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

Boucher and La Pierre conveyed Surratt in a covered carriage, and went with him on board the same steamer on which the doctor had taken passage. La Pierre was in disguise, inasmuch as he was dressed in citizen's dress. They had also disguised Surratt by coloring his hair, painting his face, and putting spectacles over his eyes. On the passage from Montreal to Quebec, they kept him locked up in the state-room occupied jointly by him and Father La Pierre. When they reached Quebec and went on board the transport that was to convey them to the ocean steamer "Peruvian," in which they were to sail, the doctor was there introduced to Beverly Tucker, who had also felt enough of interest in Surratt's case to induce him to accompany him from Montreal to Quebec, and who stood in that relation to his case in the knowledge of Fathers La Pierre and Boucher that they could safely take him into their confidence in their plans for conveying Surratt out of the country. This trio saw Surratt safely on board the "Peruvian," and then bade him good-by. The interest thus manifested by Tucker in getting Surratt safely away confirms the testimony given before the Military Commission, showing him to have been justly charged by the government with being a member of the great conspiracy. Before parting from his charge Father La Pierre requested Dr. McMillen to let Surratt stay in his room until after the vessel should have sailed.

Surratt is not an innocent man carrying a good conscience, that enables him to look every man he meets squarely in the face. He is a fugitive and a vagabond, carrying the weight of a terrible crime in his memory—a weight that neither time nor distance can efface. He is haunted by his fears, having before him the vision of a detective and of capture; and so he skulks and hides from the phantom of an American detective which he cannot banish from his mind.

The vessel being now on her way, and in British waters, the fugitive ventured forth, and naturally sought the company of the surgeon of the vessel in whose care he had been placed, and whom he regarded as his friend. His social nature yearned for companionship, and all the more as a means of relief from a guilty conscience. Does he now enjoy a sense of security? To him this is impossible. He scanned closely every passenger he met, that phantom of a detective being ever present to his imagination. He sees a gentleman whom he takes to be an American. He seeks his friend McMillen, and discloses to him his fears, saying: "I think that man is an American detective." Upon being asked by the doctor what he had done that he should be afraid of a detective, he replied: "If you knew all the things I have done, it would make you stare." Murder is a crime that will out. It imposes a weight of guilt upon the conscience that will, at some unguarded moment, let the fearful secret slip through the door of the lips that are most firmly closed by a purpose of concealment. The doctor reassured him, by reminding him that he was on board a British ship sailing on British waters, and that he had nothing to fear from an American detective. Surratt then drew a small four-barrelled revolver from his vest pocket, and remarked: "I don't care; this will settle him." The doctor now began to feel a great interest in his charge, arising from the suspicion that he was John H. Surratt. The voyage across the Atlantic occupied nine or ten days. The fugitive was so full of his terrible secret that he could not keep quiet. Every day he sought opportunities to converse with the doctor privately, and at every interview the history of his crimes kept leaking out. He was nervous, and constantly haunted by his fears; so that he could never hear any one coming up behind him without starting and looking around. Amongst his important revelations to the doctor were the following: that he had for a considerable time previously to the assassination been a bearer of despatches from Richmond to the Confederate agents in Canada; that he had at one time carried to them from Richmond thirty thousand dollars, and at another time seventy thousand dollars; that he arrived in Montreal the last time on the 6th of April, with despatches from Davis and Benjamin, thus confirming the testimony of Conover and Merritt before the Military Commission. These despatches he claimed to have delivered to Thompson. After the military trial, and previous to the trial of Surratt, the witness, Conover, had been convicted of perjury; but this does not discredit the testimony he gave before the Commission, as it was confirmed by other witnesses who stand unimpeached, and is here also confirmed by Surratt himself in regard to one of its most important points. It will be remembered that Conover testified to having been present at a meeting of the Canada conspirators in Montreal, on the 6th of April, 1865, and that John H. Surratt, who was present, had just arrived from Richmond, bringing a cipher despatch from Jefferson Davis, and also a despatch from his Secretary of State, Benjamin, and that Thompson, laying his hand on these despatches, said: "This makes the thing all right"; and that active measures were at once entered upon for putting the assassination plot into effect. Now Surratt comes to McMillen five months later, on the face of the broad Atlantic, and confirms Conover's testimony in its major part. He also related to the doctor the particulars of his trip to Richmond late in March, 1865, when he was accompanied by a woman, who by other testimony was shown to have been Mrs. Slater, alias Brown, the rebel spy and blockade runner. The arrangement was made whilst he was in Canada for him to meet her in New York and accompany her to Richmond, which he did, passing through Washington. In this statement the testimony of Wiechmann is confirmed. Surratt related to the doctor the difficulty they had in crossing the Potomac. They were hailed by a gun-boat, and called upon to surrender. They said they would do so, but waited for the small boat that had been sent to bring them in to come alongside, when they suddenly arose, poured a volley into the crew of the small boat, and then, in the confusion that ensued, made their escape. There were twelve or fifteen crossing with him at the time, and all were armed with revolvers. Having gotten within the Confederate lines south of Fredericksburg, they were being pushed along by negroes on a hand-car when they met five or six forlorn, half-starved Union soldiers, who had made their escape from a rebel prison and were striking for freedom. At the suggestion of this wicked woman they shot them down, and passed on, leaving them lying on the ground.

He also related to the doctor the plot, at one time discussed, to capture the President and carry him to Richmond, but said it was found to be impracticable, and so was abandoned. He claimed that Booth and himself had spent ten thousand dollars in preparations for carrying out their plot. When we remember that neither Booth nor Surratt had any means of their own, and yet were carrying on an enterprise that called for so large an outlay of money, we may well ask who stood behind them and furnished the funds?

But if we take all of the testimony we have before us into consideration we need have no difficulty in answering this question. Jacob Thompson was the treasurer of the concern, and his government kept him amply supplied with means. It will be remembered that Clay said, "We have plenty of money to pay for anything that is worth paying for." After the assassination Surratt was in some way supplied with money to support him for a year, and carry him to Italy. In regard to the assassination, Surratt told McMillen that he received a letter from Booth at Montreal, in the beginning of the week of the assassination, which was written in New York, calling him to Washington at once, as it had become necessary to change their plans and to act quickly. He started at once, and telegraphed Booth at New York City from Elmira, but found that he had already gone to Washington. In regard to his escape from Washington after the assassination, he related all of the incidents that have already been given in regard to his experience at St. Albans, the loss of his handkerchief, his hasty departure from that place, etc., etc.

Every day during the voyage, he was filling McMillen's ears with these stories, and as they neared the end of the voyage he began to revolve in his mind whether he would land on the Irish coast or go on to Liverpool. He asked McMillen which he had better do, but McMillen, who must have known by this time who this McCarthy was, declined to give him any advice. Surratt finally said he would go on to Liverpool, but could not dismiss from his mind the fear that he might there meet a detective awaiting his arrival. Pulling out his revolver, he said, "If he did, this would settle him." Upon McMillen making the reply that "they would make short work of it with him in England if he should do such a thing as that," he said, "It is for that very reason I would do it, for I would rather be hung by an English than a Yankee hangman, and I know I would be hung should I be taken back to the United States." Upon sighting the coast of Ireland he exclaimed, "Here is a foreign country at last! I only wish that I may live two years to go back to the United States and serve Andy Johnson as we served Lincoln."

When the "Peruvian" was about to land her passengers and mail at an Irish port, Surratt sent for McMillen, and upon the latter expressing surprise at finding him dressed, and prepared to land, saying that "he thought he had concluded to go on with them to Liverpool," Surratt replied, "that he had thought the matter over carefully, and had concluded that it would be safer for him to land there, as it was then nearly midnight." McMillen then said to him, "You have been telling me a great many things, and I have come to the conclusion that the name by which you were introduced to me is not your true name. Will you be kind enough to tell me who you are?" The fugitive then whispered in his ear, "I am Surratt." He then asked the doctor to send for the barkeeper, and before leaving the ship drank so freely of brandy that the doctor found it necessary to request the chief officer at the gangway to take him by the arm and see him safely on shore. On the Wednesday following, Surratt called on the doctor at his boarding house in Birkenhead, opposite the city of Liverpool, and requested him to go over with him to the city to find a house to which he had been directed to go. The doctor had, on the previous day (which was the day after the "Peruvian" had landed in Liverpool), visited the Vice-Consul of the United States, Mr. Wildings, and made a sworn statement of the facts that Surratt had revealed to him, his purpose being to aid the United States in securing his arrest. He told the Vice-Consul that he was only making a partial statement of Surratt's confessions during the voyage, deeming it only important that the government should be informed of Surratt's arrival in Liverpool. The doctor testified, on Surratt's trial, that Mr. Wilding told him that he had been informed by Mr. Adams, the American Minister at London, that the government was not going to prosecute Surratt; that it hadn't anything against him.

Of all this Surratt was ignorant, and the doctor went with him, as requested, across the river from Birkenhead to Liverpool, and finding a cab, gave the driver directions where to take him, and then parted from him. Surratt visited him again before the doctor started on the return voyage, and requested him to see a party in Montreal, and bring him some money. The doctor did as requested, but the person on whom he was requested to call said he had no money for him. The rebellion had collapsed; the plot had failed of its purpose, as it had also failed in part of its fulfillment; and now Surratt was to suffer the fate of Hyams—be shaken off and disowned. On the doctor's return to Liverpool Surratt called on him, but only to learn that there was no money for him. This was the last time that McMillen saw him until he saw him on his trial.

Surratt is next found in Italy, in the army of the Pope, where he had enlisted as a soldier in the ninth company of Zouaves about the middle of April, 1866. He had found friends after his escape from Washington, who had supported him, kept him secreted, watched over his safety, planned his trip from Montreal to Italy, and furnished him money for the expenses of his journey; friends who, no doubt, were accomplices before, as well as after, the fact, for we find them waiting and watching for his return to Montreal after the assassination, and ready to hurry him off into seclusion. He was to them a stranger; only known to them as a fugitive from his country, charged with the highest crime that a man could commit,—a blow at the nation's life, by murdering the nation's head,—a crime against liberty and humanity. These could not have been his friends for mere personal reasons, but from sympathy in the general purpose of this great crime,—the subversion of our free institutions.

Certainly he may now feel safe, being hid away under the alias of Watson, in the ranks of the Papal Zouaves, in the town of Velletri, in Italy, forty miles from Rome. But no! Here he meets Henry Benjamin St. Marie, an old acquaintance of his, and now a fellow-soldier in his company.