White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

And for this brave boy with me, who often prays (yes, before and since) with a true and sincere heart, was it a crime in him, if so, why can he pray the same? I do not wish to shed a drop of blood but I must fight the course, ’tis all that’s left me.

As the Capital City was still under military rule, a military commission was appointed to meet at Washington, D. C., on May 8, 1865, for the trial of the conspirators and other persons implicated in the murder of the late President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Hon. William E. Seward, Secretary of State.

Throngs gathered about the Court (sitting then in the Penitentiary at the Arsenal) daily eager to view the spectacle of the prisoners, hooded and in irons. Mrs. Surratt was manacled like the men, according to the account given by Ben Perley Poore.

The Court finished its task on June 30, 1865, and a full report of its findings was ordered to be submitted to the President. On July 5th, the President approved the report and ordered the executions of Mrs. Surratt, David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt, and Lewis Payne to take place at once. On July 7th, these sentences were carried out. The others implicated, Samuel Arnold, Edward Spangler, Samuel Mudd, and Michael O’Laughlin, were sent to the military prison at Dry Tortugas.

In Mrs. Surratt’s case, every effort made by her daughter and her father confessor, as well as a group of prominent men and women who sought to intercede in her behalf, met with complete failure. Although the daughter knelt upon the White House steps for hours beseeching a hearing by the President, Mrs. Johnson, and even Mrs. Patterson, admission was denied to her and all others on the same mission.

The recommendation for clemency for Mrs. Surratt, making her sentence one of life imprisonment instead of execution, because of her age and sex, was signed by all members of the Court except General Lew Wallace, A. P. Howe, Colonel R. Clennin, and T. M. Harris. This paper was prepared, signed, and given to Judge Holt to be handed to the President with the findings of the Court.

President Johnson declared this petition never reached him, and the supposition is that it was either blocked or mislaid accidentally or intentionally in the War Department.

Great was the furore stirred up in legal circles over this trial, and dissenting opinion was freely expressed. Judge Andrew Wiley, of the District Supreme Court, known as one of the strongest characters on the bench, did not concur in the plans for a military trial for the conspirators. He arose early on the morning of the execution day to sign a writ of habeas corpus for the release of Mrs. Surratt. Judge Wiley, a devoted friend of Abraham Lincoln, having received his appointment to the bench from him, believed that the legality of Mrs. Surratt’s conviction by court martial should be determined by a civil court. He concurred in the effort to secure a stay of execution by signing the writ of habeas corpus, directing General Hancock to produce her in court. The writ was served, but General Hancock did not obey it. Judge Wiley’s scathing rebuke to the military authorities for thus ignoring and overriding the civil powers is one of the most notable in the annals of court history.

During the short period of the trial, from May 8th to June 30th, 403 witnesses were subpœnaed, 247 examined for the prosecution, 236 for the defense, 4,300 pages of legal copy testimony taken, with an additional 700 pages of arguments.

John Surratt, whose intimate association with Booth led to his mother’s being implicated, escaped to Canada and for two years evaded capture. Finally, he was apprehended, but owing to the odium that had followed the Military Commission, he had a civil court trial. This grew into such a bitter controversy over the execution of his mother that it became more of a trial of a former court than of himself, and through the failure of the jury to agree he was released.