Hanging Mary

by Susan Higginbotham

  “I could not refuse a Southern Maryland lady, Mrs. Surratt. Now, do you have any questions for me?”

  “Why is there to be a military trial?”

  Senator Johnson shook his head. “The explanation is that the assassination of President Lincoln was a wartime act, and that Booth and his accomplices violated the laws of war, and that you and the rest should therefore be tried by a military court instead of a civilian one. All that is balderdash. The truth is, there are still so many Confederate sympathizers in Washington, Secretary Stanton fears that he could not obtain a conviction by a jury were you to be tried by a civilian court. I am preparing an argument against the jurisdiction of this court, but for the time being, we must proceed here.”

  “Will I be allowed to testify?”

  “No, but in that one respect, it makes no difference what sort of trial you have. Except in the state of Maine, a defendant in a criminal case cannot testify in his own defense.”

  “Sir, what do you think will happen to me? I know that we are on trial for our lives.”

  “No woman has been hanged by the federal government, Mrs. Surratt, and I cannot imagine they would dare to do it now. It would be against all notions of chivalry, all that we hold dear. Besides, there are enough desperate-looking characters in that lot to hang. I would not like to be Mr. Atzerodt’s counsel, for instance, and that Payne fellow, having actually attempted the murder of Secretary Seward, doesn’t stand a chance.”

  “But will they imprison me? What will become of my daughter?”

  “I cannot assure you at this time that you will not be imprisoned, Mrs. Surratt. I must hear the evidence—and yes, I will hear it as you hear it. Even so, I have the best of hopes that your imprisonment will not be long or harsh. They will have their pound of flesh in the men here, and then they can make a great show of pardoning you and sending you, suitably chastised, back to your home and family.”

  “I will trust in your judgment, Senator Johnson.”

  “I believe that our greatest hope lies in challenging the jurisdiction of the court,” Senator Johnson said briskly. “It is something that I will bend all of my energies to. And with that, Mrs. Surratt, I will bid you good day.”

  • • •

  On Saturday, the spectators came.

  The trial was the best show in town, I heard the lawyers telling each other as everyone settled into their places. The general public could not attend, but those who had the connections to get a pass could, and judging from the fine attire of the spectators, these were very well-connected people indeed. Some of the men brought their ladies and courteously gave them the best seats.

  The ladies pointed and squealed like children visiting a menagerie. “There’s Payne! There’s that horrid Atzerodt! There’s Mrs. Surratt!” Mr. Herold seemed to find this attention diverting, and he admired the younger and prettier of the ladies. Mr. Payne stared straight ahead, his face never changing expression, which fascinated the ladies all the more. With his strong build and chiseled features, he was their clear favorite; presentable but unexceptional Mr. Arnold and Mr. O’Laughlin, scruffy Mr. Spangler, disreputable Mr. Atzerodt, hobbledehoyish Mr. Herold, and dejected Dr. Mudd barely merited a second glance from them.

  After Mr. Payne, I was the second most popular attraction. “There is the horrid creature!” “Look how demure she pretends to be!” “Look how bold she looks!” Two pretty ladies got into a spirited argument about whether I looked sufficiently wicked to have plotted to kill the president, and they were still arguing the point when General Hunter, the president of the commission, called the court to order.

  Senator Johnson entered the courtroom. Catching sight of him as a murmur went about, General Hunter asked, “Do I understand Mr. Johnson is appearing for any of these prisoners?”

  “I do not know whether I shall be able to appear or not. I have taken no part in the case thus far, except to speak to the counsel. Whether I shall appear or not will depend on whether I can find that I can stay as long as may be necessary. I have no objection to appearing if the court will permit me to leave it at any time.”

  Leave?

  I was frowning over this when the commissioners and Senator Johnson began arguing over whether he recognized the oath of loyalty to the government. Their exchange was so spirited at one point that my codefendants sensed a fight, for all seven of them sat up straighter, their manacled hands balling instinctively into fists.

  But after a great deal more talk, during which the ladies drooped with boredom, everyone was mollified, and the first witness of the day was called. He was a detective, who gave evidence against Mr. Atzerodt.

  Then the second witness was called. I heard the name, but only when the witness walked to the stand did I believe what I was hearing. He raised his hand and swore to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.

  He was Mr. Weichmann. And he was testifying for the prosecution.

  38

  NORA

  APRIL 30 TO MAY 11, 1865

  I could get no information about what had happened to Mrs. Surratt after she was taken away. Even Miss Lomax, who continued to enjoy privileges I did not, was unable to obtain any word as to her fate.

  During this period, I had my own tribulations, although in retrospect, they hardly seem worthy of mention. One night, Miss Lomax and I were awakened by an unearthly howling, which we were convinced could only be the anguished noises of some poor prisoner in torment. Only a few days later did we learn the truth: the large gray feline who was the prison’s chief mouser had disappeared for a day or two, only to be found locked in the cellar, from which it emerged with a vigor that proved to be the terror of the Old Capitol’s rodent population. Another time, just before lights-out, two drunken male prisoners found their way to our cell “just to visit the ladies!” It was one of the few times during our imprisonment when we were grateful for the man pacing back and forth outside our door, for we could hear him threatening to blow their brains out if they did not make a quick retreat, an order they tipsily obeyed.

  After a week or so of durance, Miss Lomax was released. Later, she wrote a memoir of her time here—anonymously and with most of the names disguised, though any lady who was at the Old Capitol at the time would have no difficulty recognizing her or her fellow inmates in its pages. I was rather disappointed—as I suppose those who find themselves put into books are destined to be—to find myself enshrined, under the uninspired name of “Mary,” as a rather timid miss, five years younger than my true age (although perhaps this was a politeness), and without an overabundance of spirit. I was also amused to see that Miss Lomax added weeks onto her own imprisonment. Still, she painted a kind portrait of Mrs. Surratt, who along with Anna was the only person in the book to appear under her true name, and for that I could forgive Miss Lomax any of her deficiencies.

  I was not alone after Miss Lomax was freed. A third lady, whom Miss Lomax named in her book as Mrs. Thomas and whom I shall call the same, had been placed in our cell. Her story did not hang together well, and I suspected, and still suspect, she had been placed with us as a spy. Certainly she ate the prison food with gusto and slept on the bed without a bit of squeamishness, which made me believe she was not all that sorry to be here and that prison might indeed be a step up for her. But she was such a talkative lady that, even if I had been so foolish as to say anything compromising, I doubt I would have been allowed to get enough words in edgewise to do so.

  In the meantime, I had heard nothing from my father, although another basket of cakes had finally been delivered to me. With Mrs. Surratt’s departure, however, I was allowed the privilege of seeing some other prisoners’ cast-off newspapers, and it was from them I learned the horrid news that Mrs. Surratt and seven men were to go on trial for their lives at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary here in Washington.

  The Old Arsenal was located at the very tip of a poor part of Washington known as the Island. A number of young women from the neighborhood, most of them poor Irish, had worked packing cart
ridges at the arsenal, and the previous summer, there had been a dreadful explosion that had killed twenty-one of them and burned a few others horribly. I had read of the tragedy, and the mass funeral for the victims (which President Lincoln had attended), from the comfortable confines of Georgetown Visitation. There I had guiltily contemplated how similar I was to those girls, in age and background, and yet how entirely different, being blessed with a father who could provide for me instead of having to provide for myself.

  How could anyone on trial in such a sad place come to any good end?

  39

  MARY

  MAY 13 TO 18, 1865

  Everyone in the courtroom, even the ladies, fell silent when Mr. Weichmann took his oath. The very first question Judge Advocate Holt asked was whether he knew my Johnny, to which Mr. Weichmann gave a firm yes.

  “When did you begin to board at the house of his mother, Mrs. Surratt, a prisoner here?”

  “The first of November, 1864.”

  “Mrs. Surratt, who is sitting near you there?”

  An officer motioned for me to remove my veil, and Mr. Weichmann, who had his back to me, turned and looked at me for the first time since he had left my boardinghouse to look for Johnny. I could not see his face well enough to read his emotions, and perhaps I could not have read them even if my sight were better. “Yes, sir, she is the lady.”

  As Judge Holt briskly examined Mr. Weichmann, who gave his replies in a more firm, confident tone than I ever remembered hearing him use in my boardinghouse, I discovered there was simply nothing this man did not remember. Mr. Booth’s comings and goings. The mysterious Mrs. Slater. Mr. Payne’s visits, first in his guise as Mr. Wood and then as Mr. Payne. Our two carriage drives to the country. The young ladies calling Mr. Atzerodt “Port Tobacco.” Dates, times, places, clothing—Mr. Weichmann had it all perfectly, to the point where I wondered if he had been keeping a pocket diary of all this.

  Judge Holt moved on relentlessly as I leaned my head on my arm. Since being moved here, I had been suffering off and on from female problems, and Mr. Weichmann’s testimony was making me no better. “Will you state whether, on the afternoon of the fourteenth of April, the day of the assassination, Mr. Booth did not call and have a private interview with Mrs. Surratt at her house?”

  “I will state that about half past two o’clock, when I was going to the door, I saw Mr. Booth. He was in the parlor, and Mrs. Surratt was speaking to him.”

  “Were they alone?”

  “Yes, sir, they were alone in the parlor.”

  The lady spectators tittered.

  “How long was it after that before you drove to the country with Mrs. Surratt?”

  “He did not remain in the parlor more than three or four minutes.”

  “And was it immediately after that you and Mrs. Surratt set out for the country?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  During this conversation, my counsel and his associates had been scribbling on paper, their faces impassive. Senator Johnson rose for the cross-examination. “Were you upon intimate terms with Mr. Surratt?”

  “Very intimate, indeed.”

  “Did he ever intimate to you or anybody else, to your knowledge, that there was a purpose to assassinate the president?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Were you in the habit of seeing John H. Surratt almost every day when he was at home, at his mother’s?”

  “Yes, sir, he would be seated at the same table.”

  “Was he frequently in your room, and you in his?”

  “He partook of the same room, shared my bed with me, slept with me.”

  And got drunk with you, shared oysters with you, laughed with you, Mr. Weichmann…

  “And during the whole of that period you never heard him intimate that it was his purpose, or that there was a purpose, to assassinate the president?”

  “No, sir. At one time he mentioned to me that he was going on the stage with Booth, that he was going to be an actor, and that they were going to play in Richmond.”

  For some time, Senator Johnson shot questions at Mr. Weichmann, who answered them all in an unruffled voice. I wondered how many interrogations he had undergone since being sent to Old Capitol Prison.

  “You have known Mrs. Surratt ever since November, and before that?”

  “I have known her since 1863.”

  “You have been living at her house since November?”

  “Since November.”

  “During the whole of that time, as far as you could judge, was her character apparently good and amiable?”

  “Her character was exemplary and ladylike in every particular.”

  “Have you been to church with her?”

  “I generally accompanied her to church every Sunday.”

  “As far as you could judge, her conduct, in a religious and in a moral sense, was altogether exemplary?”

  “Yes, sir. She went to her religious duties at least every two weeks.”

  “Did she go early in the morning?”

  “Sometimes early in the morning, and sometimes at late Mass.”

  “Was that the case during the whole period up to the assassination?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then, if I understand you, from November up to the fourteenth of April, whenever she was here, she was regular in her attendance at her own church, and apparently, as far as you could judge, doing all her duties to God and to man?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Senator Johnson nodded and took his seat with an air of satisfaction. Gamely, my other two lawyers cross-examined my boarder, as did all of the other defendants’ lawyers. By the time Mr. Weichmann finally left the stand, his voice was hoarse.

  The commissioners called a recess, and my counsel gathered around me. “Well,” Senator Johnson said. “That was certainly an observant young man.”

  “Sir, do you think he did us damage?”

  Senator Johnson gathered some papers together. “The jurisdictional question will be our best defense, as I said earlier. Now, I must be going, but of course Mr. Clampitt and Mr. Aiken will remain here for the afternoon session.”

  He bustled off. My codefendants’ lawyers, busy conferring with their own clients, looked at him, puzzled, as he left.

  • • •

  After the recess, I heard a second familiar name called to the stand. “John Lloyd.” His imprisonment, and I guess enforced sobriety, had on the whole had a beneficial effect on him, for he looked healthier and thinner as he made his way to the stand.

  Did he know he held my fate in his hands?

  Mr. Aiken seemed to know so. He rose. “Sirs, I would request that in the absence of my senior counsel, and its importance to my client Mrs. Surratt’s case, that Mr. Lloyd’s testimony be postponed until Monday next, when Senator Johnson will be present.”

  Judge Holt rose. “I object, sir. Mrs. Surratt has two perfectly competent lawyers present. She does not need three.”

  “Overruled.”

  As Mr. Aiken sat down, defeated, Judge Holt asked Mr. Lloyd whether he knew my son, Mr. Herold, and Mr. Atzerodt, and was met with a series of affirmatives. “Will you state whether or not, some five or six weeks before the assassination of the president, any or all of these men about whom I have inquired came to your house?”

  “They were there.”

  “All three together?”

  “Yes: John H. Surratt, Herold, and Atzerodt were there together.”

  “What did they bring to your house? And what did they do there?”

  “When they drove up there in the morning, John H. Surratt and Atzerodt came first. They went from my house and went toward T. B., a town about five miles below there. They had not been gone more than half an hour when they returned with Herold. Then the three were together—Herold, Surratt, and Atzerodt.”

  “What did they bring to your house?”

  “I saw nothing until they all three came into the bar room. All three of them drank, I think, and then John Surratt ca
lled me into the front parlor, and on the sofa were two guns with ammunition. I think he told me they were carbines.”

  “A sort of a shorter rifle,” one of the gentleman spectators explained in an undertone to his lady, who was looking baffled.

  “Anything besides the carbines and ammunition?”

  “There was a rope, and also a monkey wrench. Surratt asked me to take care of them, to conceal the carbines. I told him there was no place there to conceal them, and I did not wish to keep such things in the house.”

  “You say that he asked you to conceal those articles for him?”

  “Yes, sir, he asked me to conceal them. I told him there was no place to conceal them. He then showed me where I could put them underneath the joists of the house—the joists of the second floor of the main building. This little unfinished room will admit of anything between the joists.”

  I almost nodded in agreement before I caught myself. Johnny had hidden things for himself and his courier friends there many a time; I had watched him do it.

  “Were they put in that place?”

  “They were put in there according to his directions.”

  “For what purpose, and for how long, did he ask you to keep those articles?”

  “I am very positive that he said he would call for them in a few days. He said he just wanted them to stay for a few days, and he would call for them.”

  “Will you state whether or not, on the Monday or Tuesday preceding the assassination of the president, Mrs. Surratt came to your home?”

  “I was coming to Washington, and I met Mrs. Surratt at Uniontown on the Tuesday previous.”

  “Did she say anything to you in regard to those carbines?”

  I closed my eyes.

  “When she first broached the subject to me, I did not know what she had reference to, then she came out plainer, and I am quite positive she asked me about the ‘shooting irons.’ I am quite positive about that, but not altogether positive. Think she named ‘shooting irons,’ or something to call my attention to those things, for I had almost forgotten about their being there. I told her that they were hid far back, that I was afraid the house would be searched, and they were shoved far back. She told me to get them out ready; they would be wanted soon.”