been alone before that Commission we venture to say those nine soldiers could not have brought themselves, or allowed the Judge-Advocate to bring them, to the overruling of her plea. As it was, however, the court-room was cleared of all save the members of the Commission and the three Judge-Advocates; and after a season of what is called “deliberation” (which meant the further enforcement of the opinion of the prosecuting officers upon the point under discussion, where necessary), the court reopened and “the Judge-Advocate announced that the pleas * * * had been overruled by the Commission.”

Mrs. Surratt (as did the other prisoners) then asked for a separate trial; a right guaranteed to her in all the civil courts of the vicinage. It was denied to her, without discussion, as a matter of course.

And yet no one now can fail to recognize the grievous disadvantage under which this one woman labored, coupled in a single trial with such culprits as Payne who confessed his guilt, and Herold who was captured with Booth.

In fact, the scheme of trial contrived by the Judge-Advocates on a scale comprehensive enough to embrace the prisoners, the Canadian exiles and the Confederate Cabinet, would not work on a trial of Mrs. Surratt alone. Of this pet plan they were highly proud and greatly enamoured. To it, everything—the rights of woman as well as man; considerations of equity and of common fairness—must be made to give way.

To the maintenance of this scheme in its integrity, they had marshalled the witnesses, and they guided the Commission with a firm hand so that not a jot or tittle of its symmetry should be marred.

This determined purpose is indicated by the starting-point they chose for the testimony.

On Friday, the twelfth, the first witness was sworn, and his name was Richard Montgomery. His testimony, as well as that of the other witnesses sworn that day, was taken in secret session, and no portion of it was allowed to reach the public until long after the trial. It was all directed to establish the complicity of the rebel agents in Canada and through them the complicity of Jefferson Davis and other officers of the “Confederacy” in the assassination. In other words, this testimony was given to prove the guilt, not of the men much less of the woman on trial, but of the men included in the charge but not on trial; and whom, as it now appears, the United States never intended to try.

To connect the defunct Confederacy in the person of its captive Chief with the murder of the President would throw a halo of romantic wickedness about the crime, and chime in with the prevalent hatred towards every human being in any way connected with the Rebellion.