On the night of the assassination, about three o'clock in the morning, a party of detectives called at Mrs. Surratt's house for the purpose of searching it to see whom they could find there, and demanded admittance. When informed of their visit and the purpose of it by Wiechmann, she said, "For God's sake let them in. I have been expecting the house to be searched."[20] How many people in Washington were expecting detectives to come that night to search their houses? Not one who was innocent of crime. Two nights later the inmates of this house—Mrs. Surratt, her daughter, and Miss Fitzpatrick—were put under arrest by the military police; and whilst they were waiting for a conveyance at near the hour of midnight the assassin Payne rang the door bell, and was taken in and placed under arrest by the officer in charge. When Mrs. Surratt was confronted by Payne she held up her hand and solemnly said, "Before God I do not know him, and never saw him."[21] It will be remembered that he had within the last three weeks to that time stayed in her house for three days and nights, and he was a man of such marked personality that he could not have been so easily forgotten. The defense, in her case, attempted to account for this by an alleged infirmity of sight, but they were unable to establish by testimony any infirmity of sight beyond what is common to her age of about forty-five.[22] It will be remembered that Payne had been hiding and skulking for three days and nights, and of all the houses in Washington her's was the only one to which he felt that he could go and entrust the secret of his presence.
He could, under the circumstances in which he was placed, only have given this confidence to a co-conspirator. Having now given a brief synopsis of the testimony on which Mrs. Surratt was found guilty by the Commission, it will be in order for my readers to form their own conclusions as to her guilt or innocence. The writer only desires to say that additional testimony going to show the justice of the finding of the Commission in her case came out incidentally on the trial of John H. Surratt, and will also be found in the affidavit of L. J. Wiechmann, made after the military trial, in which he recounts a number of circumstances that had escaped his memory when on the witness stand, and which recurred to him in his subsequent reflections on the case. The testimony of Sergeants Dye and Cooper, given on the trial of Surratt, was that in passing Mrs. Surratt's house about ten minutes after the murder, a lady which Dye (having seen Mrs. Surratt at the military trial) believed to have been her, raised a window, and thrusting her head out, asked them what was wrong down town.[23]
Here we have her sitting in her parlor at about twenty-five minutes after ten o'clock waiting anxiously to hear some news. There was as yet no excitement on the street to awaken curiosity. These two soldiers believed they were the first persons to pass that house after the assassination; the street was entirely quiet; as they passed along they met two policemen shortly after passing the house 541, where Mrs. Surratt lived, who had not yet heard the news; yet here was a woman expecting to hear some news; who hailed the first passers-by after the fatal, and evidently appointed, hour to inquire what was wrong down town. It was also proven by a servant of good character, Susan Ann Jackson, that she had on that night served supper in the dining-room, after the family and boarders had left, to a man whom Mrs. Surratt called her son, and whom this witness identified as the prisoner at the bar.[24] We can now see why she was anxiously awaiting the news.
On the trial of Surratt a good deal of the testimony introduced to show the existence of a conspiracy to assassinate the President, and that the prisoner was a member of this conspiracy, implicated his mother in it equally with himself. Most of the witnesses that had been brought before the Commission to prove the existence of such a conspiracy, and that Mary E. Surratt was an active member of it, were again produced on this trial. As the witnesses Lloyd and Wiechmann were the most important of these, their testimony being completely conclusive of the guilt both of the the prisoner and his mother, great efforts were made to discredit, especially, the testimony of Wiechmann; but this could not be done by any of the methods known to the law. He stood the test of every effort and came out unscathed from a bitter and most hostile cross-examination that occupied a day and a half. Every effort was made to make him contradict himself as to his present testimony in chief, as also to his testimony given two years before at the military trial, but without avail. No false witness could possibly have come out of such a fiery ordeal unscathed. Truth is always consistent with itself, and one truth is always consistent with every other correlated truth, and for this reason a witness that keeps the truth can never be entrapped.
He was contradicted, it is true, by negative testimony as to some points in his evidence. Persons who were in the same room with him at the time that certain declarations were made to which he testified swore that they did not hear them. But such testimony is of no value. If one person in company with many others in a room were to swear that he heard the clock strike, his testimony as to that fact could not be discredited by that of all the others swearing that they did not hear it strike. Positive testimony cannot be overthrown, or even shaken, by negative. Witnesses were also brought to prove that he had made different statements, and some to prove that he had virtually admitted that he had testified falsely as to Mrs. Surratt, and that he had been held under duress by certain officers of the government and required to state in his testimony what they dictated to him. These efforts also proved failures, as a close, scrutinizing cross-examination made it apparent that these witnessess had been suborned, and were delivering a cooked-up testimony. After every effort had been made that could be devised by the ingenuity of counsels, Wiechmann stood before the court, the jury, and the country, as an honest, conscientious, truthful man. He was also a man of superior talent, education, and intelligence. In short, he established a character that must challenge the admiration of every candid mind.
The attempt was also made to overthrow Lloyd's testimony, but without success. His testimony was assailed principally on the ground that he was drunk when he returned to his home on that evening, the 14th of April, when Mrs. Surratt snatched an opportunity to get a private interview with him, by going out to him in his back yard, as soon as he drove up, and there delivering to him the message to which he testified, and also gave him Booth's field-glass. Lloyd himself admitted that he was pretty drunk on that occasion, but he was not so drunk but that he could carry out Mrs. Surratt's instructions to the very letter. He got the carbines and all the other things and placed them where they would be handy when called for, so that they could be delivered without detaining the parties long when they should be called for.[25] He was also on hand at the time they called, and ready to get these things for them. It is evident Lloyd knew the purpose of all this. When called on by the soldiers and detectives who were in pursuit of Booth and Herold the next morning, he denied that there had been anybody there during that night. He knew nothing. But when he found a chain of ascertained facts about to fasten upon him, in great fear and trepidation he made a clean breast of it, and told all. He then gave as a reason for his course in denying all knowledge of the matter, that he knew he could not tell all that he knew without implicating Mrs. Surratt, and that he did not want to do that.
Note and Affidavit of L. J. Wiechmann.
Col. H. L. Burnett, Judge Advocate, Cincinnati, Ohio:—
Colonel:—I stated before the Commission at Washington that I commenced to board with Mrs. Surratt in November, 1864. As a general thing I remained at home during the evenings, and consequently I heard many things which were then intended to blind me, but which now are as clear as daylight. The following facts, which have come to my recollection since the renditon of my testimony, may be of interest:—
Affidavit of Louis J. Wiechmann.
I once asked Mrs. Surratt what her son John had to do with Dr. Mudd's farm; why he made himself an agent for Booth? (She herself had told me that Booth desired to purchase Mudd's farm.) Her reply was, that Dr. Mudd and the people of Charles County had got tired of Booth, and that they had pushed him on John. Before the 4th of March she was in the habit of remarking that something was going to happen to "Old Abe" which would prevent him from taking his seat; that General Lee was going to execute a movement which would startle the whole world. What that movement was she never said. A few days after I asked her why John brought such men as Herold and Atzerodt to the house, and why he associated with them? "Oh, John wishes to make use of them for his dirty work," was her reply. On my desiring to know what the dirty work was, she answered that "John wanted them to clean his horses." He had two at that time. And once, when she sent me to Brooks, the stable keeper, to inquire about her son, she laughed, and remarked that "Brooks considered John H. Surratt and Booth and Herold and Atzerodt a party of young gamblers and sports, and that she wanted him to think so." Brooks has told me since the trial that such was actually the case, and that at one time he saw John H. Surratt with three one-hundred-dollar notes in his possession.
When Richmond fell and Lee's army surrendered, when Washington was illuminated, Mrs. Surratt closed her house and wept. Her house was gloomy and cheerless. To use her own expression, it was "indicative of her feelings." On Good Friday I drove her into the country, ignorant of her purpose and intentions. We started at about half-past two o'clock in the afternoon. Before leaving, she had an interview with John Wilkes Booth in the parlor. On the way down she was very lively and cheerful, taking the reins into her own hands several times and urging on the steed. We halted once, and that was about three miles from Washington, when, observing that there were pickets along the road, she hailed an old farmer and wanted to know if they would remain there all the night. On being told that they were withdrawn about eight o'clock in the evening, she said "she was glad to know it." On the return I chanced to make some remark about Booth, stating that he appeared to be without employment, and asking her when he was going to act again. "Booth is done acting," she said, "and is going to New York very soon, never to return." Then turning round, she remarked: "Yes, and Booth is crazy on one subject, and I am going to give him a good scolding the next time I see him." What that "one subject" was Mrs. Surratt never mentioned to me. She was very anxious to be at home at nine o'clock, saying that she had made an appointment with some gentleman who was to meet her at that hour. I asked her if it was Booth. She answered neither yes nor no. When about a mile from the city, and having from the top of a hill caught a view of Washington swimming in a flood of light, raising her hands, she said: "I am afraid all this rejoicing will be turned into mourning, and all this glory into sadness." I asked her what she meant. She replied that after sunshine there was always a storm, and that the people were too proud and licentious, and that God would punish them. The gentleman whom she expected at nine o'clock, on her return, called. It was, as I afterwards ascertained, Booth's last visit to Mrs. Surratt, and the third one that day. She was alone with him for a few minutes in the parlor. I was in the dining-room at the time, and as soon as I had taken tea I repaired thither. Mrs. Surratt's former cheerfulness had left her. She was now very nervous, agitated, and restless. On my asking her what was the matter, she replied that she was very nervous and did not feel well. Then looking at me, she wanted to know which way the torch-light procession was going that we had seen on the avenue. I remarked that it was a procession of the arsenal employees, who were going to serenade the President. She said that she would like to know, as she was very much interested in it. Her nervousness finally increased so much that she chased myself and the young ladies, who were making a great deal of noise and laughter, to our respective rooms. When the detectives came, at three o'clock the next morning, I rapped at her door for permission to let them in. "For God's sake, let them come in! I expected the house to be searched," she said.
When the detectives had gone, and her daughter, almost frantic, cried out: "Oh, ma! Just think of that man (John Wilkes Booth) having been here an hour before the assassination! I am afraid it will bring suspicion on us."
"Anna, come what will," she replied, "I am resigned. I think that John Wilkes Booth was only an instrument in the hands of the Almighty to punish this proud and licentious people."
(Signed)
Louis J. Wiechmann.Sworn and subscribed before me this 11th day of August, 1865.
(Signed)
Chas. E. Pancoast,
Alderman.