That Cleary was well acquainted with all that Thompson, Tucker, and Clay were doing is clear from the relation he sustained to Thompson; and Thompson himself told Montgomery that Cleary was posted in all his affairs, and that if he (Montgomery) sought him at any time when he was absent, he could confide his business to Cleary.
Conover testified that he called on Thompson, in the early part of February, 1865, to make some inquiry about the intended raid on Ogdensburg, when Thompson said to him, "There is a better opportunity, a better chance to immortalize yourself and save your country." Conover replied that he was willing to do anything to save the country. Thompson then said, "Some of our boys are going to play a grand joke on Abe and Andy." Upon Conover asking him for a further explanation, he said, "It was to kill them, or, rather, to remove them from office." He said, "it was only removing them from office; that the killing of a tyrant was no murder." He told Conover then, or subsequently, that he had conferred a commission on Booth for this purpose, and would commission all who engaged in it, so that whether it succeeded or failed, if they escaped to Canada, they could not be claimed under the extradition treaty. The Confederate government kept these Canada agents supplied with commissions in blank, to be filled up by them at their pleasure, to cover cases like these. In this conversation of Thompson with Conover, in February, in which he was endeavoring to enlist Conover in the plot, he argued that killing a tyrant in such a case was no murder, and asked him if he had ever read the work entitled, "Killing no Murder," a letter addressed by Colonel Titus to Oliver Cromwell. Mr. Hamlin was to have been included in the scheme, had it been put into execution before the 4th of March. In a subsequent conversation in April, Mr. Hamlin was omitted, and Vice-President Johnson put in his place. We here again see the political intent of this scheme, in that it was the office, not the man, that was really the subject of the blow.
Merritt testified to an interview he had with Harper, Caldwell, Randall, Charles Holt, and a man called "Texas," at the Queen's Hotel, in Toronto, on the 6th of April, 1865. Harper said they were "going to the States, and were going to kick up the damnedest row that had ever been heard of." He said to Merritt, an hour or two afterwards, that "if he (Merritt) did not hear of the death of Old Abe, and the Vice-President, and General Dix in less than ten days he might put him down as a damned fool." We have now had abundant proof that Thompson, Clay, Tucker, Sanders, Cleary, etc., were guilty of combining, confederating, and conspiring with Booth, and the others, to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, William H. Seward, etc.; that this plot originated with them, and that they diligently prosecuted the work of preparation for it from October, 1864, until its denouement, in April, 1865. It appears to have engrossed their minds; it was the great subject of conversation in all of their secret conclaves, the great burden of all their thoughts, the very height of their ambition.
Let us next see to what extent the head of the rebel Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, is implicated in it by the evidence. We have already seen by his favorable reception of the Alston letter and the endorsement he put upon it, that there was nothing in his mind or moral nature that revolted at its base, cowardly, and dishonorable proposition to "strike at the very heart's blood of some of our country's deadliest foes." On the contrary, he refers it to his Assistant Secretary of War, marked "For attention."
Having obtained this index to the state of his mind, we find ourselves prepared to receive the testimony of Dr. J. B. Merritt as to a letter read by Sanders in a meeting of rebels in Montreal, about the middle of February, 1865, at which ten or fifteen persons were present, amongst whom were Sanders, Colonel Steele, Captain Scott, George Young, Byron Hill, Caldwell, Ford, Benedict, Kirk, and Merritt. Sanders said he had received the letter from "the President of our Confederacy" (meaning Jefferson Davis). The substance of this letter was, that if the confederates in Canada and in the States were willing to submit to be governed by such a tyrant as Lincoln he did not wish to recognize them as friends and associates, and he expressed his approbation of any measures they might take to accomplish this object. It is true Dr. Merritt did not see Davis's signature to the letter, and would not have known it had he seen it, but the letter was first read openly by Sanders, and then handed to the others, several of whom read it, and none questioned either its author or authenticity. Colonel Steele, Young, Hill, and Captain Scott read it, and no objection was raised. After reading this letter, Sanders went on to name a number of persons who were ready and willing, as he said, to engage in the undertaking to remove the President, Vice-President, the cabinet, and some of the leading generals, and said there was any amount of money to accomplish the purpose. Amongst the persons whom he said thus stood ready to engage in this work, he named Booth, George Harper, Charles Caldwell, one Randall, and Harrison (by which name Surratt was known), and one or two others, one of whom they called "Plug Tobacco," or "Port Tobacco." I will here remark that Atzerodt was sometimes called by this latter name. Sanders said that Booth was heart and soul in this project of assassination, and felt as much as any person could feel, for the reason that he was a cousin to Beall, who was hung in New York. He said that if they could dispose of Mr. Lincoln it would be an easy matter to dispose of Mr. Johnson; he was such a drunken sot it would be an easy matter to dispose of him in some of his drunken revelries.
When Sanders read the letter he also spoke of Mr. Seward. "I inferred," says Dr. Merritt, "it was partially the language of the letter. It was, I think, that if the President, Vice-President, and Mr. Seward could be disposed of, it would be satisfying the people of the North that they (the Southerners) had friends in the North, and that peace could be obtained on better terms than could be otherwise obtained."
It will be remembered that Booth sent to Chester fifty dollars in a letter when trying to get him into the conspiracy, and that at their final interview in February, Chester positively refused to have anything to do with it, and returned to Booth the fifty dollars he had received. Booth took the money, saying at the same time he would not do so only he was short of funds. He had told Chester that there was plenty of money in the affair, and that if he would join he would never want for money again as long as he lived. He said, however, as an excuse for taking back the fifty dollars he had sent him, that he was very short of funds, and that he, or some one, would have to go to Richmond to replenish. Wiechmann testified that John H. Surratt left Washington for Richmond on the 27th of March, and returned on the 3d of April; that on his return he showed him nine, or eleven, twenty-dollar gold pieces and sixty dollars in currency. Wiechmann was on intimate terms of personal intercourse with Surratt, lived in the same house with him, and was with him daily when at home, and expressed himself as quite certain that he had no gold when he left Washington. He was not engaged in any business by which he could make money. His mother had a very limited income from the rent of her farm and tavern, and kept boarders to enable her to make ends meet; yet her son was constantly spending money in traveling about, and so must have been supplied by his Canada friends, whom he visited occasionally; and the chief calls he had for expenditure appear to have arisen from his prosecution of their schemes. Returning thus from Richmond to Washington on the 3d of April, he left the same evening, according to Wiechmann, for Canada.
Conover testified that he saw him in Montreal on the 6th or 7th of April, in Mr. Thompson's room, and he learned from their conversation that Surratt had just brought despatches from Richmond to Mr. Thompson. One despatch was from Mr. Benjamin, the rebel Secretary of State, and one, which Conover thought was a cipher despatch, from Jefferson Davis. Conover had previously been solicited by Thompson to participate in this work of assassination, and so was freely admitted to their secret councils. After reading these letters from Davis and Benjamin, Thompson, laying his hands on them, said, "This makes the thing all right," referring to the assent of the rebel authorities. Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Johnson, the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, and the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, Judge Chase, and General Grant were to be the victims. Mr. Thompson said this would leave the government entirely without a head; that there was no provision in the Constitution of the United States by which they could elect another President if these men were removed. The long waited for authority to use funds which the rebel government had placed to the credit of Mr. Thompson having been now secured in the despatch from Mr. Benjamin, and his chief, Jefferson Davis, no time was lost in putting the ball in motion. Mr. Thompson had over six hundred thousand dollars to his credit in the Ontario Bank of Montreal, and within two days after receiving these letters, he drew on his deposit for over two hundred thousand dollars. Conover saw Surratt in Montreal from the 6th or 7th to the 9th of April, and having been admitted to their confidence by Thompson, on his receiving the despatches, was accepted by Surratt as being one of themselves, and so he was under no restraint in conversing with Conover. From the whole of his conversation Conover inferred that he was to take his part, whatever that might be, in the conspiracy. We have already learned from Merritt's testimony, that after Surratt's return to Canada on the 6th of April there was an immediate bustle amongst those in Canada who were to go to Washington to take part in the plot, and that they began to leave on the 8th. The sinews of war having been furnished, there was great eagerness, expressed and apparent, to be off for the execution of the plot, and great boasting on the part of those who went as to what they were going to do. Having set their hired assassins in motion, Thompson and his gang stood waiting in a great state of expectancy for the result. Conover testified that on the day before, or the very day of the assassination, he had a conversation with William C. Cleary about the rejoicing in the States over the surrender of Lee and the capture of Richmond. Cleary remarked that they "would put the laugh on the other side of their mouths in a day or two." "The conspiracy was at that time talked of amongst them about as freely as one would speak of the weather."
Jefferson Davis received his first intelligence of the assassination at Charlotte, N.C., on the 19th of April, in a telegram from General Breckinridge, as follows:—
"Greensboro', April 19, 1865.
"His Excellency President Davis:—
"President Lincoln was assassinated in the theatre at Washington on the night of the 11th inst. Seward's house was entered on the same night and he was repeatedly stabbed, and is probably mortally wounded.
[Signed]
"John C. Breckinridge."