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

Why was not that confession made public? Why was it not reduced to writing and signed with her own hand? Why has it not in its entirety been given to the world? Why must the public wait twenty-seven years, and instead of having the full confession be required to content itself, in so great a case, with a mere assertion from the reverend Father, based on his alleged knowledge? Aye, just there's the rub!

That confession of Mrs. Surratt's would have proved very interesting reading, and might have let in a flood of light on some places that are now very dark; it would, indeed, have shown how far Mrs. Surratt was involved in the abduction and assassination plots, and to what degree she was the willing or unwilling tool of her son, and of John Wilkes Booth. That confession would have shown the object of Booth's visit to her on the very day and eve of the murder. It would have explained what she had in her mind when she carried Booth's field-glass into the country, and told Lloyd to have the "shooting-irons" and two bottles of whiskey ready on that fateful night of the 14th of April. And if she did not explain satisfactorily every item of testimony which bore so heavily against her, then her last confession was worth nothing.

Father Walter never had at any time Mrs. Surratt's consent to make her confession public, and he dare not do so now after twenty-seven years have elapsed since he shrove his unfortunate penitent.

Why, we repeat, did not Father Walter do this? He was interesting himself very much in her behalf in trying to get her a reprieve; why did he not use this as an argument with the President in her behalf that in her final confession she asserted her innocence? Why did he wait until the sentence had been confirmed by the President and a full cabinet without a dissenting voice, and then had been carried into execution, before he put into circulation the story of her confessed innocence? And why does he refer to his priestly vows as his excuse for this conduct, when he knows full well that having gained Mrs. Surratt's consent to make her confession public as an entirety, these vows imposed upon him no such restrictions? In vindication of the Commission, and also of the court of review,—the President and his cabinet,—we submit that the evidence shows her to have been guilty, no matter what she might have said in her final confession.

Perhaps she had been led to believe that President Lincoln was an execrable tyrant, and that his death was no more than that of the "meanest nigger in the army." Her remarks to her daughter the night her house was searched indicate the views she took of the subject. "Anna, come what will, I am resigned. I think that Booth was only an instrument in the hands of the Almighty to punish this wicked and licentious people."[28] To one who could have taken this view of the case, Booth's act could not have been regarded as a crime; and she who rendered him all the aid she could would feel no guilt. They were only co-operating with the Almighty in the execution of his vengeance. On the trial of John H. Surratt, Mr. Merrick brought Father Walter on to the stand and asked him if he had heard the last confession of Mrs. Surratt, to which the Father answered, "I did. I gave her communion on Friday and prepared her for death."

Mr. Merrick in his argument before the jury said: "I asked him 'Did she tell you as she was marching to the scaffold that she was an innocent woman?' I told him not to answer that question before I desired him to. He nodded his head, but did not answer that question, because he had no right, as the other side objected." Now what was the object of all this? Mr. Merrick brought the Father on to the stand and asked him a question that had not the slightest relevancy to any issue before that jury. He knew, of course, that the prosecution would object, and that the question could not be answered. It was a direct question, and could have been answered by, "She did" or "She did not." Why does not the Father answer at once? He had been cautioned not to do so until desired, and so he waits for the prosecution to object and estop him from answering the question. Mr. Merrick, however, in his argument assumes that the Father stood ready to say that, "She solemnly declared her entire innocence to me in her last confession," and throws the responsibility on the other side for not getting this answer. The argument was this: "You see that Father Walter stood ready to testify to this fact, but the prosecution objected, and so he could not do it."

Now, what has become of the Father's priestly vows behind which he has always been hiding? Or was all this a mere piece of acting, to give the counsel a point from which to denounce the government, the Commission, and all who were concerned in visiting justice upon the assassins?

We believe it to be true that the laws of his church did not forbid him to make public, with her consent or command, her last confession on this point, and that the Father in making the statements he does at this late day is simply practicing sleight-of-hand upon the public. It is a very strange circumstance, too, that whilst Payne, Arnold, O'Laughlin, Atzerodt, and even John H. Surratt admitted their connection with one or the other of the conspiracy plots, Mrs. Surratt has not left one word or line after her to explain away the incriminating evidence brought against her. The reason is plain; she could not have explained anything without involving herself and her son, and giving away the whole case.

For twenty-six years Father Walter and his rebel co-adjutors have kept a paragraph going the rounds of the papers, stating as a fact that all the members of the Commission but one are dead, and that they died miserable deaths, which marked them as the subjects of heaven's vengeance, and that some of them perished from the violence of their own hands, being crazed with remorse.

The truth is that at this writing, April, 1892, all of the members of the Commission are alive except General Hunter and General Ekin. General Hunter lived to over four score years, and General Ekin to seventy-three. The present writer is nearly seventy-nine and is still able to vindicate the truth in the interest of a true history of his period. Is it not high time that the American people should be fully informed as to this most important episode in their history, in order that they may not be misled by men who were not the friends, but the enemies, of our government in its struggle for its preservation and perpetuation?