The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt

by David Miller DeWitt

While the impeachers were in the very act of pursuing the President as an accomplice in the murder of Abraham Lincoln, while the mighty Bingham, who had so eloquently defended President Johnson before the Military Commission against the charge of usurpation of power, and so bitterly denounced Jefferson Davis for alluding to Johnson as “The Beast,” now, with a complete change of tune, was clamoring for the impeachment of “his beloved Commander-in-Chief;”—Jefferson Davis, himself, is brought, by direction of the Secretary of War, in obedience to a writ of habeas corpus, before the United States Court at Richmond; there, without a word of remonstrance, transferred to the custody of the civil authority; and forthwith discharged on bail, Horace Greeley, who had never seen him before, becoming one of his bondsmen. Since that day in May, 1867, no attempt has ever been made to call the ex-President of the Southern Confederacy to account as one of the conspirators in the murder of Lincoln. Clay had been let go on parole as long before as April 19th, 1866; his property was restored to him in February, 1867; and proceedings under an indictment found against him for treason and conspiracy, indefinitely suspended on the 26th of March of the same year. Thompson and Sanders and Tucker returned to their country and appeared unmolested amongst us. Jefferson Davis died recently full of years and honors. At the death of Thompson, the flags of the Interior Department were lowered half-mast. Tucker was appointed to office not long ago by President Harrison. And all this, notwithstanding the Judge-Advocate had assured the Military Commission that the guilt of these men was as clear as the guilt of Booth or of Surratt, notwithstanding the Military Commission under his guidance so found, and, had these men been present before that tribunal, would doubtless have hung them on the same scaffold with Mrs. Surratt.

It was during this same investigation, that the diary of Booth, which had been so carefully concealed by the War Department and the Bureau of Military Justice from the Military Commission, was unearthed. Its publication produced a profound sensation, as it made clear the reality of a plan to capture the President; a plan, which had been blasted by the collapse of the Rebellion and, only at the last moment and without consultation, arbitrarily superseded by a hurried resolution to kill. When produced by Judge Holt before the committee, its mutilated condition gave rise to a terrible suspicion. Holt, himself, and Stanton were confident the book was in the same condition as when they first saw it. Colonel Conger, also, though not positive, thought it was unchanged since he took it from the dead body of Booth. But, to the great wonder of everybody, the distinguished detective, General Baker, testified, and stuck to it with emphasis when recalled, that, when he first examined the diary before it was lodged with the Secretary of War, there were no leaves missing and no stubs, although the diary, as exhibited to the committee, showed by means of the stubs remaining that sixteen or twenty leaves had been cut or torn out. The disclosures made by the production of the diary, together with the fact of its suppression, stirred the soul of General Butler; and, in this way, it came about that the ghost of Mrs. Surratt stalked one day into the House of Representatives. Judge Bingham, in his rollicking way, was upbraiding General Butler for having voted for Jefferson Davis fifty times as his candidate for President, and slurring his war record by calling him “the hero of Fort Fisher;” when, suddenly, at the petrific retort of his adversary that “the only victim of the gentleman’s prowess was an innocent woman hung upon the scaffold!” the spectre stood before him, forcing, as from “white lips and chattering teeth,” the exclamation of Macbeth: “Thou canst not say I did it!”

“Look to the true and brave and honorable men who found the facts upon their oaths and pronounced the judgment!” he retorted, clutching at the self-soothing sophistry of the murderer of Banquo, ignoring the fact that he himself was a part of the tribunal and virtually dictated the judgment.

Another discovery was made by the Judiciary Committee in the “Article” which, as recorded in his diary, Booth had left behind him for publication in the National Intelligencer. John Matthews, a fellow actor and an intimate friend of the assassin, testified that on the afternoon of the 14th of April Booth had met him in the street and left with him a letter directed to that newspaper, to be delivered in the morning. The witness was on the stage of the theatre that night at the time the fatal shot was fired, and, in the confusion that followed, he called to mind the communication. Hurrying to his lodgings he opened the envelope, read the letter, and, fearing to be compromised by the possession of such a document, burnt it up. The substance of the letter, as near as Matthews could recollect, was that for a long time he (Booth) had devoted his money, time and energies to the accomplishment of an end, but had been baffled. “The moment has at length arrived when my plans must be changed. The world may censure me for what I do; but I am sure that posterity will justify me.” And the communication was signed (all the names being in the hand-writing of Booth): “Men who love their country better than gold or life. J. W. Booth, —— Payne, —— Atzerodt, —— Herold.”

The significance of this piece of testimony was negative. The name of Surratt was not there.

One suggestive circumstance was called out in the testimony of Secretary Seward and General Eckert. It appeared that Payne before his trial had talked with General Eckert about his motives and movements in the assault upon the disabled Secretary of State, the particulars of which conversation Eckert had related to Seward, after the recovery of the latter from his wound, and had promised to reduce to writing. Among other things, Payne had said that he and Booth were in the grounds in front of the White House on the night of Tuesday, the 11th of April, when Abraham Lincoln made his speech of congratulation on the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee; and that on that occasion Booth tried to persuade him to shoot the President as he stood in the window, but that he would take no such risk; and that Booth, turning away, remarked: “That is the last speech he will ever make.”

Such an incident is consistent only with the theory that the assassination plot was concocted at the last moment as a forlorn hope, and that, if there had been any conspiracy, it was a conspiracy to capture. It is easy to see why the Bureau of Military Justice suppressed this testimony also, because, although it bears hard upon Payne himself, and Herold, and possibly John Surratt, it renders it highly improbable that Mrs. Surratt was aware of any design to kill.

Even such a fragmentary review, as the foregoing, of the public history of the two years succeeding the execution—which any reader may complete, as well as test, for himself by referring to the Congressional Globe of that period, to the printed reports of the Committee, and to the leading newspapers of the day—is sufficient to indicate how the general tendency of events, and every event in its place, appear to have conspired to the accomplishment of one result,—the setting aside, in the public mind, of the verdict of the Military Commission in the case of Mrs. Surratt.

This was not done by a direct assault upon that tribunal, or upon its mode of procedure; not even upon the character of the witnesses against the particular culprit, nor upon the weakness of the case made against her. These points of attack were all passed by, and the verdict was taken on the flank.

The condemnation of the woman was subverted by the wind, so to speak, of passing events.