Question.--Will you state whether or not some five or six weeks
before the assassination of the President, any or all of these men
about whom I have inquired came to your house?
Answer.--They were there.
Q.--All three together?
A.--Yes; John H. Surratt, Herold, and Atzerodt were there together.
Q.--What did they bring to your house, and what did they do there?
A.--When they drove up there in the morning, John H. Surratt and
Atzerodt came first; they went from my house and went toward T. B.,
a post office kept about five miles below there. They had not been
gone more than half an hour when they returned with Herold; then the
three were together--Herold, Surratt, and Atzerodt.
Q.--What did they bring to your house?
A.--I saw nothing until they all three came into the bar-room, I
noticed one of the buggies--the one I supposed Herold was driving
or went down in--standing at the front gate. All three of them,
when they came into the bar-room, drank, I think, and then John
Surratt called me into the front parlor, and on the sofa were two
carbines, with ammunition. I think he told me they were carbines.
Q,--Anything besides the carbines and ammunition?
A,--There was also a rope and a monkey-wrench.
Q.--How long a rope?
A.--I cannot tell. It was a coil--a right smart bundle--probably
sixteen to twenty feet.
Q.--Were those articles left at your house?
A.--Yes, sir; Surratt asked me to take care of them, to conceal the
carbines. I told him that there was no place to conceal them, and I
did not wish to keep such things in the house.
Q.--You say that he asked you to conceal those articles for him?
A.--Yes, sir; he asked me to conceal them. I told him there was no
place to conceal them. He then carried me into a room that I had
never been in, which was just immediately above the store room, as
it were, in the back building of the house. I had never been in that
room previous to that time. He showed me where I could put them,
underneath the joists of the house--the joists of the second floor
of the main building. This little unfinished room will admit of
anything between the joists.
Q.--Were they put in that place?
A.--They were put in there according to his directions.
Q.--Were they concealed in that condition?
A.--Yes, sir: I put them in there. I stated to Colonel Wells
through mistake that Surratt put them there; but I put them in there
myself, I carried the arms up myself.
Q.--How much ammunition was there?
A.--One cartridge box.
Q.--For what purpose, and for how long, did he ask you to keep
these articles?
A.--I am very positive that he said that he would call for them in
a few days. He said that he just wanted them to stay for a few days
and he would call for them.
It also appears in evidence against Mrs. Surratt, if the testimony
is to be relied on, that on the Tuesday previous to the murder of
the President, the eleventh of April, she met John M. Lloyd, a
witness for the prosecution, at Uniontown, when, the following took
place:--
Question by the judge advocate:--Did she say anything to you in
regard to those carbines?
Answer.--When she first broached the subject to me, I did not know
what she had reference to; then she came out plainer, and I am quite
positive she asked me about the "shooting irons." I am quite
positive about that, but not altogether positive. I think she named
"shooting irons" or something to call my attention to those things,
for I had almost forgot about their being there. I told her that
they were hid away far back--that I was afraid that the house
would be searched, and they were shoved far back. She told me to get
them out ready; they would be wanted soon.
Q.--Was her question to you first, whether they were still there,
or what was it?
A.--Really, I cannot recollect the first question she put to me. I
could not do it to save my life.
On the afternoon of the fourteenth of April, at about half-past five
Lloyd again met Mrs. Surratt, at Surrattsville, at which time,
according to his version, she met him by the woodpile near the house
and told him to have those shooting irons ready that night as there
would be some parties calling for them, and that she gave him
something wrapped in a piece of paper, and asked him to get two
bottles of whisky ready also. This mesage to Mr. Lloyd is the
second item of importance against Mrs. Surratt, and in support of
the specification against her. The third and last fact that makes
against her in the minds of the court is the one narrated by Major
H. W. Smith, a witness for the prosecution, who states that while at
the house of Mrs. Surratt, on the night of the seventeenth of April,
assisting in making arrest of its inmates, the prisoner, Payne, came
in. He (Smith) stepped to the door of the parlor and said,
"Mrs. Surratt, will you step here a minute?" As Mrs. Surratt came
forward, he asked her this question, "Do you know this man?" She
replied, quoting the witness's language, "Before God, sir, I do not
know this man, and I have never seen him." An addition to this is
found in the testimony of the same witness, as he was drawn out by
the judge advocate. The witness repeats the language of
Mrs. Surratt, "Before God, sir, I do not know this man, and I have
never seen him, and did not hire him to dig a gutter for me." The
fact of the photographs and card of the State arms of Virginia have
ceased to be of the slightest importance, since the explanations
given in evidence concerning them, and need not be alluded to. If
there is any doubt as to whom they all belonged, reference to the
testimony of Misses Surratt and Fitzpatrick will settle it.
These three circumstances constitute the part played by the accused,
Mary E. Surratt, in this great conspiracy. They are the acts she
has done. They are all that two months of patient and unwearying
investigation, and the most thorough search for evidence that was
probably ever made, have been able to develop against her. The
acquaintance with Booth, the message to Lloyd, the nonrecognition of
Payne, constitute the sum total of her receiving, entertaining,
harboring and concealing, aiding and assisting those named as
conspirators and their confederates, with knowledge of the murderous
and traitorous conspiracy; and with intent to aid, abet, and assist
them in the execution thereof, and in escaping from justice. The
acts she has done, in and of themselves are perfectly innocent. Of
themselves they constitute no crime. They are what you or I or any
of us might have done. She received and entertained Booth, the
assassin, and so did a hundred others. She may have delivered a
message to Lloyd--so have a hundred others. She might have said
she did not know Payne--and who within the sound of my voice can
say they know him now? They are ordinary and commonplace
transactions, such as occur every day and to almost everybody. But
as all the case against her must consist in the guilty intent that
will be attempted to be connected with these facts, we now propose
to show that they are not so clearly proven as to free them from
great doubt, and, therefore, we will inquire:--
2. How are these acts proven? Solely by the testimony of Louis
J. Weichmann and John M. Lloyd. Here let us state that we have no
malice toward either of them, but if in the analysis of their
evidence we should seem to be severe, it is that error and duplicity
may be exposed and innocence protected.
We may start out with the proposition that a body of men banded
together for the consummation of an unlawful act against the
government, naturally would not disclose their purpose and hold
suspicious consultations concerning it in the presence continually
of an innocent party. In the light of this fair presumption let us
look at the acts of Weichmann, as disclosed by his own testimony.
Perhaps the most singular and astonishing fact that is made to
appear is his omnipresence and co-action with those declared to be
conspirators, and his professed and declared knowledge of all their
plans and purposes. His acquaintance with John H. Surratt commenced
in the fall of 1859, at St. Charles, Maryland. In January 1863 he
renewed his acquaintance with him in this city. On the first of
November, 1864, he took board and lodging with Mrs. Surratt at her
house, No. 541 H. Street, in this city. If this testimony is
correct, he was introduced to Booth on the fifteenth day of January,
1865. At this first, very first meeting, he was invited to Booth's
room at the National, where he drank wine and took cigars at Booth's
expense. After consultation about something in an outer passage
between Booth and the party alleged to be with him by Weichmann,
they all came into the room, and for the first time business was
proceeded with in his presence. After that he met Booth in
Mrs. Surratt's parlor and in his own room, and had conversations
with him. As near as Weichmann recollects, about three weeks after
his introduction he met the prisoner, Atzerodt, at Mrs. Surratt's.
(How Atzerodt was received at the house will be referred to.) About
the time that Booth played Pescara in the 'Apostate' at Ford's
Theatre, Weichmann attended the theatre in company with Surratt and
Atzerodt. At the theatre they were joined by Herold. John
T. Holohan, a gentleman not suspected of complicity in the great
tragedy, also joined the company at the theatre. After the play was
over, Surratt, Holohan, and himself went as far as the corner of
Tenth and E Streets, when Surratt, noticing that Atzerodt and Herold
were not with them, sent Weichmann back for them. He found them in
a restaurant with Booth, by whose invitation Weichmann took a drink.
After that the entire party went to Kloman's, on Seventh Street, and
had some oysters. The party there separated, Surratt, Weichmann,
and Holohan going home. In the month of March last the prisoner,
Payne, according to Weichmann, went to Mrs. Surratt's house and
inquired for John H. Surratt. "I, myself," says Weichmann, "went to
open the door, and he inquired for Mr. Surratt I told him
Mr. Surratt was not at home; but I would introduce him to the
family, and did introduce him to Mrs. Surratt--under the name of
Wood." What more? By Weichmann's request Payne remained in the
house all night. He had supper served him in the privacy of
Weichmann's own room. More than that, Weichmann went down into the
kitchen and got the supper and carried it up to him himself, and as
nearly as he recollects, it was about eight weeks previous to the
assassination; Payne remained as Weichmann's guest until the nest
morning, when he left on the early train for Baltimore. About three
weeks after that Payne called again. Says Weichmann, "I again went
to the door, and I again ushered him into the parlor." But he adds
that he had forgotten his name, and only recollected that he had
given the name of Wood on the former visit, when one of the ladies
called Payne by that name. He who had served supper to Payne in his
own room, and had spent a night with him, could not recollect for
three weeks the common name of "Wood," but recollects with such
distinctness and particularity scenes and incidents of much greater
age, and by which he is jeopardizing the lives of others. Payne
remained that time about three days, representing himself to the
family as a Baptist preacher; claiming that he had been in prison in
Baltimore for about a week; that he had taken the oath of allegiance
and was going to become a good loyal citizen. To Mrs. Surratt this
seemed eccentric, and she said "he was a great-looking Baptist
preacher." "They looked upon it as odd and laughed about it." It
seemed from Weichmann's testimony that he again shared his room with
Payne. Returning from his office one day, and finding a false
mustache on the table in his room, he took it and threw it into his
toilet box, and afterward put it with a box of paints into his
trunk. The mustache was subsequently found in Weichmann's baggage.
When Payne, according to Weichmann's testimony, inquired, "Where is
my mustache?" Weichmann said nothing, but "thought it rather queer
that a Baptist preacher should wear a false mustache." He says that
he did not want it about his room--"thought no honest person had any
reason to wear a false mustache," and as no "honest person" should
be in possession of it, he locked it up in his own trunk. Weichmann
professes throughout his testimony the greatest regard and
friendship for Mrs. Surratt and her son. Why did he not go to
Mrs. Surratt and communicate his suspicions at once? She, an
innocent and guileless woman, not knowing what was occurring in her
own house; he, the friend, coming into possession of important
facts, and not making them known to her, the head of the household,
but claiming now, since this overwhelming misfortune has fallen upon
Mrs. Surratt, that, while reposing in the very bosom of the family
as a friend and confidant, he was a spy and an informer, and, that,
we believe, is the best excuse the prosecution is able to make for
him. His account and explanation of the mustache would be treated
with contemptuous ridicule in a civil court.
But this is not all. Concede Weichmann's account of the mustache to
be true, and if it was not enough to rouse his suspicions that all
was not right, he states that, on the same day, he went to Surratt's
room and found Payne seated on the bed with Surratt, playing with
bowie knives, and surrounded with revolvers and spurs. Miss Honora
Fitzpatrick testifies that Weichmann was treated by Mrs. Surratt
"more like a son than a friend." Poor return for motherly care!
Guilty knowledge and participation in crime or in wild schemes for
the capture of the President would be a good excuse for not making
all this known to Mrs. Surratt. In speaking of the spurs and
pistols, Weichmann knew that there were just eight spurs and two
long navy revolvers. Bear in mind, we ask you, gentlemen of the
commission, that there is no evidence before you showing that
Mrs. Surratt knew anything about these things. It seems farther on,
about the nineteenth of March, that Weichmann went to the Herndon
House with Surratt to engage a room. He says that he afterwards
learned from Atzerodt that it was for Payne, but contradicts himself
in the same breath by stating that he inquired of Atzerodt if he
were going to see Payne at the Herndon House. His intimate
knowledge of Surratt's movements between Richmond and Washington,
fixing the dates of the trips with great exactitude; of Surratt's
bringing gold back; of Surratt's leaving on the evening of the third
of April for Canada, spending his last moments here with Weichmann;
of Surratt's telling Weichmann about his interview with Davis and
Benjamin--in all this knowledge concerning himself and his
associations with those named as conspirators he is no doubt
truthful, as far as his statements extend; but when he comes to
apply some of this knowledge to others, he at once shakes all faith
in his testimony bearing upon the accused.
"Do you remember," the question was asked him, "early in the month
of April, of Mrs. Surratt having sent for you and asking you to give
Mr. Booth notice that she wished to see him?"
Weichmann stated in his reply that she did, that it was on the
second of April, and that he found in Mr. Booth's room John
McCullough, the actor, when he delivered the message. One of two
things to which he swears in this statement cannot be true; 1. That
he met John McCullough in Booth's room, for we have McCullough's
sworn statement that at that time he was not in the city of
Washington, and if, when he delivered the message to Booth,
McCullough was in the room, it could not have been the second of
April.
ST. LAWRENCE HALL. MONTREAL, June 3. 1865.
I am an actor by profession, at present fulfilling an engagement at
Mr. Buckland's theatre, in this city. I arrived here on the twelfth
of May. I performed two engagements at Ford's Theatre in Washington,
during the past winter, the last one closing on Saturday evening,
twenty-fifth of March. I left Washington Sunday evening,
twenty-sixth of March, and have not been there since. I have no
recollection of meeting any person by the name of Weichmann.
--John McCullough.
Sworn to and before me, at the United States Consulate General's, in
Montreal, this third day of June, A.D. 1865.
C. H. POWERS, U. S. Vice Consul-General.
If he can be so mistaken about those facts, may he not be in regard
to that whole transaction? It is also proved by Weichmann that
before Mrs. Surratt started for the country, on the fourteenth of
April, Booth called; that he remained three or four minutes, and
then Weichmann and Mrs. Surratt started for the country.
All this comes out on his first examination in chief. The following
is also told in his first cross-examination: Mrs. Surratt keeps a
boarding house in this city, and was in the habit of renting out her
rooms, and that he was upon very intimate terms with Surratt; that
they occupied the same room; that when he and Mrs. Surratt went to
Surrattsville on the fourteenth, she took two packages, one of
papers, the contents of the other were not known. That persons have
been in the habit of going to Mrs. Surratt's and staying a day or
two; that Atzerodt stopped in the house only one night; that the
first time Payne came to the house he was dressed genteelly, like a
gentleman; that he heard both Mrs. Surratt and her daughter say that
they did not care about having Atzerodt brought to the house; and at
the conclusion, in swearing as to Mrs. Surratt's character, he said
it was exemplary and lady-like in every respect, and apparently, as
far as he could judge, she was all the time, from the first of
November up to the fourteenth of April, "doing her duties to God and
man." It also distinctly appears that Weichmann never had any
conversation with Mrs. Surratt touching any conspiracy. One thing
is apparent to our minds, and it is forced upon us, as it must be
upon every reasonable mind, that in order to have gained all this
knowledge Weichmann must have been within the inner circle of the
conspiracy. He knows too much for an innocent man, and the
conclusion is perfectly irresistible that if Mrs. Surratt had
knowledge of what was going on, and had been, with others, a
_particeps_ _criminis_ in the great conspiracy, she certainly would
have done more than she did or has been shown against her, and
Weichmann would have known it. How does her nonrecognition of
Payne, her acquaintance with Booth, and the delivery of the message
to Lloyd, compare with the long and startling array of facts proved
against Weichmann out of his own mouth? All the facts point
strongly to him as a co-conspirator.
Is there a word on record of conversation between Booth and
Mrs. Surratt? That they did converse together, we know; but if
anything treasonable had passed between them, would not the quick
ears of Weichmann have caught it, and would not he have recited it
to this court?
When Weichmann went, on Tuesday, the eleventh of April, to get
Booth's buggy, he was not asked by Mrs. Surratt to get ten
dollars. It was proffered by Booth, according to Weichmann, and
he took it. If Mrs. Surratt ever got money from Booth she paid
it back to him. It is not her character to be in anyone's debt.
There was no intimacy with Booth, as Mrs. Surratt has proved, but
only common acquaintance, and such as would warrant only occasional
calls on Booth's part, and only intimacy would have excused
Mrs. Surratt to herself in accepting such a favor, had it been made
known to her. Moreover, Miss Surratt has attested to remarks of her
brother, which prove that intimacy of Booth with his sister and
mother were not considered desirable by him.
The preceding facts are proven by statements made by Weichmann
during his first examination. But, as though the commission had not
sufficiently exposed the character of one of its chief witnesses in
the role of grand conspirator, Weichmann is recalled and further
attests to the genuineness of the following telegram:
NEW YORK, March 23d, 1865.--To WEICHMANN, Esq., 541 H St.--Tell John
telegraph number and street at once. [Signed] J. BOOTH.
What additional proof of confidential relations between Weichmann
and Booth could the court desire? If there was a conspiracy planned
and maintained among the persons named in the indictment, Weichmann
must have had entire knowledge of the same, else he had not been
admitted to that degree of knowledge to which he testifies; and in
such case, and in the alleged case of Mrs. Surratt's complicity,
Weichmann must have known the same by circumstances strong enough to
exclude doubt, and in comparison with which all present facts of
accusation would sink into insignificance.
We proceed to the notice and review of the second chief witness of
the prosecution against Mrs. Surratt, John M. Lloyd. He testifies
to the fact of a meeting with Mrs. Surratt at Uniontown on the
eleventh of April, 1865, and to a conversation having occurred
between Mrs. Surratt and himself in regard to which he states: "I am
quite positive she asked me about the 'shooting irons'; I am quite
positive about that, but not altogether positive. I think she named
shooting irons, or something to call my attention to those things,
for I had almost forgotten about their being there." Question.--
"Was her question to you first, whether they were there, or what was
it?" Answer.--"Really, I cannot recollect the first question she
put to me--I could not do it to save my life." The question was
asked Lloyd, During this conversation, was the word 'carbine'
mentioned? He answered, "No. She finally came out (but I cannot be
determined about it, that she said shooting irons), and asked me in
relation to them." The question was then asked, "Can you swear on
your oath, that Mrs. Surratt mentioned the words 'shooting irons'
to you at all?" A.--"I am very positive she did." Q. __ "Are you
certain?" A.--"I am very positive that she named shooting irons
on both occasions. Not so positive as to the first as I am about
the last."
Here comes in the plea of "reasonable doubt." If the witness himself
is not absolutely positive as to what occurred, and as to the
conversation that took place, how can the jury assume to act upon it
as they would upon a matter personally concerning themselves?
On this occasion of Mrs. Surratt's visit to Uniontown, three days
before the assassination, where she met Lloyd, and where this
conversation occurred between them, at a time when Lloyd was, by
presumption, sober and not intoxicated, he declares definitely
before the commission that he is unable to recollect the
conversation, or parts of it, with distinctness. But on the
fourteenth of April, and at a time when, as testified by his
sister-in-law, he was more than ordinarily affected by intoxicating
drink,--and Captain Gwynn, James Lusby, Knott, the barkeeper, and
others, corroborate the testimony as to his absolute inebriation--
he attests that he positively remembers that Mrs. Surratt said to
him, "'Mr. Lloyd, I want you to have those shooting irons
ready. That a person would call for them.' That was the language
she made use of, and she gave me this other thing to give to whoever
called."
In connection with the fact that Lloyd cannot swear positively that
Mrs. Surratt mentioned "shooting irons" to him at Uniontown, bear
in mind the fact that Weichmann sat in the buggy on the same seat
with Mrs. Surratt, and he swears that he heard nothing about
"shooting irons." Would not the quick ears of Weichmann have heard
the remark had it been made?
The gentlemen of the commission will please recollect that these
statements were rendered by a man addicted to excessive use of
intoxicating liquors; that he was even inordinately drunk at the
time referred to; that he had voluntarily complicated himself in the
concealment of the arms by John H. Surratt and his friends; that he
was in a state of maudlin terror when arrested and when forced to
confess; that for two days he maintained denial of all knowledge
that Booth and Herold had been at his house; and that at last, and
in the condition referred to, he was coerced by threats to confess,
and into a weak and common effort to exculpate himself by the
accusation of another and by statements of conversation already
cited. Notwithstanding his utter denial of all knowledge of Booth
and Herold having called at his house, it afterward appears, by his
own testimony, that immediately Herold commanded him (Lloyd) "For
God's sake, make haste and get those things," he comprehended what
"things" were indicated, without definition, and brought forth both
carbines and whisky. He testifies that John H. Surratt had told
him, when depositing the weapons in concealment in his house, that
they would soon be called for, but did not instruct him, it seems,
by whom they would be demanded.
All facts connecting Lloyd with the case tend to his implication and
guilt, and to prove that he adopted the _dernier_ _ressort_ of guilt--
accusation and inculpation of another. In case Lloyd were innocent
and Mrs. Surratt the guilty coadjutrix and messenger of the
conspirators, would not Lloyd have been able to cite so many open
and significant remarks and acts of Mrs. Surratt that he would not
have been obliged to recall, in all perversion and weakness of
uncertainty, deeds and speech so common and unmeaning as his
testimony includes?
It is upon these considerations that we feel ourselves safe and
reasonable in the position that there are facts and circumstances,
both external and internal, connected with the testimony of
Weichmann and Lloyd, which, if they do not destroy, do certainly
greatly shake their credibility, and which, under the rule that will
give Mrs. Surratt the benefit of all reasonable doubts, seem to
forbid that she should be convicted upon the unsupported evidence of
these two witnesses. But even admitting the facts to be proven as
above recited, it remains to be seen where is the guilty knowledge
of the contemplated assassination; and this brings us to the inquiry
whether these facts are not explainable so as to exclude guilt.
From one of the most respected of legal authorities the following is
taken:--
"Whenever, therefore, the evidence leaves it indifferent which of
several hypotheses is true, or merely establishes some finite
probability in favor of one hypothesis rather than another, such
evidence cannot amount to proof. The maxim of the law is that it is
better that ninety-nine offenders should escape than that one
innocent man should be condemned." (Starkie on Evidence.)
The acts of Mrs. Surratt must have been accompanied with criminal
intent in order to make them criminal. If any one supposes that any
such intent existed, the supposition comes alone from inference. If
disloyal acts and constant disloyal practices, if overt and open
action against the government, on her part, had been shown down to
the day of the murder of the President, it would do something toward
establishing the inference of criminal intent. On the other hand,
just the reverse is shown. The remarks here of the learned and
honorable judge advocate are peculiarly appropriate to this branch
of the discussion, and, with his authority, we waive all others.
"If the court please, I will make a single remark. I think the
testimony in this case has proved, what I believe history
sufficiently attests, how kindred to each other are the crimes of
treason against a nation and the assassination of its chief
magistrate. As I think of those crimes, the one seems to be, if not
the necessary consequence, certainly a logical sequence from the
other. The murder of the President of the United States, as alleged
and shown, was preeminently a political assassination. Disloyalty to
the government was its sole, its only inspiration. When, therefore,
we shall show, on the part of the accused, acts of intense
disloyalty, bearing arms in the field against that government, we
show, with him, the presence of an animus toward the government
which relieves this accusation of much, if not all, of its
improbability. And this course of proof is constantly resorted to in
criminal courts. I do not regard it as in the slightest degree a
departure from the usages of the profession in the administration of
public justice. The purpose is to show that the prisoner, in his
mind and course of life, was prepared for the commission of this
crime: that the tendencies of his life, as evidenced by open and
overt acts, lead and point to this crime, if not as a necessary,
certainly as a most probable, result, and it is with that view, and
that only, that the testimony is offered."
Is there anything in Mrs. Surratt's mind and course of life to show
that she was prepared for the commission of this crime? The
business transaction by Mrs. Surratt at Surrattsville, on the
fourteenth, clearly discloses her only purpose in making this visit.
Calvert's letters, the package of papers relating to the estate, the
business with Nothe, would be sufficiently clear to most minds, when
added to the fact that the other unknown package had been handed to
Mrs, Offutt; that, while at Surrattsville, she made an inquiry for,
or an allusion to, Mr. Lloyd, and was ready to return to Washington
when Lloyd drove up to the house. Does not this open wide the door
for the admission of the plea of "reasonable doubt"? Had she really
been engaged in assisting in the great crime, which makes an epoch
in our country's history, her only object and most anxious wish
would have been to see Lloyd. It was no ruse to transact important
business there to cover up what the uncharitable would call the real
business. Calvert's letter was received by her on the forenoon of
the fourteenth, and long before she saw Booth that day, or even
before Booth knew that the President would be at the theatre that
night, Mrs. Surratt had disclosed her intention to go to
Surrattsville, and had she been one moment earlier in her start she
would not have seen Booth at all. All these things furnish powerful
presumptions in favor of the theory that, if she delivered the
message at all, it was done innocently.
In regard to the nonrecognition of Payne, the third fact adduced by
the prosecution against Mrs. Surratt, we incline to the opinion
that, to all minds not forejudging, the testimony of Miss Anna
E. Surratt, and various friends and servants of Mrs. Surratt,
relative to physical causes, might fully explain and account for
such ocular remissness and failure. In times and on occasions of
casual meeting of intimate acquaintances on the street, and of
common need for domestic uses, the eyesight of Mrs. Surratt had
proved treacherous and failing. How much more liable to fail her
was her imperfect vision on an occasion of excitement and anxiety,
like the night of her arrest and the disturbance of her household by
military officers, and when the person with whom she was confronted
was transfigured by a disguise which varied from the one in which
she had previously met him, with all the wide difference between a
Baptist parson and an earth-soiled, uncouthly-dressed digger of
gutters! Anna E. Surratt, Emma Offutt, Anna Ward, Elize Holohan,
Honora Fitzpatrick, and a servant, attest to all the visual
incapacity of Mrs. Surratt, and the annoyance she experienced
therefrom in passing friends without recognition in the daytime, and
from inability to sew or read even on a dark day, as well as at
night. The priests of her church, and gentlemen who have been
friendly and neighborhood acquaintances of Mrs. Surratt for many
years, bear witness to her untarnished name, to her discreet and
Christian character, to the absence of all imputation of disloyalty,
to her character for patriotism. Friends and servants attest to her
voluntary and gratuitous beneficence to our soldiers stationed
near her; and, "in charges for high treason, it is pertinent to
inquire into the humanity of the prisoner toward those representing
the government," is the maxim of the law; and, in addition, we
invite your attention to the singular fact that of the two officers
who bore testimony in this matter, one asserts that the hall wherein
Payne sat was illuminated with a full head of gas; the other, that
the gaslight was purposely dimmed. The uncertainty of the witness
who gave the testimony relative to the coat of Payne may also be
called to your notice.
Should not this valuable testimony of loyal and moral character
shield a woman from the ready belief, on the part of judges who
judge her worthiness in every way, that during the few moments Booth
detained Mrs. Surratt from her carriage, already waiting, when he
approached and entered the house, she became so converted to
diabolical evil as to hail with ready assistance his terrible plot,
which must have been framed (if it were complete in his intent at
that hour, half-past two o'clock), since the hour of eleven that
day?
If any part of Lloyd's statements is true, and Mrs. Surratt did
verily bear to his or Mrs. Offutt's hands the field glass, enveloped
in paper, by the evidence itself we may believe she knew not the
nature of the contents of the package; and had she known, what evil
could she or any other have attached to a commission of so common a
nature? No evidence of individual or personal intimacy with Booth
has been adduced against Mrs. Surratt; no long and apparently
confidential interviews; no indications of a private comprehension
mutual between them; only the natural and not frequent custom on the
part of Booth--as any other associate of her son might and
doubtless did do--of inquiring through the mother, whom he would
request to see, of the son, who, he would learn, was absent from
home. No one has been found who could declare any appearance of the
nursing or mysteriously discussing of anything like conspiracy
within the walls of Mrs. Surratt's house. Even if the son of
Mrs. Surratt, from the significancies of associations, is to be
classed with the conspirators, if such a body existed, it is
monstrous to suppose that the son would weave a net of circumstantial
evidences around the dwelling of his widowed mother, were he never
so reckless and sin-determined; and that they (the mother and the
son) joined hands in such dreadful pact, is a thought more monstrous
still!
A mother and son associate in crime, and such a crime as this, which
half of the civilized world never saw matched in all its dreadful
bearings! Our judgments can have hardly recovered their unprejudiced
poise since the shock of the late horror, if we can contemplate with
credulity such a picture, conjured by the unjust spirits of
indiscriminate accusation and revenge. A crime which, in its public
magnitude, added to its private misery, would have driven even the
Atis-haunted heart of a Medici, a Borgia, or a Madame Bocarme to
wild confession before its accomplishment, and daunted even that
soul, of all the recorded world the most eager for novelty in
license, and most unshrinking in sin--the indurated soul of
Christina of Sweden; such a crime the profoundest plotters within
padded walls would scarcely dare whisper; the words forming the
expression of which, spoken aloud in the upper air, would convert
all listening boughs to aspens, and all glad sounds of nature to
shuddering wails. And this made known, even surmised, to a woman a
_materfamilias_ the good genius, the _placens_ _uxor_ of a home where
children had gathered all the influences of purity and the
reminiscences of innocence, where religion watched, and the Church
was minister and teacher!
Who--were circumstantial evidence strong and conclusive, such as
only time and the slow-weaving fates could elucidate and deny--who
will believe, when the mists of uncertainty which cloud the present
shall have dissolved, that a woman born and bred in respectability
and competence--a Christian mother, and a citizen who never
offended the laws of civil propriety; whose unfailing attention to
the most sacred duties of life has won for her the name of "a proper
Christian matron"; whose heart was ever warmed by charity; whose
door unbarred to the poor; and whose Penates had never cause to veil
their faces--who will believe that she could so suddenly and so
fully have learned the intricate arts of sin? A daughter of the
South, her life associations confirming her natal predilections, her
individual preferences inclined, without logic or question, to the
Southern people, but with no consciousness nor intent of disloyalty
to her government, and causing no exclusion from her friendship and
active favors of the people of the loyal North, nor repugnance in
the distribution among our Union soldiery of all needed comforts,
and on all occasions.
A strong but guileless-hearted woman, her maternal solicitude would
have been the first denouncer, even the abrupt betrayer of a plotted
crime in which one companion of her son could have been implicated,
had cognizance of such reached her. Her days would have been
agonized, and her nights sleepless, till she might have exposed and
counteracted that spirit of defiant hate which watched its moment of
vantage to wreak an immortal wrong--till she might have sought the
intercession and absolution of the Church, her refuge, in behalf of
those she loved. The brains which were bold and crafty and couchant
enough to dare the world's opprobrium in the conception of a scheme
which held as naught the lives of men in highest places, would never
have imparted it to the intelligence, nor sought the aid nor
sympathy, of any living woman who had not, like Lady Macbeth,
"unsexed herself"--not though she were wise and discreet as Maria
Theresa or the Castilian Isabella. This woman knew it not. This
woman, who, on the morning preceding that blackest day in our
country's annals, knelt in the performance of her most sincere and
sacred duty at the confessional, and received the mystic rite of the
Eucharist, knew it not. Not only would she have rejected it with
horror, but such a proposition, presented by the guest who had sat
at her hearth as the friend and convive of the son upon whose arm
and integrity her widowed womanhood relied for solace and
protection, would have roused her maternal wits to some sure cunning
which would have contravened the crime and sheltered her son from
the evil influences and miserable results of such companionship.
The mothers of Charles IX. and of Nero could harbor underneath their
terrible smiles schemes for the violent and unshriven deaths, or the
moral vitiation and decadence which would painfully and gradually
remove lives sprung from their own, were they obstacles to their
demoniac ambition. But they wrought their awful romances of crime in
lands where the sun of supreme civilization, through a gorgeous
evening of Sybaritic luxury, was sinking, with red tints of
revolution, into the night of anarchy and national caducity. In our
own young nation, strong in its morality, energy, freedom, and
simplicity, assassination can never be indigenous. Even among the
desperadoes and imported lazzaroni of our largest cities, it is
comparatively an infrequent cause of fear.
The daughters of women to whom, in their yet preserved abodes, the
noble mothers who adorned the days of our early independence are
vividly remembered realities and not haunting shades--the
descendants of earnest seekers for liberty, civil and religious, of
rare races, grown great in heroic endurance, in purity which comes
of trial borne, and in hope born of conscious right, whom the wheels
of fortune sent hither to transmit such virtues--the descendants
of these have no heart, no ear for the diabolisms born in hotbeds of
tyranny and intolerance. No descendant of these--no woman of this
temperate land--could have seen, much less joined, her son,
descending the sanguinary and irrepassable ways of treason and
murder to an ignominious death, or an expatriated and attainted
life, worse than the punishing wheel and bloody pool of the poets'
hell.
In our country, where reason and moderation so easily quench the
fires of insane hate, and where the vendetta is so easily overcome
by the sublime grace of forgiveness, no woman could have been found
so desperate as to sacrifice all spiritual, temporal, and social
good, self, offspring, fame, honor, and all the desiderata of life,
and time, and immortality, to the commission, or even countenance,
of such a deed of horror, as we have been compelled to contemplate
during the two months past.
In a Christian land, where all records and results of the world's
intellectual, civil, and moral advancement mold the human heart and
mind to highest impulses, the theory of old Helvetius is more
probable than desirable.
The natures of all born in equal station are not so widely varied as
to present extremes of vice and goodness, but by the effects of rarest
and severest experience. Beautiful fairies and terrible gnomes do not
stand by each infant's cradle, sowing the nascent mind with tenderest
graces or vilest errors. The slow attrition of vicious associations
and law-defying indulgences, or the sudden impetus of some terribly
multiplied and social disaster, must have worn away the susceptibility
of conscience and self-respect, or dashed the mind from the height of
these down to the depths of despair and recklessness, before one of
ordinary life could take counsel with violence and crime. In no such
manner was the life of our client marked. It was the parallel of
nearly all the competent masses. Surrounded by the scenes of her
earliest recollections, independent in her condition she was satisfied
with the _mundus_ of her daily pursuits, and the maintenance of her own
and children's status in society and her Church.
Remember your wives, mothers, sisters, and gentle friends whose
graces, purity, and careful affection, ornament and cherish and
strengthen your lives. Not widely different from their natures and
spheres have been the nature and sphere of the woman who sits in the
prisoner's dock to-day, mourning with the heart of Alcestis her
children and her lot; by whose desolated hearthstone a solitary
daughter wastes her uncomforted life away in tears and prayers and
vigils for the dawn of hope; and this wretchedness and unpitied
despair have closed like a shadow around one of earth's common
pictures of domestic peace and social comfort, destroyed by the one
sole cause--suspicion fastened and fed upon the facts of
acquaintance and mere fortuitous intercourse with that man in whose
name so many miseries gather, the assassin of the President.
Since the days when Christian teachings first elevated woman to her
present free, refined, and refining position, man's power and
honoring regard have been the palladium of her sex.
Let no stain of injustice, eager for a sacrifice to revenge, rest
upon the reputation of the men of our country and time!
This woman, who, widowed of her natural protectors, who, in
helplessness and painfully severe imprisonment, in sickness and in
grief ineffable, sues for mercy and justice from your hands, may
leave a legacy of blessings, sweet as fruition-hastening showers,
for those you love and care for, in return for the happiness of fame
and home restored, though life be abbreviated and darkened through
this world by the miseries of this unmerited and woeful trial. But
long and chilling is the shade which just retribution, slow creeping
on, _ped_ _claudo_, casts around the fate of him whose heart is
merciless to his fellows bowed low in misfortune.