“Q.—Do you remember any occasion—some dinner occasion?
“A.—I can tell you this: I heard a citizen make the remark once, that he would give from his private purse $10,000, in addition to the Confederate amount, to have the President assassinated; to bring him to Richmond dead or alive, for proof.
“Q.—I understood you to say that it was a subject of general conversation among the rebel officers?
“A.—It was. The rebel officers, as they would be sitting around their tent doors, would be conversing on such a subject a great deal. They would be saying they would like to see his head brought there, dead or alive, and they should think it could be done; and I have heard such things stated as that they had certain persons undertaking it.”
In the introduction of evidence against Mrs. Surratt, as well as the others on trial, the Judge-Advocates allowed themselves the most unlimited range.
Narrations of all sorts of events connected with the progress of the War—historical, problematical or fabulous—having no relevancy to the particular charge against her, or them, but deadly in their tendency to steel the minds of the Court against her, were admitted without scruple or hesitation.
Seven soldiers who had been prisoners of war at Libby Prison, Belle Island or Andersonville were called and testified, in all its ghastly details, to the terrible treatment they and their fellow-prisoners had undergone. Three witnesses were sworn to prove that the rebel government buried a torpedo under the centre of Libby Prison, to be fired if the U. S. troops entered Richmond. Letters found in the Richmond Archives were read, offering to rid the world of the Confederacy’s deadliest enemies, and projecting wholesale destruction to property in the North. Testimony was allowed to be given of the burning of U. S. transports and bridges by men in the Confederate service; of the raids from Canada into the United States; of the alleged plot in all its horrible features to introduce the yellow-fever into Northern cities by infected clothing, testified to by the villain who swore he did it for money. It is scarcely to be credited, yet it is a fact, that the confession of Robert Kennedy, hung in March previous for attempting to burn the City of New York, was read in evidence; as was also a letter from a Confederate soldier, detailing the blowing up of vessels by a torpedo and the killing of Union men at City Point, indorsed by a recommendation of the operator to favor.
On June 27th, after the testimony had been closed and the summing up of counsel for the defense ended, the case was reopened and there was introduced an advertisement clipped from the “Selma Dispatch” of December 1st, 1864, wherein some anonymous lunatic offered, if furnished $1,000,000, to cause the lives of Lincoln, Seward and Johnson to be taken before the first of March.
The prosecution closed its direct testimony on May 25th, reserving the right (of which we have seen they availed themselves from time to time) thereafter to call further witnesses on the character of the Rebellion and the complicity of its leaders in the assassination.
Out of about one hundred and fifty witnesses sixty-six gave testimony of that kind. Of the remaining eighty-four about fifty testified to the circumstances attending the assassination, the pursuit and capture of Booth and Herold, and the terrific assault of Payne on William H. Seward and his household. Of the remaining thirty-four there were nine whose testimony was directed to the incrimination of Mrs. Surratt.