Assassination of Lincoln: a History of the Great Conspiracy / Trial of the Conspirators by a Military Commission, and a Review of the Trial of John H. Surratt

by T. M. Harris

"About the time the military court that tried Mrs. Surratt concluded its labors, I was, if I remember aright, for some days the only person acting as private secretary at the White House, my associate being absent on a visit.

"On the Wednesday previous to the execution (which was on Friday, July 7, 1865), as I was sitting at my desk in the morning, Mr. Johnson told me that he was going to look over the findings of the Court with Judge Holt, and should be busy and could see no one. I replied, 'Very well, sir, I will see that you not interrupted,' or something to that effect, and continued my work. I think it was two or three hours after that that Mr. Johnson came out of the room where he had been with you, and said that the papers had been looked over and a decision reached. I asked what it was. He told me, approval of the findings and sentence of the Court; and he then gave me the sentences as near as he remembered them, and said that he had ordered the sentence where it was death to be carried into execution on the Friday following. I remember looking up from my desk with some surprise at the brevity of this interval, and asking him whether the time wasn't rather short. He admitted that it was, but said that they had had ever since the trial began for 'preparation'; and either then or later on in the day spoke of his design in making the time short, so that there might be less opportunity for criticism, remonstrance, etc. I do not pretend to use his precise language as to this, but the purport of it was that 'it was a disagreeable duty, and there would be endeavors to get him not to perform it, and he wished to avoid them as much as possible.' ... I am very confident, though not absolutely assured, that it was at this interview Mr. Johnson told me that the Court had recommended Mrs. Surratt to mercy on the ground of her sex (and age, I believe). But I am certain he did so inform me about that time; and that he said he thought the grounds urged insufficient, and that he had refused to interfere; that if she was guilty at all, her sex did not make her any the less guilty; that he, about the time of her execution, justified it; that he told me there had not been women enough hanged in this war."

This evidence would seem to establish most conclusively that the "petition" was not only attached to the record, and delivered by Judge Holt at the President's office in the Executive Mansion, but that he read the same and afterward considered and discussed it with at least three members of his Cabinet; and intelligent charity can reach no further than to say that President Johnson, when he charged Judge Holt with having withheld this recommendation to mercy when he delivered the record of the trial at the President's Mansion, made a cruel and untruthful charge; and that when he asserted in 1873 that he had not seen, read, or heard of this recommendation to mercy, at the time he approved the sentences on the 5th day of July, 1865, had forgotten the facts—that his "forgettery" was much better than his memory.

One of the main points in President Johnson's response to this evidence was that in the published volume of the record of the trial of the assassins, prepared by Mr. Ben. Pittmann, of Cincinnati, under my official supervision, this recommendation to mercy does not appear. There is no force in this. The petition or recommendation to mercy constituted properly no part of the official record of the trial. Mr. Pittmann, who had his desk and place in my office at the War Department, was one of the official stenographers of the court, and had special charge and custody of the record from day to day. The other reporters sent in to him their portions of the testimony as they were written up, and thereafter he was responsible for them. My recollection is also that as the testimony was written up a press copy was made of it, which he (Mr. Pittmann) took with him to Cincinnati, and used, after he had received permission from the War Department to publish.

The commission met with closed doors at 10 A. M. on the 29th of June to consider its findings, and continued and concluded its labors with closed doors on the 30th. From these meetings all stenographic reporters were excluded. The findings and sentences, when finally made and recorded, were handed to me to be attached to the record, or to go with the record to the Judge Advocate General's office, as was then the course of procedure. By the oath administered, all the members of the commission, as well as the Judge Advocates, were bound not to reveal those findings and sentences. I therefore retained them in my possession, instead of passing them on to the stenographers. When the recommendation to mercy was drawn, and signed by five members of the commission, that was also handed to me to accompany the findings.

Mr. Pittmann never saw, I presume, either the original findings or the recommendation to mercy, and the first knowledge he had of the former doubtless was after they were promulgated by the Adjutant General on the 5th day of July. This is evidenced by the fact that the Adjutant General, in promulgating the proceedings, took Mrs. Surratt's name from the position it occupies in the records, and placed it next that of Payne, evidently for the purpose of grouping together the four persons condemned to death. Mr. Pittmann gives the findings and sentence in the order promulgated by the Adjutant General—that is to say, he places the findings and sentence in Mrs. Surratt's case next after that of Lewis Payne; while the Court, in making up its findings, followed the order named in the charge and specifications, where Mrs. Surratt's name follows that of Samuel Arnold.

When I reached my office at the War Department on the 30th—possibly on the morning of the 1st of July—I attached the petition or recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt to the findings and sentence, and at the end of them, and then directed some one—probably Mr. Pittmann—to carry the record of the evidence to the Judge Advocate-General's office. I carried the findings and sentences and the petition or recommendation and delivered them to the Judge Advocate General in person or to the clerk in charge of court-martial records. Before leaving the War Department I may have attached these findings and sentences and petition to the last few days of testimony, and carried that to the Judge Advocate General's office. I never saw the record again until many years after—I think in 1873 or 1874.

I left Washington several days before, and was not there on the day of the execution. My recollection is, that I left there either on the evening of the 5th or on the morning of the 6th of July. On the 5th day of July, when Judge Holt had his conference with President Johnson over the record and proceedings of the military commission, when the President considered and passed upon the findings and sentences of the accused persons, after that interview Judge Holt came directly to Mr. Stanton's office in the War Department. I happened to be with Mr. Stanton as Judge Holt came in. After greetings, the latter remarked, "I have just come from a conference with the President over the proceedings of the military commission." "Well," said Mr. Stanton, "what has he done?" "He has approved the findings and sentence of the Court," replied Judge Holt.

"What did he say about the recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt?" next inquired Mr. Stanton. "He said," answered Judge Holt, "that she must be punished with the rest; that no reasons were given for his interposition by those asking for clemency, in her case, except age and sex. He said her sex furnished no good ground for his interfering; that women and men should learn that if women committed crimes they would be punished; that if they entered into conspiracies to assassinate, they must suffer the penalty; that were this not so, hereafter conspirators and assassins would use women as their instruments; it would be mercy to womankind to let Mrs. Surratt suffer the penalty of her crime." After some futher conversation, and after making known to Mr. Stanton that the President had fixed Friday, the 7th, as the day of execution, Judge Holt left. In giving the above conversation I cannot say that I have given the exact words; but the substance of what Judge Holt said I know I have given. It is indelibly impressed upon my memory. This conversation, while it does not constitute legal evidence of the fact of President Johnson's consideration of the recommendation to mercy, has always been a circumstance strong and convincing to my mind that President Johnson's charge was totally false. It showed that Mr. Stanton had knowledge of the recommendation—probably had examined the record in the four or five days which had intervened since the trial. As Secretary of War he was at that time daily—almost hourly—in consultation with the President over the disbandment of the military forces; the occupation by the army of the rebel States; the powers and duties of officers there, and the innumerable questions semi-military in character arising out of the chaotic political and social condition of the rebel States; and they could hardly have come together at that time without the question of the conviction and execution of the assassins coming up. The circumstances of the assassination, the plot or conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln and his Cabinet, the Vice President himself, and General Grant; who were concerned in it; the evidence submitted to the Court, the weight given to it by the Court, and the conclusion reached by the Court, were matters in which the President and the Secretary of War could not fail to take, and, as is well known, did take the deepest possible interest. It is past human credulity to believe that they would thus come together during the time intervening between the conclusion of the trial on the 30th day of June and the execution of the sentences on the 7th of July, and the result of the trial, together with the recommendation to mercy, not be discussed between them. It is inconceivable to me that Judge Holt, even if he were so malicious and murderous in purpose, could be so reckless and foolish in execution of such purpose as to withhold from and try to conceal from President Johnson this recommendation to mercy, when the fact of its existence was known to Mr. Stanton, and was so certain to be made known to the President by him, and its contents discussed between them.

The historian in passing judgment upon this event, and in weighing evidence as to the truth or falsity of this charge made by President Johnson, will take into consideration the mental characteristics and moral fibre of the two men, and what adequate motive there was actuating one occupying the exalted position of President Johnson to make the charge, or of Judge Holt to commit so wicked and cruel a wrong.