THE DEATH WARRANT AND THE EXECUTION.
From Friday afternoon, the thirtieth of June, through Saturday, Sunday,
Monday and Tuesday, the first four days of July, the record of the
findings and sentences remained under the seal of sworn secrecy in the
custody of the Judge-Advocate-General. To consummate the work of the
Commission, the signature of the President to a warrant approving its
action and directing the execution of its judgment was necessary. But,
during this interval, as it was given out from the White House, President
Johnson was too ill to attend to public business. In the meantime, the
city, and even the whole country to its very borders, were agitated by the
question: What is to be the fate of Mrs. Surratt? The doom of the male
culprits was for the moment forgotten in the intense anxiety over hers.
Despite the seven-fold seal of secrecy which covered the proceedings of
the secret sessions, whispers of a recommendation of mercy filled the air.
In the War Department, the main source of anxiety, at the same time, must
have been this superfluous paper--the distressing outcome of an
unsuspected sentimental weakness in five of our chosen men. After the
final adjournment of the Commission, the unobtrusive, unaddressed
half-sheet had been fastened to the record of the sentences by the same
narrow yellow silk ribbon which held its own sheets together, and to which
it now dangled as a last leaf, or back. A safety-valve to the misplaced
chivalry of the Court--it had served its purpose, and was henceforth
useless. That it should now turn itself into an implement of evil,
minister to the cause of rebellion and assassination, cause "Our Own Andy"
to flinch at last and thus the she-fiend of the Bureau escape her doom! It
would be treason to suffer it. Upon that resolve, the Triumvirate of
Stanton, Holt and Bingham had once for all determined. Indestructible,
inconcealable, omnipotent, indeed, must that paper be, which could thwart
their united purpose.
At length, on the morning of Wednesday, the fifth, Preston King, who, in
those days, was a favored guest at the White House, announced in the
Judge-Advocate's office that the President was so much better as to be
able to sit up; and at a later hour in the day, General Holt, in pursuance
of an appointment, started on his solemn errand. The volumes of testimony
taken before the Commission by official stenographers, daily reports of
which had been furnished, he, of course, did not carry with him. In the
interview that was to come, there would be no time and no inclination to
read over bulky rolls of examinations and cross-examinations of witnesses.
From aught that appears, the President was not expected to read over the
evidence, nor was it customary in such cases. It may have been the duty of
the Secretary of War or the Attorney-General to scrutinize the testimony,
either from day to day or at the close of the trial. But all that the
President was supposed to know about the merits of the case appears to
have been derived from what any of his Cabinet saw fit to inform him, from
what he himself casually and unofficially read, but, especially and
principally, from what the Judge-Advocate was now coming to tell him. As
to the guilt of the accused, and especially of Mrs. Surratt, his mind had
long ago been made up for him by his imperious War Minister, from whose
despotic sway he had not as yet recovered energy enough to free himself.
He was still in that brief introductory period of his Presidency which may
be called his Stanton Apprenticeship; still eager "to make treason
odious;" full of threatenings to hang Davis and other Southern leaders. He
had not yet awakened from the state of semi-stupefaction into which his
sudden and awful elevation seems to have thrown him; and, in this state,
he must have been extremely averse to dwelling on any of the circumstances
of the assassination to which he owed his high place. The idea of clemency
to any one of the band of assassins, male or female, which his
War-Secretary's court might convict, would have been intolerable to his
imagination and sickening to his sense of security. What Andrew Johnson,
at this moment, wanted was to push away from his mind all thoughts of the
tragic end of his predecessor, and to allow retributive vengeance to take
the most summary course with the least possible knowledge and trouble to
himself. And this mood of the presidential mind was well known to the
Judge-Advocate-General, as he entered the President's room. He brought
with him so much of the record of the proceedings of the Commission as was
necessary to the accomplishment of his errand--viz.: the record of the
findings and sentences, which the President was to endorse. This document
consisted of a few sheets of legal-cap paper fastened together at the top,
written on both sides in the fashion of legal papers, _i. e._, beginning
at the top of the first page and, on reaching the bottom, turning up the
paper and writing on the back from the bottom to top. It was a document
complete in itself, the written record ending on the first page of the
last half-sheet--thus leaving blank the remainder of that page and the
whole of the obverse side; ample room for the death-warrant. To this
record, but forming no part of it, the Petition, as we have said, had been
affixed, but in such a manner as to be easily separable without
mutilation. He must also have brought with him his official report of the
trial--styled "The formal brief review of the case," which was
subsequently appended to the regular Report of the Judge-Advocate-General
to the Secretary of War and transmitted to the Congress in December
following--because it is addressed "To the President," is dated "_July 5,
1865_," and is signed "J. Holt." It recites the verdicts and sentences;
justifies its brevity by referring to "the full and exhaustive" argument
of Judge Bingham; certifies to the regularity and fairness of the
proceedings; and recommends the execution of the sentences; _but it makes
no mention of the Petition, or any "suggestion" of mercy_.
The Judge-Advocate could have anticipated no difficulty in obtaining the
approval of the President, conscious as he was that the grounds of such
approval were to be furnished to the President by himself. The approval
being had, the fixing of the day of execution could cause no disagreement.
His only possible source of embarrassment was the petition for
commutation. But it would be strange, indeed, if a few apt words could not
further emasculate the mild, hypothetical language in which his colleague,
Bingham, had seen fit to clothe that paper.
He found the President "alone," and (as he himself says) "waiting for"
him, "very pale, as if just recovered from a severe illness."
"Without delay" he "proceeded to discharge the duty which brought" him
"into his presence." What took place at this "confidential interview" (as
Holt calls it) can never be precisely known; the distinguished
interlocutors having subsequently risen into unappeasable quarrel over
the presence or absence of the petition, and given contradictory versions.
Whatever the truth may be, it is evident that everything went smoothly at
the moment. The Judge-Advocate was not disappointed. No difficulty was
encountered. What was done was done quickly and at once. The record may
have been read over; but this was hardly necessary, as the bare mention of
the several sentences would convey a correct summary of its contents. He
may have read the "brief review of the case" he had prepared. As Judge
Holt relates, he said to the President, "frankly, as it was his official
duty to do," that in his judgment "the proceedings of the Court were
regular, and its findings and sentences justified by the evidence, and
that the sentences should be enforced." And this was what he had written
in his "Brief Review." What more could the successor of the murdered
Lincoln want? His approval must have been spontaneous and immediate. As
Holt says, "at that time Mr. Johnson needed no urging." Mention may have
been made of the curious weakness infecting some members of "our Court"
towards the wicked woman, who, as Johnson seems then to have thought, "had
kept the nest that hatched the egg;" but only to be scouted by both
Judge-Advocate and President as most reprehensible and actually
_disloyal_.
Their unanimity over the salutary effect of the hanging of this one woman
on the female rebels was more than fraternal. And it is probable that no
more explicit mention of an actual petition was made by Judge Holt in his
conversation with the President than was made in his written report to the
President, dated the same day, and which he had with him at the time.
The day of execution was fixed upon with the same alacrity. "Make it as
soon as possible, so that the disagreeable business may be over; say the
day after to-morrow--Friday, the seventh." And, thereupon, everything
being agreed upon, Judge Holt turns over the papers to the last page of
the record and spreads it upon the table. Beginning, a few lines below the
signature of "D. Hunter, President" which closes the record, with the
date,
"Executive Mansion, July 5th, 1865,"
"with his own hand" he writes out the death warrant. As this includes the
approval of the sentences, the appointment of the day and hour of
execution, and the designation of the place of confinement of those
condemned to imprisonment, the bottom of the page is reached before he
completes his task. If he had turned up the page and continued his writing
on the obverse side from the bottom down, as all the foregoing had been
written, then the petition of mercy, unaddressed as it was, would have
been, if still attached, directly beneath the eye of the President as he
signed the death-warrant. But, as now appears from the record itself, the
careful Judge-Advocate did not turn up the page from the bottom. On the
contrary, reverting to the layman's way of writing papers, he whisks the
whole record over, and continues the writing of the death-warrant on the
back of the last half-sheet of the record _from the top to the bottom_--by
this change of method, either throwing the petition under the leaves of
the record, or, if disengaged, leaving it _upside down_.
When he has thus finished his draft he shoves it over to the President.
The President signs it with tremulous hand. The "confidential interview"
is at an end; and the Judge-Advocate, taking up the papers, hurries out
and over to the Department of War.
At this moment the petition disappears from view. We hear no more of it.
Thrust as a convenient succedaneum into the hands of the majority of the
Commission, ignored, suppressed or slurred over when before the President,
it had served its pitiful purpose. Neither the Adjutant-General nor any of
his clerks, appear to have noticed it, although the record must have been
copied more than once in his office. It seems to have sunk suddenly into
oblivion; its very existence became the subject of dispute. It was omitted
from the authorized published proceedings of the Commission. It was
omitted from the annual report of the Judge-Advocate. The disloyal paper
must have been laid alongside the suppressed "Diary," there to repose
unseen until the Impeachment of Johnson and the Trial of Surratt summoned
them together into the light of day.
* * * * *
On the morning of Thursday, the sixth day of July, the six days ominous
silence of the War-Department is broken. An order issues from the
Adjutant-General's office which, bearing date the day before and reciting
the findings and death-sentences of the Commission and the death-warrant
of the President, commands Major-General Hancock to see execution done, on
the seventh, between the hours of ten and two.
This order was read to Mrs. Surratt at noon. She had all along been
encouraged to hope. She, herself, had never been able to realize the
possibility of a capital condemnation in her own case. And, here,
suddenly, was Death, with violence and shame, within twenty-four hours.
She sank down under the blow. In faltering accents she protested that she
had no hand in the murder of the President, and pleaded for a few days
more time to prepare for death. During the remainder of the day and
throughout the night, she was so prostrated by physical weakness and
mental derangement as to necessitate medical aid to keep her alive and
sane. The cries of her daughter could be heard in the still darkness
outside the prison. At five o'clock in the morning, the mother (with the
three condemned men), was removed to a solitary cell on the first floor,
preparatory to the execution.
In the meantime, when it first became known that, by the sentence of the
Commission and the direction of the President, Mrs. Surratt was to die by
the rope on the same scaffold with Payne, Herold and Atzerodt within
twenty-four hours, a chill of despairing terror froze the blood of her
relatives and friends, a thrill of consternation swept over the body of
the citizens, and dark misgivings disturbed even the most loyal breasts. A
stream of supplicants at once set in towards the Executive Mansion--not
only friends and acquaintances of the condemned woman, but strangers,
high-placed men, and women too, who were haunted by doubts of her guilt
and could in some degree realize her agony.
But even this expiring effort of sympathy, the powers behind the President
had anticipated. Apprehensive that Andrew Johnson, at the last moment,
might yield to distressing importunities for more time, they had already
taken measures that their sick man's wish to hear nothing till all was
over should be scrupulously respected. Preston King and General James Lane
undertook to keep the door and bar all access to the President during the
dreadful interval between the promulgation of the sentence and its
execution. It was rumored that they, with a congenial crew, held high
revelry around their passive Chief in his private apartments. Be this as
it may, no supplicant--friend, acquaintance or stranger--was allowed to
gain access to the President.
The priests, who had attested upon her trial the good character, the piety
and the general worth of their parishioner, instinctively turned their
steps to the White House to beg for clemency, or, at least, a respite.
They were repulsed from its door. In ghastly mockery, they were told to go
to ---- Judge Holt.
At last, the daughter of the victim made her way to the very threshold of
the President's room. Frenzied with grief she assailed the portal with her
cries for admission to plead for her dying mother. She was denied
admittance. In the extremity of her despair she lay down upon the steps,
and, in the name of God, appealed to the President and to the wardens,
only to listen to her prayer. The grim guardians of the door held it shut
in her face.
Denied, thus, even an appeal to Executive clemency, the friends of the
poor woman, as a last most desperate resort, invoked the Constitution of
their and her country through the historic writ of Habeas Corpus. On the
morning of the day of the execution, they found a judge (Judge Wylie; all
honor to his memory!) who had the independence and courage to grant the
writ. At half-past eleven, General Hancock appeared before the Judge and
made return that by order of the President the Habeas Corpus was suspended
and therefore he did not produce the body. The order of the President
dated ten o'clock, same morning, was annexed to the return and directed
the General to proceed with the execution.
No sooner had the guarantees of the Constitution been, thus, finally set
at naught, than the cell-doors were thrown open and the prisoners summoned
to their doom. As the enfeebled widow raised her trembling limbs from off
the coarse mattress which alone separated her body from the stone floor of
her dungeon, she strove, in broken words, to assure the soldiers, who had
come to bind her arms behind her back and tie cords around her skirts
above and below the knee, of her utter, yet helpless innocence. Her
confessor, who stood by her until the last, gently pointed out to her the
uselessness of such appeals, at such a moment, and directed her hopes
towards Heaven.
Amid the tolling of the bells, sending a shudder through the silent
population of the city, and heralded by the tramp of armed men, the
death-march of the doomed woman and the doomed men begins. The still
breathing men and still breathing woman are clothed already in their
shrouds. As she totters first along the corridor, accompanied by her
priest and requiring two soldiers to hold her erect, the very extremity of
her helplessness and woe bears witness in her favor. Even the bloody
Payne, who walks next behind her, has broken through that stolid
indifference to his own fate, so remarkable as to indicate insanity, to
clear her from all complicity with the assassination. Herold and Atzerodt,
who follow, though themselves speechless with terror, seem to wave her
mute acquittal, as they stumble along into the swift-coming Darkness.
They reach the prison-yard. They mount the high scaffold. They are seated
in four chairs facing the four dangling nooses, while the death-warrant is
once more read. Their graves, already dug, are in full sight close by.
Their coffins stand by the side of the open graves. They are raised up and
pushed forward upon the two drops, Herold and Atzerodt on one, Mrs.
Surratt and Payne on the other; the half-conscious woman still supported
by the two guards. The ropes are adjusted. The hoods drawn over the face.
The signal is given. The two drops fall. Surrounded by the unpitying
soldiery, headed by the unpitying Hartranft, the woman and the men hang
writhing in the agonies of an ignominious death. When pronounced dead, the
bodies are cut down. They are laid out on the top of the coffins. A
hurried post-mortem examination is made. And, then, at four o'clock in the
afternoon, they are inclosed in the coffins and buried side by side. The
soldiers depart with flourish of trumpet and beat of drum. Silence
descends on the grounds of the old Arsenal; broken only by the pace of the
sentinel set to guard the four corpses.
The daughter may beg the stern Secretary to yield up the body of her
murdered mother, that she may place it in consecrated ground. But she will
beg in vain.
And so ended the fell tragedy. And so did brave soldiers avenge the murder
of their "beloved Commander-in-Chief." Methinks their beloved
Commander-in-Chief, could his freed spirit have found a mortal voice,
would have spurned, with indignant horror, the savage sacrifice of a
defenseless woman to appease his gentle shade.