FATHER WALTER.
From the time of the trial of the conspirators by a military
commission, and of the execution of Mrs. Surratt by the order of
President Johnson, Father Walter, a secular priest of Washington
City, has made himself conspicuous by his efforts to pervert public
opinion on the result of the trial of the conspirators by the
Commission. Whilst rebel lawyers, editors, and politicians have boldly
assailed the lawfulness of the Commission, and have denounced it as
an unconstitutional tribunal, and have characterized the trial as a
"Star Chamber" trial, as a contrivance for taking human life under a
mockery of a judicial procedure, but with no purpose of securing the
ends of justice, Father Walter and other priests whose sympathies were
with the Southern Confederacy have earnestly seconded their efforts by
the invention and circulation of cunningly devised falsehoods. Father
Walter has every now and then bobbed up with the assertion of Mrs.
Surratt's entire innocence. Knowing that not one in a thousand of our
people has ever read the testimony on which she was convicted, he feels
that he can boldly assert that "there was not evidence enough against
her to hang a cat." He has also become bold enough to state as facts
what the evidence shows to be falsehoods. As an example of this: in an
article in the "Catholic Review" he asserts in regard to Mrs. Surratt's
trip to Surrattsville on the afternoon of the day of the assassination
that she had ordered her carriage for the trip, which was purely on
private business, on the forenoon of that day, and before it was known
that the President would go to the theatre. Why, if this was true, was
it not proven in her defense? There was no such testimony produced. The
testimony on this point against her was that shortly after two o'clock
on that afternoon she went up stairs to Wiechmann's room, tapped at
the door, and when it was opened she said to Mr. Wiechmann, "I have
just received a letter from Mr. Calvert that makes it necessary for me
to go to Surrattsville to-day and see Mr. Nothey. Would you be so good
as to get a conveyance and drive me down?" Upon Wiechmann's consenting
to do so, she handed him a ten dollar bill with which to procure a
conveyance. Surely there is no evidence here that a carriage had been
ordered already, as Wiechmann was left free to procure a conveyance
where he might see fit.
Wiechmann went down stairs, and as he opened the front door he saw John
Wilkes Booth, who was in the act, as it were, of pulling the front door
bell. Booth entered the house.
When young Wiechmann returned, after having procured the buggy, he went
up to his own room after some necessary articles of clothing, and as he
again descended the stairs and passed by the parlor door he observed
that Booth was in the parlor conversing with Mrs. Surratt. In a little
while Booth came down to the front door steps, and waved his hand in
token of adieu to Wiechmann, who was standing at the curb.
When Mrs. Surratt came and was in the act of getting into the buggy,
she remembered that she had forgotten something, and said, "Wait a
moment, until I go and get those things of Mr. Booth's." She returned
from the parlor with a package which was done up in brown paper, the
contents of which the witness did not see, but which was afterwards
shown to have been the field-glass which Booth carried with him in his
flight. This glass Booth sent to Lloyd by Mrs. Surratt, with a message
to have it, with the two carbines and two bottles of whiskey, where
they would be handy, as they would be called for that night. Lloyd
swore that this was the message delivered to him by Mrs. Surratt in the
private interview she sought with him in his back yard on his return
home that evening, and that in accordance with these instructions he
delivered them to Booth and Herold about midnight that night.[26]
Now let us see about the private business on which she professed to
be going, and on which she claimed on her trial that she went. The
letter from Mr. Calvert was a demand for money that she owed him, and
was written at Bladensburg on the 12th of April. On the afternoon of
the 14th she presented herself to Wiechmann and claimed that she had
just received it. It would seem very strange that it took this letter
two days to reach her at a distance of only six miles. She claimed
that she must go and see Mr. Nothey, who owed her, and get money
from him to pay her debt to Mr. Calvert. Mr. Nothey lived five miles
below Surrattsville, and as she claimed that she had just received
Mr. Calvert's letter it was impossible that she could have made any
arrangement with Nothey to meet her at Surrattsville that day. She did
not meet him there, neither did she go to his house to see him. When
she arrived at Surrattsville she took Wiechmann into the parlor at the
hotel and asked him to write a letter for her to Mr. Nothey, which he
did at her dictation; and this she sent to Mr. Nothey by a Mr. Bennett
Gwinn, a neighbor of his, who happened to be passing down.
Now, in view of all these facts, can any one see how her private
business was in any way subserved by her trip to Surrattsville on
that afternoon? She could as easily have written to Mr. Nothey from
Washington as from Surrattsville. A postage stamp, a sheet of paper and
an envelope would have saved her six dollars, the cost of her trip, and
would have served her business just as well. The truth is that this
talk of going on private business of her own was all a fabrication,
first to deceive Mr. Wiechmann as to the object of her trip, and then
to be used, should it become necessary, in her defense. We have already
seen what her real business was.
Father Walter falsifies again in the article referred to in saying that
she did not see Lloyd on that afternoon, but delivered the things to
his sister-in-law, Mrs. Offutt.[27] Both Lloyd and his sister-in-law
testified to her interview with him in his back yard, and Lloyd
testified as to what passed between them on that occasion.
It would seem that Father Walter is going on the theory that we have
gotten so far past the time, and that the testimony has been so far
forgotten that he can foist upon the public any statement that he may
please to fabricate. We would kindly remind the reverend Father that
no ultimate gain can be derived from an effort to suppress the truth.
Neither can it be obliterated by our prejudices. We may misconstrue
facts, but we cannot wipe them out by a mere stroke of the pen; and a
fact once made can never be recalled. But I am not yet done with this
Father. He prefaces his article in the "Review" with the statement that
he heard Mrs. Surratt's last confession, and that whilst his priestly
vows do not permit him to reveal the secrets of the confessional,
yet from knowledge in his possession he is prepared to assert her
entire innocence of this most atrocious crime. He means that we shall
understand that were he at liberty to give her last confession to
the world he could say that she then and there asserted her entire
innocence.
Will Father Walter deny that under the teachings of the Roman Catholic
Church he had an absolute right, with her consent, to make her
confession public on this point? Nay more, could not Mrs. Surratt have
compelled him to do so in vindication of her own good name, and of the
honor of the church of which she was a member? And having this consent,
was it not his most solemn duty to proclaim her confessed innocence in
every public way, through the press, and even from the very steps of
the gallows?
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?