When Booth made his escape, it is testified by Colonel Stewart, who

pursued him across the stage and out through the same door, that as he

approached it some one slammed it shut. Ritterspaugh, who was standing

behind the scenes when Booth fired the pistol and fled, saw Booth run

down the passage toward the back door, and pursued him; but Booth

drew his knife upon him and passed out, slamming the door after him.

Ritterspaugh opened it and went through, leaving it _open_ behind him,

leaving Spangler inside, and in a position from which he readily could

have reached the door. Ritterspaugh also states that very quickly

after he had passed through this door he was followed by a large man,

the first who followed him, and who was, doubtless, Colonel Stewart.

Stewart is very positive that he saw this door slammed; that he himself

was constrained to open it, and had some difficulty in opening it. He

also testifies that as he approached the door a man stood near enough

to have thrown it to with his hand, and this man, the witness believes,

was the prisoner Spangler. Ritterspaugh has sworn that he left the

door open behind him when he went out, and that he was first followed

by the large man, Colonel Stewart. Who slammed that door behind

Ritterspaugh? It was not Ritterspaugh; it could not have been Booth,

for Ritterspaugh swears that Booth was mounting his horse at the time;

and Stewart swears that Booth was upon his horse when he came out. That

it was Spangler who slammed the door after Ritterspaugh may not only

be inferred from Stewart's testimony, but it is made very clear by his

own conduct afterwards upon the return of Ritterspaugh to the stage.

The door being then open, and Ritterspaugh being asked which way Booth

went, had answered. Ritterspaugh says: "Then I came back on the stage,

where I had left Edward Spangler; he hit me on the face with his hand

and said, 'Don't say which way he went.' I asked him what he meant by

slapping me in the mouth? He said, 'For God's sake, shut up.'"

The testimony of Withers is adroitly handled to throw doubt upon these

facts. It cannot avail, for Withers says he was knocked in the scene by

Booth, and when he "come to" he got a side view of him. A man knocked

down and senseless, on "coming to" might mistake anybody by a side view

for Booth.

An attempt has been made by the defense to discredit this testimony

of Ritterspaugh, by showing his contradictory statements to Gifford,

Garlan, and Lamb, neither of whom do in fact contradict him, but

substantially sustain him. None but a guilty man would have met the

witness with a blow for stating which way the assassin had gone. A like

confession of guilt was made by Spangler when the witness Miles, the

same evening, and directly after the assassination, came to the back

door, where Spangler was standing with others, and asked Spangler who

it was that held the horse, to which Spangler replied: "Hush; don't

say anything about it." He confessed his guilt again when he denied to

Mary Anderson the fact, proved here beyond all question, that Booth had

called him when he came to that door with his horse, using the emphatic

words, "No, he did not; he did not call me." The rope comes to bear

witness against him, as did the rope which Atzerodt and Herold and John

H. Surratt had carried to Surrattsville and deposed there with the

carbines.

It is only surprising that the ingenious counsel did not attempt to

explain the deposit of the rope at Surrattsville by the same method

that he adopted in explanation of the deposit of this rope, some sixty

feet long, found in the carpet-sack of Spangler, unaccounted for save

by some evidence which tends to show that he may have carried it away

from the theatre.

It is not needful to take time in the recapitulation of the evidence,

which shows conclusively that David E. Herold was one of these

conspirators. His continued association with Booth, with Atzerodt, his

visits to Mrs. Surratt's, his attendance at the theatre with Payne,

Surratt, and Atzerodt, his connection with Atzerodt on the evening of

the murder, riding with him on the street in the direction of and near

to the theatre at the hour appointed for the work of assassination,

and his final flight and arrest, show that he, in common with all the

other parties on trial, and all the parties named upon your record not

upon trial, and combined and confederated to kill and murder in the

interests of the rebellion, as charged and specified against them.

That this conspiracy was entered into by all these parties, both

present and absent, is thus proved by the acts, meetings, declarations,

and correspondence of all the parties, beyond any doubt whatever. True

it is circumstantial evidence, but the court will remember the rule

before recited, that circumstances cannot lie; that they are held

sufficient in every court where justice is judicially administered to

establish the fact of a conspiracy. I shall take no further notice of

the remark made by the learned counsel who opens for the defense, and

which has been followed by several of his associates, that under the

Constitution it requires two witnesses to prove the overt act of high

treason, than to say, this is not a charge of high treason, but of a

treasonable conspiracy, in aid of a rebellion, with intent to kill and

murder the executive officer of the United States, and commander of

its armies, and of the murder of the President in pursuance of that

conspiracy, and with the intent laid, etc. Neither by the Constitution,

nor by the rules of the common law, is any fact connected with this

allegation required to be established by the testimony of more than one

witness. I might say, however, that every substantive averment against

each of the parties named upon this record has been established by the

testimony of more than one witness.

That the several accused did enter into this conspiracy with John

Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt to murder the officers of this

government named upon the record, in pursuance of the wishes of their

employers and instigators in Richmond and Canada, and with intent

thereby to aid the existing rebellion and subvert the Constitution and

laws of the United States, as alleged, is no longer an open question.

The intent as laid was expressly declared by Sanders in the meeting of

the conspirators at Montreal in February last, by Booth in Virginia

and New York, and by Thompson to Conover and Montgomery; but if there

were no testimony directly upon this point, the law would presume the

intent, for the reason that such was the natural and necessary tendency

and manifest design of the act itself.

The learned gentleman (Mr. Johnson) says the government has survived

the assassination of the President, and thereby would have you infer

that this conspiracy was not entered into and attempted to be executed

with the intent laid. With as much show of reason it might be said that

because the government of the United States has survived this unmatched

rebellion, it therefore results that the rebel conspirators waged war

upon the government with no purpose or intent thereby to subvert it.

By the law we have seen that, without any direct evidence of previous

combination and agreement between these parties, the conspiracy might

be established by evidence of the acts of the prisoners, or of any

others with whom they co-operated, concurring in the execution of the

common design.--_Roscoe, 416._

Was there co-operation between the several accused in the execution

of this conspiracy? That there was is as clearly established by the

testimony as is the fact that Abraham Lincoln was killed and murdered

by John Wilkes Booth. The evidence shows that all of the accused,

save Mudd and Arnold, were in Washington on the 14th of April, the

day of the assassination, together with John Wilkes Booth and John

H. Surratt; that on that day Booth had a secret interview with the

prisoner, Mary E. Surratt; that immediately thereafter she went to

Surrattsville to perform her part of the preparation necessary to the

successful execution of the conspiracy, and did make that preparation;

that John H. Surratt had arrived here from Canada, notifying the

parties that the price to be paid for this great crime had been

provided for, at least in part, by the deposit receipts of April 6th

for $180,000, procured by Thompson of the Ontario Bank, Montreal,

Canada; that he was also prepared to keep watch, or strike a blow, and

ready for the contemplated flight; that Atzerodt, on the afternoon of

that day, was seeking to obtain a horse, the better to secure his own

safety by flight, after he should have performed the task which he

had voluntarily undertaken by contract in the conspiracy--the murder

of Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of the United States; that he

did procure a horse for that purpose at Naylor's, and was seen about

nine o'clock in the evening to ride to the Kirkwood House, where

the Vice-President then was, dismount and enter. At a previous hour

Booth was in the Kirkwood House, and left his card, now in evidence,

doubtless intended to be sent to the room of the Vice-President, and

which was in these words: "Don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home?

J. Wilkes Booth." Atzerodt, when he made application at Brooks's in

the afternoon for the horse, said to Wiechmann, who was there, he was

going to ride in the country, and that "he was going to get a horse and

send for Payne." He did get a horse for Payne, as well as for himself;

for it is proven that on the 12th he was seen in Washington riding the

horse which had been procured by Booth, in company with Mudd, last

November, from Gardner. A similar horse was tied before the door of Mr.

Seward on the night of the murder, was captured after the flight of

Payne, who was seen to ride away, and which horse is now identified as

the Gardner horse. Booth also procured a horse on the same day, took

it to his stable in the rear of the theatre, where he had an interview

with Spangler, and where he concealed it. Herold, too, obtained a horse

in the afternoon, and was seen between nine and ten o'clock riding with

Atzerodt down the Avenue from the Treasury, then up Fourteenth and down

F Street, passing close by Ford's Theatre.

O'Laughlin had come to Washington the day before, had sought out his

victim (General Grant) at the house of the Secretary of War, that he

might be able with certainty to identify him, and at the very hour when

these preparations were going on was lying in wait at Rullman's on the

Avenue, keeping watch, and declaring, as he did, at about ten o'clock

P.M., when told that the fatal blow had been struck by Booth,

"I don't believe Booth did it." During the day, and the night before,

he had been visiting Booth, and doubtless encouraging him, and at that

very hour was in position, at a convenient distance, to aid and protect

him in his flight, as well as to execute his own part of the conspiracy

by inflicting death upon General Grant, who, happily, was not at the

theatre nor in the city, having left the city that day. Who doubts that

Booth, having ascertained in the course of the day that General Grant

would not be present at the theatre, O'Laughlin, who was to murder

General Grant, instead of entering the box with Booth, was detailed to

lie in wait, and watch and support him.

His declarations of his reasons for changing his lodgings here and in

Baltimore, after the murder, so ably and so ingeniously presented in

the argument of his learned counsel (Mr. Cox), avail nothing before

the blasting fact that he did change his lodgings, and declared "he

knew nothing of the affair whatever." O'Laughlin, who lurked here,

conspiring daily with Booth and Arnold for six weeks to do this murder,

declares "he knew nothing of the affair." O'Laughlin, who said he was

"in the oil business," which Booth and Surratt and Payne and Arnold

have all declared meant this conspiracy, says he "knew nothing of the

affair." O'Laughlin, to whom Booth sent the despatches of the 13th

and 27th of March--O'Laughlin, who is named in Arnold's letter as one

of the conspirators, and who searched for General Grant on Thursday

night, laid in wait for him on Friday, was defeated by that Providence

"which shapes our ends," and laid in wait to aid Booth and Payne,

declares "he knows nothing of the matter." Such a denial is as false

and inexcusable as Peter's denial of our Lord.

Mrs. Surratt had arrived at home, from the completion of her part in

the plot, about half past eight o'clock in the evening. A few moments

afterwards she was called to the parlor and there had a private

interview with some one unseen, but whose retreating footsteps were

heard by the witness Wiechmann. This was doubtless the secret and

last visit of John H. Surratt to his mother, who had instigated and

encouraged him to strike this traitorous and murderous blow against his

country.

While all these preparations were going on, Mudd was awaiting the

execution of the plot, ready to faithfully perform his part in securing

the safe escape of the murderers. Arnold was at his post at Fortress

Monroe, awaiting the meeting referred to in his letter of March 27th,

wherein he says they were not "to meet for a month or so," which month

had more than expired on the day of the murder, for his letter and the

testimony disclose that this month of suspension began to run from

about the first week in March. He stood ready with the arms which Booth

had furnished him to aid the escape of the murderers by _that route_,

and secure their communication with their employers. He had given

the assurance in that letter to Booth, that although the government

"suspicioned them," and the undertaking was "becoming complicated,"

yet "a time more propitious would arrive" for the consummation of this

conspiracy in which he "was one" with Booth, and when he would "be

better prepared to again be with him."

Such were the preparations. The horses were in readiness for the

flight; the ropes were procured, doubtless for the purpose of tying

the horses at whatever point they might be constrained to delay and to

secure their boats to their moorings in making their way across the

Potomac. The five murderous camp knives, the two carbines, the eight

revolvers, the derringer, in court and identified, all were ready for

the work of death. The part that each had played has already been in

part stated in this argument, and needs no repetition.

Booth proceeded to the theatre about nine o'clock in the evening,

at the same time that Atzerodt and Payne and Herold were riding the

streets, while Surratt, having parted with his mother at the brief

interview in her parlor, from which his retreating steps were heard,

was walking the Avenue, booted and spurred, and doubtless consulting

with O'Laughlin. When Booth reached the rear of the theatre, he called

Spangler to him (whose denial of that fact, when charged with it,

as proven by three witnesses is very significant) and received from

Spangler his pledge to help him all he could, when with Booth he

entered the theatre by the stage-door, doubtless to see that the way

was clear from the box to the rear door of the theatre, and look upon

their victim, whose exact position they could study from the stage.

After this view, Booth passes to the street in front of the theatre,

where, on the pavement with other conspirators yet unknown, among them

one described as a low-browed villain, he awaits the appointed moment.

Booth himself, impatient, enters the vestibule of the theatre from the

front and asks the time. He is referred to the clock, and returns.

Presently, as the hour of ten o'clock approached, one of his guilty

associates called the time; they wait; again, as the moments elapsed,

this conspirator upon watch called the time; again, as the appointed

hour draws nigh, he calls the time; and finally, when the fatal moment

arrives, he repeats in a louder tone, "Ten minutes past ten o'clock!"

Ten minutes past ten o'clock! The hour has come when the red right hand

of these murderous conspirators should strike, and the dreadful deed of

assassination be done.

Booth, at the appointed moment, entered the theatre, ascended to the

dress-circle, passed to the right, paused a moment, looking down,

doubtless to see if Spangler was at his post, and approached the outer

door of the close passage leading to the box occupied by the President,

pressed it open, passed in, and closed the passage door behind him.

Spangler's bar was in its place, and was readily adjusted by Booth

in the mortise, and pressed against the inner side of the door, so

that he was secure from interruption from without. He passes on to

the next door, immediately behind the President, and there stopping,

looks through the aperture in the door into the President's box, and

deliberately observes the precise position of his victim, seated in

the chair which had been prepared by the conspirators as the altar

for the sacrifice, looking calmly and quietly down upon the glad and

grateful people whom by his fidelity he had saved from the peril which

had threatened the destruction of their government, and all they held

dear this side of the grave, and whom he had come upon invitation to

greet with his presence, with the words still lingering upon his lips

which he had uttered with uncovered head and uplifted hand before God

and his country, when on the 4th of last March he took again the oath

to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, declaring that

he entered upon the duties of his great office "with malice toward

none--with charity for all." In a moment more, strengthened by the

knowledge that his co-conspirators were all at their posts, seven at

least of them present in the city, two of them, Mudd and Arnold, at

their appointed places, watching for his coming, this hired assassin

moves stealthily through the door, the fastenings of which had been

removed to facilitate his entrance, fires upon his victim, and the

martyr spirit of Abraham Lincoln ascends to God.

"Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further."

At the same hour, when these accused and their co-conspirators in

Richmond and Canada, by the hand of John Wilkes Booth, inflicted this

mortal wound which deprived the republic of its defender, and filled

this land from ocean to ocean with a strange, great sorrow, Payne, a

very demon in human form, with the words of falsehood upon his lips,

that he was the bearer of a message from the physician of the venerable

Secretary of State, sweeps by his servant, encounters his son, who

protests that the assassin shall not disturb his father, prostrate on

a bed of sickness, and receives for answer the assassin's blow from

the revolver in his hand, repeated again and again, rushes into the

room, is encountered by Major Seward, inflicts wound after wound upon

him with his murderous knife, is encountered by Hansell and Robinson,

each of whom he also wounds, springs upon the defenseless and feeble

Secretary of State, stabs first on one side of his throat, then on the

other, again in the face, and is only prevented from literally hacking

out his life by the persistence and courage of the attendant Robinson.

He turns to flee, and, his giant arm and murderous hand for a moment

paralyzed by the consciousness of guilt, he drops his weapons of death,

one in the house, the other at the door, where they were taken up, and

are here now to bear witness against him. He attempts escape on the

horse which Booth and Mudd had procured of Gardner, with what success

has already been stated.

Atzerodt, near midnight, returns to the stable of Naylor the horse

which he had procured for this work of murder, having been interrupted

in the execution of the part assigned him at the Kirkwood House by the

timely coming of citizens to the defense of the Vice-President, and

creeps into the Pennsylvania House at two o'clock in the morning with

another of the conspirators, yet unknown. There he remained until about

five o'clock, when he left, found his way to Georgetown, pawned one of

his revolvers, now in court, and fled northward into Maryland.

He is traced to Montgomery County, to the house of Mr. Metz, on the

Sunday succeeding the murder, where, as is proved by the testimony of

three witnesses, he said that if the man that was to follow General

Grant _had_ followed him, it was likely that Grant was shot. To one of

these witnesses (Mr. Layman) he said he did not think Grant had been

killed; or if he had been killed he was killed by a man who got on the

cars at the same time that Grant did; thus disclosing most clearly

that one of his co-conspirators was assigned the task of killing and

murdering General Grant, and that Atzerodt knew that General Grant

had left the city of Washington, a fact which is not disputed, on the

Friday evening of the murder, by the evening train. Thus this intended

victim of the conspiracy escaped, for that night, the knives and

revolvers of Atzerodt and O'Laughlin and Payne and Herold and Booth and

John H. Surratt and, perchance, Harper and Caldwell, and twenty others,

who were then here lying in wait for his life.

In the mean time Booth and Herold, taking the route before agreed

upon, make directly after the assassination for the Anacostia bridge.

Booth crosses first, gives his name, passes the guard, and is speedily

followed by Herold. They make their way directly to Surrattsville,

where Herold calls to Lloyd, "Bring out those things," showing that

there had been communication between them and Mrs. Surratt after her

return. Both the carbines being in readiness, according to Mary E.

Surratt's directions, both were brought out. They took but one. Booth

declined to carry the other, saying that his limb was broken. They

then declared that they had murdered the President and the Secretary

of State. They then make their way directly to the house of the

prisoner Mudd, assured of safety and security. They arrived early in

the morning before day, and no man knows at what hour they left. Herold

rode towards Bryantown with Mudd about three o'clock that afternoon,

in the vicinity of which place he parted with him, remaining in the

swamp, and was afterwards seen returning the same afternoon in the

direction of Mudd's house, about which time, a little before sundown,

Mudd returned from Bryantown towards his home. This village at the

time Mudd was in it was thronged with soldiers in pursuit of the

murderers of the President, and although great care has been taken by

the defense to deny that any one said in the presence of Dr. Mudd,

either there or elsewhere on that day, who had committed this crime,

yet it is in evidence by two witnesses, whose truthfulness no man

questions, that upon Mudd's return to his own house that afternoon,

he stated that Booth was the murderer of the President, and Boyle

the murderer of Secretary Seward, but took care to make the further

remark that Booth had brothers, and he did not know which of them had

done the act. When did Dr. Mudd learn that Booth had brothers? And

what is still more pertinent to this inquiry, from whom did he learn

that either John Wilkes Booth or any of his brothers had murdered the

President? It is clear that Booth remained in his house until some

time in the afternoon of Saturday; that Herold left the house alone,

as one of the witnesses states, being seen to pass the window; that

he alone of these two assassins was in the company of Dr. Mudd on his

way to Bryantown. It does not appear when Herold returned to Mudd's

house. It is a confession of Dr. Mudd himself, proven by one of the

witnesses, that Booth left his house on crutches and went in the

direction of the swamp. How long he remained there, and what became

of the horses which Booth and Herold rode to his house and which were

put into his stable, are facts nowhere disclosed by the evidence.

The owners testify that they have never seen the horses since. The

accused give no explanation of the matter, and when Herold and Booth

were captured they had not these horses in their possession. How comes

it that, on Mudd's return from Bryantown, on the evening of Saturday,

in his conversation with Mr. Hardy and Mr. Farrell, the witnesses

before referred to, he gave the name of Booth as the murderer of the

President, and that of Boyle as the murderer of Secretary Seward and

his son, and carefully avoided intimating to either that Booth had come

to his house early that day and had remained there until the afternoon;

that he left him in his house and had furnished him a razor with which

Booth attempted to disguise himself by shaving off his moustache? How

comes it, also, that, upon being asked by those two witnesses whether

the Booth who killed the President was the one who had been there

last fall, he answered that he did not know whether it was that man

or one of his brothers, but he understood he had some brothers, and

added, that if it was the Booth who was there last fall, _he knew that

one_, but concealed the fact that this man had been at his house on

that day and was then at his house, and had attempted in his presence

to disguise his person? He was sorry, very sorry, that the thing had

occurred, but not so sorry as to be willing to give any evidence to

these two neighbors, who were manifestly honest and upright men, that

the murderer had been harbored in his house all day, and was probably

at that moment, as his own subsequent confession shows, lying concealed

in his house or near by, subject to his call. This is the man who

undertakes to show by his own declaration, offered in evidence against

my protest, of what he said afterwards, on Sunday afternoon, the 16th,

to his kinsman, Dr. George D. Mudd, to whom he then stated that the

assassination of the President was a most damnable act--a conclusion

in which most men will agree with him, and to establish which his

testimony was not needed. But it is to be remarked that this accused

did not intimate that the man whom he knew the evening before was the

murderer had found refuge in his house, had disguised his person, and

sought concealment in the swamp upon the crutches which he had provided

for him. Why did he conceal this fact from his kinsman? After the

church services were over, however, in another conversation on their

way home, he did tell Dr. George Mudd that two suspicious persons had

been at his house, who had come there a little before daybreak on

Saturday morning; that one of them had a broken leg, which he bandaged;

that they got something to eat at his house; that they seemed to be

laboring under more excitement than probably would result from the

injury; that they said they came from Bryantown, and inquired the way

to Parson Wilmer's; that while at his house one of them called for a

razor and shaved himself. The witness says, "I do not remember whether

he said that this party shaved off his whiskers or his moustache, but

he altered somewhat, or probably materially, his features." Finally,

the prisoner, Dr. Mudd, told this witness that he, in company with the

younger of the two men, went down the road towards Bryantown in search

of a vehicle to take the wounded man away from his house. How comes it

that he concealed in this conversation the fact proved, that he went

with Herold towards Bryantown and left Herold outside of the town? How

comes it that in this second conversation, on Sunday, insisted upon

here with such pertinacity as evidence for the defense, but which had

never been called for by the prosecution, he concealed from his kinsman

the fact which he had disclosed the day before to Hardy and Farrell,

that it was Booth who assassinated the President, and the fact which

is now disclosed by his other confessions given in evidence for the

prosecution, that it was Booth whom he had sheltered, concealed in

his house, and aided to his hiding place in the swamp? He volunteers

as evidence his further statement, however, to this witness, that

on Sunday evening he requested the witness to state to the military

authorities that two suspicious persons had been at his house, and

see if anything could be made of it. He did not tell the witness what

became of Herold, and where he parted with him on the way to Bryantown.

How comes it that when he was in Bryantown on the Saturday evening

before, when he knew that Booth was then at his house, and that Booth

was the murderer of the President, he did not himself state it to the

military authorities then in that village, as he well knew? It is

difficult to see what kindled his suspicions on Sunday, if none were

in his mind on Saturday, when he was in possession of the fact that

Booth had murdered the President and was then secreting and disguising

himself in the prisoner's own house.

His conversation with Gardner on the same Sunday at the church is also

introduced here to relieve him from the overwhelming evidences of his

guilt. He communicates nothing to Gardner of the fact that Booth had

been in his house; nothing of the fact that he knew the day before that

Booth had murdered the President; nothing of the fact that Booth had

disguised or attempted to disguise himself; nothing of the fact that he

had gone with Booth's associate, Herold, in search of a vehicle, the

more speedily to expedite their flight; nothing of the fact that Booth

had found concealment in the woods and swamp near his house upon the

crutches which he had furnished him. He contents himself with merely

stating "that we ought to raise immediately a home guard to hunt up all

suspicious persons passing through our section of country and arrest

them, for there were two suspicious persons at my house yesterday

morning."

It would have looked more like aiding justice and arresting felons if

he had put in execution his project of a home guard on Saturday, and

made it effective by the arrest of the man then in his house who had

lodged with him last fall, with whom he had gone to purchase one of

the very horses employed in this flight after the assassination, whom

he had visited last winter in Washington, and to whom he had pointed

out the very _route_ by which he had escaped by way of his house,

whom he had again visited on the 3d of last March, preparatory to the

commission of this great crime, and who he knew, when he sheltered and

concealed him in the woods on Saturday, was not merely a suspicious

person, but was, in fact, the murderer and assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

While I deem it my duty to say here, as I said before, when these

declarations uttered by the accused on Sunday, the 16th, to Gardner

and George D. Mudd, were attempted to be offered on the part of the

accused, that they are in no sense evidence, and by the law were wholly

inadmissible, yet I state it as my conviction that, being upon the

record upon motion of the accused himself, so far as these declarations

to Gardner and George D. Mudd go, they are additional indications of

the guilt of the accused in this, that they are manifestly suppressions

of the truth and suggestions of falsehood and deception; they are but

the utterances and confessions of guilt.

To Lieutenant Lovett, Joshua Lloyd, and Simon Gavican, who, in pursuit

of the murderer, visited his house on the 18th of April, the Tuesday

after the murder, he denied positively, upon inquiry, that two men had

passed his house, or had come to his house on the morning after the

assassination. Two of these witnesses swear positively to his having

made the denial, and the other says he hesitated to answer the question

he put to him; all of them agree that he afterwards admitted that two

men had been there, one of whom had a broken limb, which he had set;

and when asked by this witness who that man was, he said he did not

know--that the man was a stranger to him, and that the two had been

there but a short time. Lloyd asked him if he had ever seen any of the

parties--Booth, Herold, and Surratt,--and he said he had never seen

them; while it is positively proved that he was acquainted with John

H. Surratt, who had been in his house; that he knew Booth, and had

introduced Booth to Surratt last winter. Afterwards, on Friday, the

21st, he admitted to Lloyd that he had been introduced to Booth last

fall, and that this man who came to his house on Saturday, the 15th,

remained there from about four o'clock in the morning until about four

in the afternoon; that one of them left his house on horseback, and the

other walking. In the first conversation he denied ever having seen

these men.

Colonel Wells also testifies that, in his conversation with Dr. Mudd

on Friday the 21st, the prisoner said that he had gone to Bryantown,

or near Bryantown, to see some friends on Saturday, and that as he

came back to his own house he saw the person he afterwards supposed to

be Herold passing to the left of his house toward the barn, but that

he did not see the other person at all after he left him in his own

house about one o'clock. If this statement be true, how did Dr. Mudd

see the same person leave his house on crutches? He further stated to

this witness that he returned to his own house about four o'clock in

the afternoon; that he did not know this wounded man; said he could

not recognize him from the photograph which is of record here, but

admitted that he had met Booth some time in November, when he had some

conversation with him _about lands_ and horses; that Booth had remained

with him that night in November, and on the next day had purchased

a horse. He said he had not again seen Booth from the time of the

introduction in November up to his arrival at his house on the Saturday

morning after the assassination. Is not this a confession that he did

see John Wilkes Booth on that morning at his house and knew it was

Booth? If he did not know him, how came he to make this statement to

the witness: that "he had not seen Booth _after_ November _prior_ to

his arrival there on the Saturday morning"?

He had said before to the same witness he did not know the wounded man.

He said further to Colonel Wells, that when he went upstairs after

their arrival he noticed that the person he _supposed_ to be Booth had

shaved off his moustache. Is it not inferable from this declaration

that he _then_ supposed him to be Booth? Yet he declared the same

afternoon, and while Booth was in his own house, that Booth was the

murderer of the President. One of the most remarkable statements made

to this witness by the prisoner was that he heard for the first time on

Sunday morning, or late in the evening of Saturday, that the President

had been murdered! From whom did he hear it? The witness (Colonel

Wells) volunteers his "impression" that Dr. Mudd had said he had heard

it after the persons had left his house. If the "impression" of the

witness thus volunteered is to be taken as evidence--and the counsel

for the accused, judging from their manner, seem to think it ought to

be--let this question be answered: how could Dr. Mudd have made that

impression upon anybody truthfully, when it is proved by Farrell and

Hardy that on his return from Bryantown, on Saturday afternoon, he

not only stated that the President, Mr. Seward, and his son had been

assassinated, but that Boyle had assassinated Mr. Seward, and Booth had

assassinated the President? Add to this the fact that he said to this

witness that he left his own house at one o'clock and when he returned

the men were gone, yet it is in evidence, by his own declarations, that

Booth left his house at four o'clock on crutches, and he must have been

there to have seen it or he could not have known the fact.

Mr. Williams testifies that he was at Mudd's house on Tuesday, the 18th

of April, when he said that strangers had _not_ been that way, and also

declared that he heard, _for the first time_, of the assassination of

the President on Sunday morning at church. Afterwards, on Friday, the

21st, Mr. Williams asked him concerning the men who had been at his

house, one of whom had a broken limb, and he confessed they had been

there. Upon being asked if they were Booth and Herold, he said they

were not--_that he knew Booth_. I think it is fair to conclude that he

did know Booth when we consider the testimony of Wiechmann, of Norton,

of Evans, and all the testimony just referred to, wherein he declares,

himself, that he not only knew him, but that he had lodged with him,

and that he had himself gone with him when he purchased his horse from

Gardner last fall, for the very purpose of aiding the flight of himself

or some of his confederates.

All these circumstances taken together, which, as we have seen upon

high authority, are stronger as evidences of guilt than even direct

testimony, leave no further room for argument and no rational doubt

that Doctor Samuel A. Mudd was as certainly in this conspiracy as

were Booth and Herold, whom he sheltered and entertained; receiving

them under cover of darkness on the morning after the assassination,

concealing them throughout that day from the hand of offended justice,

and aiding them, by every endeavor, to pursue their way successfully

to their co-conspirator, Arnold, at Fortress Monroe, and in which

direction they fled until overtaken and Booth was slain.

We next find Herold and his confederate Booth, after their departure

from the house of Mudd, across the Potomac in the neighborhood of

Port Conway, on Monday, the 24th of April, conveyed in a wagon.

There Herold, in order to obtain the aid of Captain Jett, Ruggles,

and Bainbridge, of the confederate army, said to Jett, "We are the

assassinators of the President"; that this was his brother with him,

who, with himself, belonged to A. P. Hill's corps; that his brother had

been wounded at Petersburg; that their names were Boyd. He requested

Jett and his rebel companions to take them out of the lines. After

this Booth joined these parties, was placed on Ruggles's horse, and

crossed the Rappahannock River. They then proceeded to the house of

Garrett, in the neighborhood of Port Royal, and nearly midway between

Washington City and Fortress Monroe, where they were to have joined

Arnold. Before these rebel guides and guards parted with them, Herold

confessed they were traveling under assumed names--that his own name

was Herold, and that the name of the wounded man was John Wilkes Booth,

"who had killed the President." The rebels left Booth at Garrett's,

where Herold revisited him from time to time, until they were captured.

At two o'clock on Wednesday morning, the 26th, a party of United

States officers and soldiers surrounded Garrett's barn where Booth

and Herold lay concealed, and demanded their surrender. Booth cursed

Herold, calling him a coward, and bade him go, when Herold came out

and surrendered himself, was taken into custody, and is now brought

into court. The barn was then set on fire, when Booth sprang to his

feet, amid the flames that were kindling about him, carbine in hand,

and approached the door, seeking, by the flashing light of the fire,

to find some new victim for his murderous hand, when he was shot, as

he deserved to be, by Sergeant Corbett, in order to save his comrades

from wounds or death by the hands of this desperate assassin. Upon his

person was found the following bill of exchange:--

"No. 1492. The Ontario Bank, Montreal Branch. Exchange for £61

12_s._ 10_d._ Montreal, 27th October, 1864. Sixty days after

sight of this first of exchange, second and third of the same

tenor and date, pay to the order of J. Wilkes Booth £61 12_s._

10_d._ sterling, value received, and charge to the account of

this office. H. Stanus, manager. To Messrs. Glynn, Mills & Co.,

London."

Thus fell, by the hands of one of the defenders of the republic,

this hired assassin, who, for a price, murdered Abraham Lincoln,

bearing upon his person, as this bill of exchange testifies,

additional evidence of the fact that he had undertaken, in aid of the

rebellion, this work of assassination by the hands of himself and his

confederates, for such sum as the accredited agents of Jefferson Davis

might pay him or them, out of the funds of the Confederacy, which, as

is in evidence, they had in "any amount" in Canada for the purpose of

rewarding conspirators, spies, poisoners, and assassins, who might

take service under their false commissions, and do the work of the

incendiary and the murderer upon the lawful representatives of the

American people, to whom had been entrusted the care of the republic,

the maintenance of the Constitution, and the execution of the laws.

The court will remember that it is in the testimony of Merritt and

Montgomery and Conover that Thompson and Sanders and Clay and Cleary

made their boasts that they had money in Canada for this very purpose.

Nor is it to be overlooked or forgotten that the officers of the

Ontario Bank at Montreal testify that during the current year of this

conspiracy and assassination Jacob Thompson had on deposit in that bank

the sum of six hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars, and that these

deposits to the credit of Jacob Thompson accrued from the negotiation

of bills of exchange drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury of the

so-called Confederate States on Frazier, Trenholm, & Co., of Liverpool,

who were known to be the financial agents of the Confederate States.

With an undrawn deposit in this bank of four hundred and fifty-five

dollars, which has remained to his credit since October last, and with

an unpaid bill of exchange drawn by the same bank upon London, in his

possession and found upon his person, Booth ends his guilty career in

this work of conspiracy and blood in April, 1865, as he began it in

October, 1864, in combination with Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson,

George N. Sanders, Clement C. Clay, William C. Cleary, Beverly Tucker,

and other co-conspirators, making use of the money of the rebel

confederation to aid in the execution and in the flight, bearing at

the moment of his death upon his person their money, part of the price

which they paid for his great crime, to aid him in its consummation and

secure him afterwards from arrest and the just penalty which by the law

of God and the law of man is denounced against treasonable conspiracy

and murder.

By all the testimony in the case it is, in my judgment, made as clear

as any transaction can be shown by human testimony, that John Wilkes

Booth and John H. Surratt and the several accused, David E. Herold,

George A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, Edward Spangler,

Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel A. Mudd, did, with intent

to aid the existing rebellion and to subvert the Constitution and laws

of the United States, in the month of October last and thereafter,

combine, confederate, and conspire with Jefferson Davis, George N.

Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement

C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, to kill and

murder, within the military department of Washington, and within the

intrenched fortifications and military lines thereof, Abraham Lincoln,

then President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the army

and navy thereof; Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United States;

William H. Seward, Secretary of State; and Ulysses S. Grant, lieutenant

general in command of the armies of the United States; and that

Jefferson Davis, the chief of this rebellion, was the instigator and

procurer, through his accredited agents in Canada, of this treasonable

conspiracy.

It is also submitted to the court, that it is clearly established by

the testimony that John Wilkes Booth, in pursuance of this conspiracy,

so entered into by him and the accused, did, on the night of the 14th

of April, 1865, within the military department of Washington, and

the intrenched fortifications and military lines thereof, and with

the intent laid, inflict a mortal wound upon Abraham Lincoln, then

President and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United

States, whereof he died; that in pursuance of the same conspiracy and

within the said department and intrenched lines, Lewis Payne assaulted,

with intent to kill and murder, William H. Seward, then Secretary of

State of the United States; that George A. Atzerodt, in pursuance of

the same conspiracy, and within the said department, laid in wait, with

intent to kill and murder Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of the

United States; that Michael O'Laughlin, within said department, and in

pursuance of said conspiracy, laid in wait to kill and murder Ulysses

S. Grant, then in command of the armies of the United States; and that

Mary E. Surratt, David E. Herold, Samuel Arnold, Samuel A. Mudd, and

Edward Spangler did encourage, aid, and abet the commission of said

several acts in the prosecution of said conspiracy.

If this treasonable conspiracy has not been wholly executed; if the

several executive officers of the United States and the commander of

its armies, to kill and murder whom the said several accused thus

confederated and conspired, have not each and all fallen by the hands

of these conspirators, thereby leaving the people of the United States

without a President or Vice-President; without a Secretary of State,

who alone is clothed with authority by the law to call an election

to fill the vacancy, should any arise, in the offices of President

and Vice-President; and without a lawful commander of the armies of

the republic, it is only because the conspirators were deterred by

the vigilance and fidelity of the executive officers, whose lives

were mercifully protected on that night of murder by the care of the

Infinite Being who has thus far saved the republic and crowned its arms

with victory.

If this conspiracy was thus entered into by the accused; if John Wilkes

Booth did kill and murder Abraham Lincoln in pursuance thereof; if

Lewis Payne did, in pursuance of said conspiracy, assault with intent

to kill and murder William H. Seward, as stated, and if the several

parties accused did commit the several acts alleged against them in the

prosecution of said conspiracy, then it is the law that all the parties

to that conspiracy, whether present at the time of its execution or

not, whether on trial before this court or not, are alike guilty of the

several acts done by each in the execution of the common design. What

these conspirators did in the execution of this conspiracy by the hand

of one of their co-conspirators they did themselves; his act, done in

the prosecution of the common design, was the act of all the parties to

the treasonable combination, because done in execution and furtherance

of their guilty and treasonable agreement.

As we have seen, this is the rule, whether all the conspirators are

indicted or not; whether they are all on trial or not. "It is not

material what the nature of the indictment is, provided the offense

involve a conspiracy. Upon indictment for murder, for instance, if it

appear that others, together with the prisoner, conspired to perpetrate

the crime, the act of one done in pursuance of that intention would be

evidence against the rest." (1 Whar. 706.) To the same effect are the

words of Chief Justice Marshall, before cited, that whoever leagued

in a general conspiracy, performed any part, however MINUTE,

or however REMOTE, from the scene of _action_, are guilty as

principals. In this treasonable conspiracy to aid the existing armed

rebellion by murdering the executive officers of the United States and

the commander of its armies, all the parties to it must be held as

principals, and the act of one in the prosecution of the common design

the act of all.

I leave the decision of this dread issue with the court, to which alone

it belongs. It is for you to say, upon your oaths, whether the accused

are guilty.

I am not conscious that in this argument I have made any erroneous

statement of the evidence, or drawn any erroneous conclusions; yet I

pray the court, out of tender regard and jealous care for the rights

of the accused, to see that no error of mine, if any there be, shall

work them harm. The past services of the members of this honorable

court give assurance that, without fear, favor, or affection, they will

discharge with fidelity the duty enjoined upon them by their oaths.

Whatever else may befall, I trust in God that in this, as in every

other American court, the rights of the whole people will be respected,

and that the republic in this, its supreme hour of trial, will be true

to itself and just to all--ready to protect the rights of the humblest,

to redress every wrong, to avenge every crime, to vindicate the majesty

of law, and to maintain inviolate the Constitution, whether assailed

secretly or openly, by hosts armed with gold, or armed with steel.

[Illustration: Joseph Holt Judge Advocate General]

THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND JUDGE HOLT.

_A Paper read by_ GEN. HENRY L. BURNETT, _late U. S. V., at

a Meeting of the Commandery, State of New York, Military Order, Loyal

Legion, April 3, 1889_.

Perhaps no incident connected with the trial of the assassins of

President Lincoln created more general interest--was so much discussed

and commented upon by the public press, or aroused deeper feeling of

antagonism and bitterness between two public men, than the charge by

President Johnson that the Judge Advocate General, Judge Holt, had

withheld or suppressed the recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt,

signed by five members of the commission, when he represented to him,

the President, the record for his official action. While this charge

had circulation and was asserted in the press during the time Mr.

Johnson was occupying the presidential office, Mr. Johnson never openly

made the charge until after his term had expired, some time in 1873.

No graver charge could be made against a public officer than this

against Judge Holt, and, if true, no more cruel and treacherous

betrayal of a public trust was ever committed by a man in high official

position. It would be murderous in intent and effect. This charge

rested, so far as human testimony went, upon the solemn assertion alone

of President Johnson, and, if untrue, was one of the most cruel wrongs

ever perpetrated by one man against another. I propose to give a brief

abstract of the testimony produced by Judge Holt to disprove this

charge, and also a statement of my connection with, and what little

personal knowledge I had of the matter.

In a communication addressed to the Washington _Chronicle_, dated

August 25, 1873, Judge Holt gives a copy of a letter addressed by him

to the Secretary of War, on the 14th of that month, in which he sets

forth evidence tending to disprove the charge originating with Andrew

Johnson, of his suppression of the petition, signed by five of the

nine members of the commission, recommending, in consideration of her

age and sex, a commutation of the death sentence of Mary E. Surratt

to imprisonment for life in the penitentiary. The petition read as

follows: "To the President: The undersigned, members of the military

commission appointed to try the persons charged with the murder of

Abraham Lincoln, etc., respectfully represent that the commission have

been constrained to find Mary E. Surratt guilty, upon the testimony,

of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late President of the United

States, and to pronounce upon her, as required by law, the sentence

of death; but in consideration of her age and sex, the undersigned

pray your Excellency, if it is consistent with your sense of duty, to

commute her sentence to imprisonment for life in the penitentiary."

In a letter dated February 11, 1873, addressed to Hon. John A. Bingham,

one of the special Judge Advocates during the trial, Judge Holt states:

"In the discharge of my duty when presenting that record to President

Johnson, I drew his attention to that recommendation, and he read it

in my presence, and before approving the proceedings and sentence. He

and I were together alone when this duty on his part and on mine was

performed.... The President and myself having, as already stated, been

alone at the time, I have not been able to obtain any positive proof

on the point, although I have been able to collect circumstantial

evidence enough to satisfy any unbiased mind that the recommendation

was seen and considered by the President, when he examined and approved

the proceeding and sentence of the court. Still, in a matter so deeply

affecting my reputation and official honor, I am naturally desirous

of having the testimony in my possession strengthened as far as

practicable, and hence it is that I trouble you with this note. While I

know that the question of extending to Mrs. Surratt the clemency sought

by the petition was considered by the President at the time mentioned,

I have, in view of its gravity, been always satisfied that it must

have been considered by the Cabinet also; but from the confidential

character of Cabinet deliberations I have thus far been denied access

to this source of information." He then proceeds to inquire whether or

not he (Judge Bingham) had any conversation with Secretary Seward or

Mr. Stanton in reference to this petition, and if so to please give him

as nearly as he (Judge Bingham) could, all that Secretary Seward or Mr.

Stanton had said upon the subject.

Judge Bingham replied under date of February 17, 1873, and among other

things said:--

"Before the President had acted upon the case, I deemed it my duty

to call the attention of Secretary Stanton to the petition for the

commutation of sentence upon Mrs. Surratt, and did call his attention

to it, before the final decision of the President. After the execution,

the statement which you refer to was made that President Johnson

had not seen the petition for the commutation of the death sentence

upon Mrs. Surratt. I afterwards called at your office, and, without

notice to you of my purpose, asked for the record of the case of the

assassins; it was opened and shown me, and there was then attached

to it the petition, copied and signed as hereinbefore stated. Soon

thereafter I called upon Secretaries Stanton and Seward and asked if

this petition had been presented to the President before the death

sentence was by him approved, and was answered by each of those

gentlemen that the petition was presented to the President, and was

duly considered by him and his advisers before the death sentence upon

Mrs. Surratt was approved, and that the President and Cabinet, upon

such consideration, were a unit in denying the prayer of the petition;

Mr. Stanton and Mr. Seward stating that they were present.

* * * * *

"Having ascertained the fact as stated, I then desired to make the same

public, and so expressed myself to Mr. Stanton, who advised me not to

do so, but to rely upon the final judgement of the people."

In replying to this letter, Judge Holt very justly remarks: "It would

have been very fortunate for me indeed could I have had this testimony

in my possession years ago. Mr. Stanton's advice to you was, under all

the circumstances of the case, most extraordinary.

* * * * *

"The asking you 'to rely upon the final judgment of the people,' and at

the same time withholding from them the proof on which the judgment--to

be just--must be formed, was a sad, sad mockery."

The next is a letter from ex-Attorney General Speed, dated March 30,

1873, in which he says: "After the finding of the military commission

that tried the assassins of Mr. Lincoln and before their execution,

I saw the record of the case in the President's office, and attached

to it was a paper, signed by some of the members of the commission,

recommending that the sentence against Mrs. Surratt be commuted to

imprisonment for life; and according to my memory, the recommendation

was made because of her sex.

"I do not feel at liberty to speak of what was said at Cabinet

meetings. In this I know I differ from other gentlemen, but feel

constrained to follow my own sense of propriety."

So that it is most clear from this statement of Attorney General

Speed, unless he, without interest or motive, stated a most deliberate

falsehood, that Judge Holt did not "withhold" or "suppress" the

recommendation to mercy, but carried it with the record and "_attached

to it_," as Mr. Speed says, and delivered it in the President's office.

Certainly every intelligent mind will concede that this testimony of

Mr. Speed utterly disposes of the charge of Andrew Johnson that Judge

Holt "suppressed" or "withheld" this recommendation to mercy. If Mr.

Johnson did not see it or read it when in his office, that was his

neglect, his failure to perform a solemn official duty. But on this

question of his having _read_ and _considered_ it, how stands the

evidence? Judge Holt states that he drew his attention to it, and

that Mr. Johnson read it in his presence. Judge Bingham says both

Mr. Stanton and Mr. Seward stated to him that this petition had been

presented to the President and was duly considered by him and his

advisers before the death sentence upon Mrs. Surratt was approved.

Under date of May 27, 1873, James Harlan, a former member of Mr.

Johnson's Cabinet, addressed a letter to Judge Holt, in which he

said: "After the sentence and before the execution of Mrs. Surratt, I

remember distinctly the discussion of the question of the commutation

of the sentence of death pronounced on her by the Court to imprisonment

for life had by members of the Cabinet in presence of President

Johnson. I can not state positively whether this occurred at a regular

or a called meeting, or whether it was at an accidental meeting of

several members, each calling on the President in relation to the

business of his own department. The impression on my mind is, that

the only discussion of the subject by members of the Cabinet, which I

ever heard, occurred in the last-named mode, there being not more than

three or four members present--Mr. Seward, Mr. Stanton, and myself,

and probably Attorney General Speed and others--but I distinctly

remember only the first two. When I entered the room, one of these was

addressing the President in an earnest conversation on the question

whether the sentence ought to be modified on account of the sex of the

condemned. I can recite the precise thought, if not the very words,

used by this eminent statesman, as they were impressed on my mind with

great force at the time, and I have often thought of them since, viz.:

'Surely not, Mr. President, for if the death penalty should be commuted

in so grave a case as the assassination of the head of a great nation,

on account of the sex of the criminal, it would amount to an invitation

to assassins hereafter to employ women as their instruments, under the

belief that if arrested and condemned, they would be punished less

severely than men. An act of executive clemency on such a plea would be

disapproved by the government of every civilized nation on earth.'"

Judge Harlan adds that he made inquiry at the time, and "was told that

the whole case had been carefully examined by the Attorney General and

the Secretary of War; and that the only question raised was whether

the punishment shall be reduced on account of the sex of the party

condemned. I do not remember that any differences of opinion were

expressed on that point."

This is indirect but very conclusive evidence that the petition was

attached to the record submitted to the President and examined by the

Attorney General and Secretary of War; and that the subject of the

mitigation of Mrs. Surratt's sentence was considered by the President

and these members of his Cabinet, because in no part of the record

was there the slightest allusion to the question of clemency to Mrs.

Surratt, or to any of the other convicted persons, except in the

petition signed by the five members of the Court.

The next is a letter from the Rev. J. George Butler, pastor of

St. Paul's Church, Washington. Under date of December 5, 1868, in

describing an interview he had with President Johnson, he says:

"The interview occurred during a social call upon the family of the

President in the evening, a few hours after the execution.

"I had been summoned by the Government, I then being a hospital

chaplain, to attend upon Atzerodt, and was present at the execution.

"Concerning Mrs. Surratt, the remarks of the President, by reason of

their point and force, impressed themselves upon my memory. He said,

in substance, that very strong appeals had been made for the exercise

of executive clemency; that he had been importuned; that telegrams

and threats had been used; but he could not be moved, for, in his own

significant language, Mrs. Surratt '_kept the nest that hatched the

eggs_.'

"The President further stated that no plea had been urged in her

behalf, save the fact that she was a _woman_, and his interposition

upon that ground would license female crime."

This harmonizes entirely with the "thought" which Secretary Harlan

heard uttered with so much force by a member of the Cabinet in Mr.

Johnson's presence--either Mr. Stanton or Mr. Seward--and from his

language, "this eminent statesman," I take it to have been Mr. Seward.

The Rev. Mr. Butler adds: "I feel it due to a Christian soldier and

personal friend (General Eakin) to make this statement, showing clearly

that at the time of the execution the President's judgment wholly

accorded with the judgment of the military commission; and that no

appeals could then change his purpose to make 'treason odious.'"

General R. D. Mussey, under date of August 19, 1873, writes to Judge

Holt:--

"In a few days after the assassination I was detailed for duty with Mr.

Johnson and acted as one of his secretaries, and was an inmate of his

household until some time in the fall of 1865.

"About the time the military court that tried Mrs. Surratt concluded

its labors, I was, if I remember aright, for some days the only person

acting as private secretary at the White House, my associate being

absent on a visit.

"On the Wednesday previous to the execution (which was on Friday, July

7, 1865), as I was sitting at my desk in the morning, Mr. Johnson

told me that he was going to look over the findings of the Court with

Judge Holt, and should be busy and could see no one. I replied, 'Very

well, sir, I will see that you not interrupted,' or something to that

effect, and continued my work. I think it was two or three hours after

that that Mr. Johnson came out of the room where he had been with

you, and said that the papers had been looked over and a decision

reached. I asked what it was. He told me, approval of the findings and

sentence of the Court; and he then gave me the sentences as near as

he remembered them, and said that he had ordered the sentence where

it was death to be carried into execution on the Friday following. I

remember looking up from my desk with some surprise at the brevity of

this interval, and asking him whether the time wasn't rather short.

He admitted that it was, but said that they had had ever since the

trial began for 'preparation'; and either then or later on in the day

spoke of his design in making the time short, so that there might be

less opportunity for criticism, remonstrance, etc. I do not pretend to

use his precise language as to this, but the purport of it was that

'it was a disagreeable duty, and there would be endeavors to get him

not to perform it, and he wished to avoid them as much as possible.'

... I am very confident, though not absolutely assured, that it was

at this interview Mr. Johnson told me that the Court had recommended

Mrs. Surratt to mercy on the ground of her sex (and age, I believe).

But I am certain he did so inform me about that time; and that he said

he thought the grounds urged insufficient, and that he had refused to

interfere; that if she was guilty at all, her sex did not make her any

the less guilty; that he, about the time of her execution, justified

it; that he told me there had not been women enough hanged in this war."

This evidence would seem to establish most conclusively that the

"petition" was not only attached to the record, and delivered by Judge

Holt at the President's office in the Executive Mansion, but that he

read the same and afterward considered and discussed it with at least

three members of his Cabinet; and intelligent charity can reach no

further than to say that President Johnson, when he charged Judge Holt

with having withheld this recommendation to mercy when he delivered

the record of the trial at the President's Mansion, made a cruel and

untruthful charge; and that when he asserted in 1873 that he had not

seen, read, or heard of this recommendation to mercy, at the time he

approved the sentences on the 5th day of July, 1865, had forgotten the

facts--that his "forgettery" was much better than his memory.

One of the main points in President Johnson's response to this evidence

was that in the published volume of the record of the trial of the

assassins, prepared by Mr. Ben. Pittmann, of Cincinnati, under my

official supervision, this recommendation to mercy does not appear.

There is no force in this. The petition or recommendation to mercy

constituted properly no part of the official record of the trial.

Mr. Pittmann, who had his desk and place in my office at the War

Department, was one of the official stenographers of the court, and had

special charge and custody of the record from day to day. The other

reporters sent in to him their portions of the testimony as they were

written up, and thereafter he was responsible for them. My recollection

is also that as the testimony was written up a press copy was made of

it, which he (Mr. Pittmann) took with him to Cincinnati, and used,

after he had received permission from the War Department to publish.

The commission met with closed doors at 10 A. M. on the 29th of June

to consider its findings, and continued and concluded its labors

with closed doors on the 30th. From these meetings all stenographic

reporters were excluded. The findings and sentences, when finally made

and recorded, were handed to me to be attached to the record, or to go

with the record to the Judge Advocate General's office, as was then

the course of procedure. By the oath administered, all the members

of the commission, as well as the Judge Advocates, were bound not to

reveal those findings and sentences. I therefore retained them in my

possession, instead of passing them on to the stenographers. When the

recommendation to mercy was drawn, and signed by five members of the

commission, that was also handed to me to accompany the findings.

Mr. Pittmann never saw, I presume, either the original findings or the

recommendation to mercy, and the first knowledge he had of the former

doubtless was after they were promulgated by the Adjutant General on

the 5th day of July. This is evidenced by the fact that the Adjutant

General, in promulgating the proceedings, took Mrs. Surratt's name

from the position it occupies in the records, and placed it next

that of Payne, evidently for the purpose of grouping together the

four persons condemned to death. Mr. Pittmann gives the findings and

sentence in the order promulgated by the Adjutant General--that is to

say, he places the findings and sentence in Mrs. Surratt's case next

after that of Lewis Payne; while the Court, in making up its findings,

followed the order named in the charge and specifications, where Mrs.

Surratt's name follows that of Samuel Arnold.

When I reached my office at the War Department on the 30th--possibly

on the morning of the 1st of July--I attached the petition or

recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt to the findings and sentence,

and at the end of them, and then directed some one--probably

Mr. Pittmann--to carry the record of the evidence to the Judge

Advocate-General's office. I carried the findings and sentences and the

petition or recommendation and delivered them to the Judge Advocate

General in person or to the clerk in charge of court-martial records.

Before leaving the War Department I may have attached these findings

and sentences and petition to the last few days of testimony, and

carried that to the Judge Advocate General's office. I never saw the

record again until many years after--I think in 1873 or 1874.

I left Washington several days before, and was not there on the day

of the execution. My recollection is, that I left there either on the

evening of the 5th or on the morning of the 6th of July. On the 5th

day of July, when Judge Holt had his conference with President Johnson

over the record and proceedings of the military commission, when the

President considered and passed upon the findings and sentences of

the accused persons, after that interview Judge Holt came directly to

Mr. Stanton's office in the War Department. I happened to be with Mr.

Stanton as Judge Holt came in. After greetings, the latter remarked,

"I have just come from a conference with the President over the

proceedings of the military commission." "Well," said Mr. Stanton,

"what has he done?" "He has approved the findings and sentence of the

Court," replied Judge Holt.

"What did he say about the recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt?"

next inquired Mr. Stanton. "He said," answered Judge Holt, "that she

must be punished with the rest; that no reasons were given for his

interposition by those asking for clemency, in her case, except age and

sex. He said her sex furnished no good ground for his interfering; that

women and men should learn that if women committed crimes they would be

punished; that if they entered into conspiracies to assassinate, they

must suffer the penalty; that were this not so, hereafter conspirators

and assassins would use women as their instruments; it would be mercy

to womankind to let Mrs. Surratt suffer the penalty of her crime."

After some futher conversation, and after making known to Mr. Stanton

that the President had fixed Friday, the 7th, as the day of execution,

Judge Holt left. In giving the above conversation I cannot say that

I have given the exact words; but the substance of what Judge Holt

said I know I have given. It is indelibly impressed upon my memory.

This conversation, while it does not constitute legal evidence of the

fact of President Johnson's consideration of the recommendation to

mercy, has always been a circumstance strong and convincing to my mind

that President Johnson's charge was totally false. It showed that Mr.

Stanton had knowledge of the recommendation--probably had examined

the record in the four or five days which had intervened since the

trial. As Secretary of War he was at that time daily--almost hourly--in

consultation with the President over the disbandment of the military

forces; the occupation by the army of the rebel States; the powers and

duties of officers there, and the innumerable questions semi-military

in character arising out of the chaotic political and social condition

of the rebel States; and they could hardly have come together at that

time without the question of the conviction and execution of the

assassins coming up. The circumstances of the assassination, the plot

or conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln and his Cabinet, the

Vice President himself, and General Grant; who were concerned in it;

the evidence submitted to the Court, the weight given to it by the

Court, and the conclusion reached by the Court, were matters in which

the President and the Secretary of War could not fail to take, and, as

is well known, did take the deepest possible interest. It is past human

credulity to believe that they would thus come together during the

time intervening between the conclusion of the trial on the 30th day

of June and the execution of the sentences on the 7th of July, and the

result of the trial, together with the recommendation to mercy, not be

discussed between them. It is inconceivable to me that Judge Holt, even

if he were so malicious and murderous in purpose, could be so reckless

and foolish in execution of such purpose as to withhold from and try

to conceal from President Johnson this recommendation to mercy, when

the fact of its existence was known to Mr. Stanton, and was so certain

to be made known to the President by him, and its contents discussed

between them.

The historian in passing judgment upon this event, and in weighing

evidence as to the truth or falsity of this charge made by President

Johnson, will take into consideration the mental characteristics

and moral fibre of the two men, and what adequate motive there was

actuating one occupying the exalted position of President Johnson to

make the charge, or of Judge Holt to commit so wicked and cruel a wrong.

Andrew Johnson's mental make-up is well known to the officers of the

old Union army, and to the American people. His life, his acts, and

his speeches are still remembered, and the public judgment formed and

registered. I do not propose here to-night to take your time in going

into a statement or discussion of this subject. It is sufficient to

say that he was endowed by nature with more than ordinary intellectual

abilities, and that he had risen from the lowest walks of life by

the vigor of his own will, energy, and mental power, through many

intermediate places of honor and trust, to the second place in the

gift of the American people--the Vice-Presidency of the United States.

He was a man of controlling prejudices and strong personality. He

was ambitious, bold, hot-tempered, obstinate, and in the achievement

of the ends and aims he sought--right ends and aims he may have

thought them--he was unscrupulous in the means he used. This is well

illustrated in the instance given by General Sheridan in his memoirs

of President Johnson's treatment of him while he was in command of New

Orleans in 1866.

You will recall the intense feeling aroused throughout the country

by the wanton and bloody massacre of the convention assembled at New

Orleans, on the 30th of July, that year, to remodel the constitution of

that State. General Sheridan had been absent several days in Texas, and

was returning, when the riot occurred. He reached New Orleans August

1st, made an investigation, and on the same day sent the following

telegraphic report to General Grant:--

"You, are doubtless aware of the serious riot which occurred in

this city on the 30th. A political body styling themselves the

'Convention of 1864,' met on the 30th for, as it alleged, the

purpose of remodeling the present constitution of the State.

The leaders were political agitators and revolutionary men, and

the action of the convention was liable to produce breaches

of the public peace. I had made up my mind to arrest the head

men if the proceedings of the convention were calculated

to disturb the tranquility of the department, but I had no

cause for action until they committed some overt act. In the

meantime official duty called me to Texas, and the mayor of

the city, during my absence, suppressed the convention by the

use of the police force, and in so doing attacked the members

of the convention and a party of two hundred negroes with

fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so unnecessary and

atrocious as to compel me to say that it was murder. About

forty whites and blacks were thus killed, and about one hundred

and sixty wounded. Everything is now quiet, but I deem it best

to maintain a military supremacy in the city for a few days,

until the affair is fully investigated. I believe the sentiment

of the general community is great regret at this unnecessary

cruelty, and that the police could have made any arrest they

saw fit without sacrificing lives.

"P. H. SHERIDAN,

_Major General commanding_."

General Sheridan adds: "On receiving the telegram, General Grant

immediately submitted it to the President. Much clamor being made

at the North for the publication of the despatch, President Johnson

pretended to give it to the newspapers. It appeared in the issues of

August 4th, but with this paragraph omitted, viz.:--

"'I had made up my mind to arrest the head men, if the proceedings were

calculated to disturb the tranquilty of the department, but I had no

cause for action until they committed some overt act. In the meantime

official duty called me to Texas, and the mayor of the city, during

my absence, suppressed the convention by the use of the police force,

and in so doing attacked the members of the convention and a party of

two hundred negroes with fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so

unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say it was murder.'"

* * * * *

General Sheridan adds: "Against this garbling of my report, done by the

President's own order, I strongly demurred, and this emphatic protest

marks the beginning of Mr. Johnson's well-known personal hostility

toward me."

It will be observed that the omission of this portion of the

despatch--this "garbling," done by President Johnson's own

order--changes its whole tenor and meaning; made General Sheridan

say exactly contrary to what he did in fact say. Omitting the part

struck out, and connecting the two sentences that come together, the

President made the despatch read: "The leaders were political agitators

and revolutionary men, and the action of the convention was liable to

produce breaches of the public peace. About forty whites and blacks

were _thus_ killed, and about one hundred and sixty wounded."

Observe--this makes General Sheridan say that the action of the

convention was liable to produce breaches of the public peace, and

thus,--in this wise,--about forty whites and blacks were killed and

about one hundred and sixty wounded. General Sheridan said nothing of

the kind--nothing in the whole despatch had any such implication or

meaning. What he did say was that the mayor of the city "suppressed the

convention by the use of the police force, and in so doing attacked

the members of the convention and a party of two hundred negroes with

fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so unnecessary and atrocious

as to compel me to say that it was murder"; and "thus" by this means,

by this mayor and his police, about forty whites and blacks were killed

and about one hundred and sixty wounded.

Is it too much to say that a man who could do this wrong to General

Sheridan,--could mutilate and corrupt a despatch so as to cause him

to make a false report about a people over whom he was placed in

government; to cause him to state falsely the facts and circumstances

about an event in which forty persons had lost their lives, and one

hundred and sixty had been grievously wounded,--would hesitate to

state a falsehood about Judge Holt? Is it too much to say that a man

who could do this, and then try to mislead and deceive the people

of the United States as to this tragic event, about which they were

clamoring to know the truth, perpetrating a lie upon them by mutilating

and corrupting a despatch and promulgating it as the true one, would

hesitate to deceive the people about the fact as to whether he did or

did not see the recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt? Is it not fair

to say that he was of such mental structure and moral fibre as to do

this wrong?

And now the motive:--

It is known of all men that Andrew Johnson had only fairly settled

himself in the presidential chair of the great Lincoln, before he began

to dream, to scheme, and to intrigue for an election by the people to

that office.

The presidential bee was buzzing under the accidental presidential

hat. The Southern leaders, clever diplomats and long-headed politicans

as they are, soon took the measure of the man, and began to consider

how best they could use him, and his ambition for their own purposes.

It was noticed that Andrew Johnson had not been many months in the

White House before there was a decided change in the style and type of

visitors passing in and out under the great white portico. The men of

the North,--the old "Union Republican group" of the House and Senate

that were daily visitors there in the days of Lincoln, began to find

the atmosphere of the White House less kind and congenial; there was a

lack of warmth in the welcome, and a constraint in talk and exchange of

ideas, progressing gradually to actual antagonism over the questions

of amnesty, reconstruction, and constitutional guarantees to the

freedmen. Then the Northern men dropped away; seemed not to go there

any more. Men from the South who but lately had borne arms against the

government, and who had not yet taken the oath of allegiance, were

found plentiful about the White House, and apparently basking in the

sunshine of presidential favor, as in the rays of a southern sun. It

became the reign of the unreconstructed and unreconciled. Somebody had

whispered loud enough for Mr. Johnson to hear,--perhaps the bee buzzed

it,--that if the Southern States could be reconstructed previous to

the presidential convention of 1868, and he (President Johnson) should

be found friendly and faithful to the South in that work, there were

fifteen Southern States whose electoral votes might be found solid for

him as the Democratic nominee, and he would only need the votes of

two or three Northern States in addition to carry off the nomination.

You know how the poison took--how from the most radical of Union

Republicans he became the most extreme--the leader--of the "strictest

sect" of the Democrats; how the words "treason should be made odious,"

"traitors should take back seats," "a few traitors should be hung,"

with which his mouth was filled when elected, and were still sounding

in the air when he sat down in Lincoln's vacant chair, had hardly died

away before he had turned against and upon all those who had upheld

the Union cause--all his old Union friends; how he fought the Congress

with a bitterness and a boldness unparalleled in history. He took issue

with it on every measure by which the Congress sought to fix in statute

and in the fundamental law what the sword had achieved, what war had

enacted. Thus he stood.

And now turning to Mrs. Surratt and her case. Over her execution a

great clamor was raised throughout the country, not only by those who

were lately in rebellion, and those in the North who were in sympathy

with that rebellion, but almost universally by the Roman Catholics

of the country, she being a member of that Church, they believing

her innocent and a martyr. Mr. Johnson heard this clamor, and "his

startled ambition grew sore afraid." He bethought him of some means

to turn this wrath away from himself. The press kept referring to the

fact that a recommendation to mercy had been signed by a majority of

the Court; and his new friends and allies were calling upon him with

a loud voice to know why he had not heeded the appeal for mercy, and

saved this hapless woman. His fears whispered that the storm might

grow so fierce and strong as to sweep away his carefully constructed

political fabric. How could he turn away this wrath and clamor? How

turn the fury of the storm? Were here not motive and interest enough?

He doubtless remembered that, when he examined the record, he and Judge

Holt had been alone. How easy to shift the blame, to turn the storm of

wrath and execration upon another head by having it circulated that

the recommendation had been suppressed by Judge Holt, and that he had

never seen nor heard of it up to the time of the execution! Here was

a sufficient motive--the motive of ambition--the motive which, as we

have seen, changed the whole nature of the man,--changed his political

thought and attitude--spoiled the purpose of his life.

Of Judge Holt's life little need be said. Born and reared in Kentucky,

of the best blood of the State, he had achieved fame and stood in the

front rank with the great lawyers and orators of that State before

the rebellion began, and before he was called to the Cabinet of James

Buchanan, first, as Postmaster-General, and afterward as Secretary of

War, to fill the place made vacant by the retirement of the traitor

John B. Floyd. Judge Holt was a man of collegiate education, a student

and a scholar of wide and varied reading, and a rhetorician and

logician second to few men in the country. Of the next generation after

Henry Clay, he was of the time and type in intellectual grasp and power

of the Marshalls, the Breckinridges, and the Crittendens of that State.

He breathed in the spirit of loyalty, patriotism, and love of the Union

of Clay, and never doubted, never swerved in giving all his powers--in

dedicating his life to the work of saving the Union. It is related

by the historian that at one of the Cabinet meetings of President

Buchanan, when several of the Southern secretaries were still occupying

their places and were boldly demanding that the forts at Charlestown

should be evacuated, and Mr. Buchanan was too weak to take a position

against them, Mr. Stanton, who had been called to fill the office of

Attorney General, sprang to his feet and said, "Mr. President, it is

my duty, as your legal adviser, to say that you have no right to give

up the property of the government, or abandon the soldiers of the

United States to its enemies, and the course proposed by the Secretary

of the Interior, if followed, is treason, and will involve you and

all concerned in treason!" For the first time in this Cabinet treason

had been called by its true name. Floyd and Thompson, who had had

everything their own way, sprang fiercely to their feet, while Mr. Holt

sprang to Mr. Stanton's side, indorsing his utterances, and ready to

uphold him in any struggle. Mr. Buchanan begged that there would be no

violence, and for the gentlemen to resume their seats. Thus bolstered

by Mr. Stanton and Judge Holt, the President determined not to withdraw

Major Anderson. Soon after this meeting, Floyd resigned, and Judge Holt

was appointed Secretary of War in his place.

Save this charge of Andrew Johnson, no stain or blot, nor the least

spot or soilure, has ever rested on the fair name and fame of Joseph

Holt. For the last year or two of the war I was brought in close

official and personal relations with him. I learned to know him well.

He was most refined and sensitive in his nature, gentle and kindly in

his intercourse, and in all his relations with those about him, pure

in his private life, exalted in his ideas and ideals, dignified,

and courtly in his bearing, yet always thoughtful, considerate, and

courteous. He had traveled much, read much, and held as his friends,

strongly attached to him, the best men of the land. I can now as little

associate him in my mind with the commission of a dishonorable action

as any man I have ever known.

One of the interesting episodes connected with this charge against

Judge Holt is his appeal to Mr. Speed, Mr. Lincoln's Attorney General,

to "speak out" and state the fact whether or not the recommendation to

mercy was before President Johnson and his Cabinet, and considered by

them. The correspondence between Judge Holt and Mr. Speed is published

in the _North American Review_ for July, 1888. It will be remembered

that Mr. Speed, in his letter to Judge Holt of March 30, 1873, had

said:--

"After the finding of the military commission that tried the assassins

of Mr. Lincoln, and before their execution, I saw the record of the

case in the President's office, and attached to it was a paper, signed

by some of the members of the commission, recommending that the

sentence against Mrs. Surratt be commuted to imprisonment for life; and

according to my memory the recommendation was made because of her sex."

As I have heretofore said, this settled, so far as the testimony of

James Speed could settle it, that the charge of Andrew Johnson that

Judge Holt had withheld the recommendation to mercy was false. It

settled the fact that previous to the execution the recommendation to

mercy was in the President's office, and was attached to the record.

But in this letter Mr. Speed added: "I do not feel at liberty to speak

of what was said at Cabinet meetings. In this case I know I differ

from other gentlemen, but feel constrained to follow my own sense of

propriety."

Judge Holt had learned, through the statements of Mr. Seward and Mr.

Stanton to Judge Bingham, that the recommendation to mercy had been

presented to the President, and had been considered by him and members

of the Cabinet before the execution. But when this information came

to him, both Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton were dead, and the statement

of Judge Bingham of what they told him was secondary evidence; and

Judge Holt was anxious, therefore, to get the direct evidence of Mr.

Speed that his recommendation was, to his personal knowledge, before

Mr. Johnson and his Cabinet, and considered by them. His appeals to

Mr. Speed are pathetic in the earnestness and depth of feeling they

reveal. What could be more profoundly sorrowful or touching than this,

in his letter of April 18, 1883: "Allow me to add that we are now,

each of us, far advanced in years, so that whatever is to be done for

my relief should be done quickly. While, however, it is sadly apparent

that I can remain here but a little while longer, I have not been able

to bring myself to the belief that you will suffer the closing hours of

my life to be darkened by a consciousness that this cloud, or even a

shred of it, is still hanging over me--a cloud which can be dissipated

at once and forever by a single word spoken by yourself in defense of

the truth and in rebuke of a calumny, the merciless cruelty of which

none can better understand than yourself. I make this final appeal to

your honor as a man to do me the simple justice, which, under the same

circumstances, I would render to you at once and joyfully."

But Mr. Speed would not speak--finally saying, in his letter of October

25, 1883, "After very mature and deliberate consideration, I have come

to the conclusion that I cannot say more than I have." Neither would

he enter into consideration or discussion of his determination not "to

speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings." It seems to me that Judge

Holt was right and Mr. Speed was wrong in their relative positions upon

this question. In his letter of April 18, 1883, addressed to Mr. Speed,

to which I have referred, Judge Holt forcibly presents his view: "You

were a member of his (President Johnson's) Cabinet, and I have the

strongest reasons for believing that this atrocious accusation is known

to you to have been false in its every intendment. It originated with

President Johnson, and for years was industriously circulated by his

unscrupulous abettors, though he did not dare make open proclamation

of it until he felt assured, through your letter of the 30th of

March, 1873, that no damaging disclosures were to be apprehended from

yourself.... The question whether a President of the United States, as

a craven refuge from accountability for official action, did seek to

blacken the reputation of a subordinate officer holding a confidential

interview with him, is in no just sense a private question; it is

essentially a public one, which concerns the whole country, and one

of which the country may well expect to speak, seeing that you were a

member of that President's Cabinet, at the time of this disgraceful

transaction. Your unwillingness thus to speak of it in 1873, seemed to

have arisen from an exaggerated estimate of a rule which once prevailed

with regard to the inviolability of Cabinet councils and secrets. But

whatever may have been, in the remote past, the recognized force of

this rule, the frequent and conspicuous disregard of it during the

last two decades, by statesmen of the highest probity and rank, leaves

the impression that the rule itself has lived its day and is now

practically dead and inoperative. Waiving, however, this view, it is

clear to me that, were the rule accepted as now binding in its utmost

rigor, it could have no application to this case. I can not be misled

in supposing that the relations between the President and the Cabinet

are relations of honor, and that, therefore, they cannot be held to

oblige any member of his Cabinet to protect, by his concealment, and

thus become a moral accomplice in it--any criminal or wrongful act

into which the President may be drawn by a guilty ambition, or by any

other unworthy passion or purpose. In a word, the rule never has been

and never should be so construed as to become a shelter for perjury or

crime.

"Your associates in the Cabinet,--Messrs Seward and

Stanton,--condemning the rule by which I have been so long victimized,

declared the truth fully to Judge Bingham, as he has so forcibly set

forth in his letter to which you are referred."

But, as I have said, Mr. Speed would not speak. I can only account for

it by the life, circumstances, and education of the man. In the old

slave States, in the _ante-bellum_ days, there existed many of the

ideas, traditions, and rules of personal conduct of the feudal times.

Things touching personal honor, or trusted to it, or that partook of

the knightly and chivalrous, were esteemed above common right, common

honesty, or common sense. Restrained by these limitations of birth and

tradition, and controlled by his chivalrous idea of not revealing what

he regarded as Cabinet secrets, Mr. Speed would not speak, even to save

a public officer from a great wrong, or his personal friend from a

calumny which he knew would walk beside him, shadowing and embittering

a life, noble and void of wrong, down to its close. In this I think the

judgment of mankind will be that he erred. He knew that this charge of

Andrew Johnson was a cruel falsehood. Not only what he said, but what

he refused to say, proves this. His letter of March 30, 1873, states

that he saw the record, with the recommendation attached to it, in the

President's office before the execution. Judge Holt did not, therefore,

"withhold," as the President alleged. But, stronger than this, and

conclusive, I believe, in the mind of every honest and unprejudiced

man, were Mr. Speed's utterances, less than two years ago, at a meeting

of the Loyal Legion at Cincinnati. Mr. Speed read a paper at the

meeting of this society, held there on the 4th of May, 1887, in which

he said:--

"Only the group of fiends who stilled the pulsations of Lincoln's great

heart, paid the penalty of the crime. A maudlin sentiment has sought

to cast blame on the officials who dealt out justice to these. One in

particular is my distinguished friend, the then Judge Advocate General

of the army. Judge Holt performed his duty kindly and considerately.

In every particular he was just and fair. This I know; but Judge Holt

needs no vindication from me nor any one else. I only speak because I

know reflections have been made, and because my position enabled me to

know the facts, and because I know the perfect purity and uprightness

of his conduct." Could any words say in stronger form, he knew that

in this matter Judge Holt did his whole duty, and that President's

Johnson's charges were false? Could he have said, "In every particular

he was just and fair, this I know," if he did not _know_ and intended

to say that he knew Judge Holt did his whole duty and had presented

this recommendation to mercy to President Johnson? But what he refused

to say is as strongly convincing to my mind of the fact that the

recommendation to mercy was, to his knowledge, duly brought to the

President's attention, and was read and considered by him and members

of his Cabinet, as anything he has affirmatively stated.

He was asked by Judge Holt to state whether this paper was or was

not before President Johnson and his Cabinet. He refused to answer

"because he did not feel at liberty to speak of what was said at

Cabinet meetings." If nothing was said about the recommendation, if no

such paper ever came before the Cabinet, might he not have so stated;

might he not have said, "No such matter ever came before the Cabinet?"

This would not reveal any Cabinet secret, would come nowhere near the

limitations he had prescribed for himself "not to speak of what was

said at Cabinet meetings."

Is it not the inevitable logical conclusion that it was because of

this knowledge that this recommendation had been before, and had been

discussed by, the President and his Cabinet, and his determination "not

to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings," that he would not speak?

But, finally, my friends, has not the faith of Judge Holt been

realized? Has not time caused the truth to shine forth and his

innocence to appear? In 1873, he said: "An abiding faith, however,

remains with me that the public will do these witnesses justice, and

myself, also; and that if truth has power to disarm the cloud of

calumny of its lightnings, that then, standing in their presence and

under their shelter, I may well feel that for the future this cloud can

have no terrors for me."

Saith an old poet:--

"... I have ever thought

Nature doth nothing so great for great men

As when she's pleased to make them lords of truth.

Integrity of life is fame's best friend,

Which nobly beyond death shall crown the end."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Life of Lincoln," by Nicolay and Hay, _Century Magazine_, pp.

431-32.

[2] The evidence before the Commission left Booth and Herold, from

the time they left Dr. Mudd's until they arrived at Port Conway,

unaccounted for. I am indebted to articles in the _Century Magazine_,

by George A. Townsend, Major Ruggles, and Lieutenant Bainbridge, for

the ability to fill up this interval, and to General Baker's "History

of the Secret Service," for facts connected with the capture, death,

and burial of Booth.--AUTHOR.

[3] Conspiracy Trial, pp. 29, 30, testimony of Conover; also p. 36,

testimony of Dr. Merritt; also p. 25, testimony of Montgomery.

[4] The archives of the rebel war department reveal the fact that the

powder was placed under the Libby Prison by order of Davis and Seddon,

sanctioned by a committee of the rebel congress.

[5] The Charles Selby letter was proven to be in the handwriting of

John Wilkes Booth by experts, on comparison, on the trial of John H.

Surratt.

[6] It is highly improbable that the witness would have given

false testimony as to this conversation between Davis and General

Breckinridge because of the certainty of its contradiction by the

latter.

[7] Trial John H. Surratt, p. 468, testimony of Dr. McMillen.

[8] Official Report of the Conspiracy Trial, p. 114, testimony of L. J.

Wiechmann.

[9] See Report Conspiracy Trial, pp. 114, 115 and pp. 85-87. Testimony

of L. J. Wiechmann and John M. Lloyd.

[10] Official Report Conspiracy Trial, p. 115.

[11] Official Report Conspiracy Trial, p. 114.

[12] Official Report Conspiracy Trial, p. 115, and Trial of John H.

Surratt, pp. 377, 378.

[13] Conspiracy Trial, p. 113. Trial of Surratt, pp. 377, 378.

[14] Trial of Surratt, pp. 385, 386.

[15] Trial Conspirators, pp. 113, 114, and Trial Surratt, 383, 384.

[16] Trial Conspirators, p. 113.

[17] Trial Conspirators, pp. 118-119. Trial Conspirators, p. 85.

Testimony of John M. Lloyd.

[18] Trial Conspirators, p. 113, and Trial Surratt, pp. 391, 392.

[19] Conspiracy Trial, pp. 85, etc.

[20] See supplemental affidavit of L. J. Wiechmann, and Trial of

Surratt, p. 394.

[21] Trial Conspirators, pp. 121, 122.

[22] Conspiracy Trial. Testimony for the defense and testimony in

rebuttal, pp. 132, 139 inclusive.

[23] Trial of Surratt, pp. 136, 137, and pp. 186, 187, 188.

[24] Trial of Surratt, pp. 163, 164, 165.

[25] Trial of Conspirators, p. 86. Trial of Surratt, pp. 282, 283.

[26] See testimony of L. J. Wiechmann and John M. Lloyd on the trial of

the conspirators and on the trial of J. H. Surratt. Also testimony of

Trial Conspirators, p. 126.

[27] See testimony of John M. Lloyd, Trial Conspirators, pp. 85, 86,

and testimony of Mrs. Emma Offutt, pp. 121-125, and Trial of Surratt,

p. 281.

[28] See supplemental affidavit of L. Wiechmann and Trial of J. H.

Surratt, p. 295.

[29] As Judge Pierrepont is now dead, I deem it best to cut out a

certain statement, which I had from him, with his consent to publish

it.--AUTHOR.

[30] See testimony of Father Boucher, Trial of Surratt, p. 895, and

onward. Also testimony of Rev. Stephen F. Cameron, p. 793 and onward.

Trial of Surratt.

[31] See p. 394, Trial of Surratt; also supplemental affidavit of L. J.

Wiechmann.

[32] Testimony of L. J. Wiechmann, p. 454, Report of the trial of John

H. Surratt.

[33] In a communication to a Philadelphia paper.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant

preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Unless the correction was unambiguous, inconsistent and unbalanced

(missing) quotation marks have not been changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Text uses "henious" almost as often as "heinous"; not changed.

Page 69; "12 M." could stand for "Midnight" or be a misprint for "A.M."

Page 91: No obvious opening quotation mark to match the closing one at

the end of: and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense".

Page 198: The anchor numbers for footnotes 20 and 21 (originally 2 and

3) were printed in reverse sequence, and have been swapped here.

Page 156: Closing quotation mark added after 'put him down as a damned

fool.'

Page 243: No closing quotation for: "I do not rise for the purpose ...

Page 249: Missing opening quotation mark before 'And when the facts'.

Page 292: No closing single quotation mark for "'What! would you have

this great...." and the opening mark was poorly printed, so it could be

something else.

Page 367: No obvious closing quotation mark for ' "if I (the witness)

did not hear....'