Mr. Herold, who seemed to find our trial rather entertaining on the whole, looked in my direction to see how I was reacting to all of this. I sat up straighter.
“Will you state now, whether or not, on the evening of the night on which the president was assassinated, Mrs. Surratt came to your house with Mr. Weichmann?”
“I went to Marlboro on that day to attend a trial there in court, and in the evening it was probably late when I got home. I found Mrs. Surratt there when I got home. I should judge it was about five o’clock.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She met me out by the woodpile as I drove in, having fish and oysters in the buggy, and she told me to have those shooting irons ready that night. There would be some parties calling for them.”
“Did she ask you to get anything else ready for those parties besides the shooting irons?”
“She gave me something wrapped up in a piece of paper. I did not know what it was till I took it upstairs, and I found it to be a field glass.”
“Did she ask you to have any whiskey prepared for those parties?”
“She did.”
“What did she say about that?”
“She said to get two bottles of whiskey also.”
“And said they were to be called for that night?”
“Yes. They were to be called for that night.”
“State now whether they were called for that night by Booth and Herold.”
Mr. Lloyd swept the air with his hand. “Booth told me, ‘Lloyd, for God’s sake, make haste and get those things!’”
“Did he not seem, from the manner of his language, to suppose that you already understood what he called for?”
“From the way he spoke, he must have been apprised that I already knew what I was to give him.”
“What did you say?”
“I did not make any reply but went upstairs and got them.”
“Did they take one or both of the carbines?”
“Only one.”
“Did they explain why the other was not taken?”
“Booth said that he could not take his, because his leg was broken.”
“Did he take a drink also?”
“He drank while he was sitting out on his horse.”
“Did Herold carry the bottle out to him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did they say anything in regard to the assassination as they rode away?”
“Just as they were about leaving, Booth said, ‘I will tell you some news if you want to hear it’ or something to that effect. I said, ‘I am not particular. Use your own choice about telling news.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I am pretty certain that we have assassinated the president and Secretary Seward.’”
Even in my present state, I could imagine Mr. Booth, injured and fleeing for his life, sitting on his horse and telling my tenant in his pleasant voice that he had committed the crime of the century.
• • •
As the days passed, more and more ladies made their way to the court, encouraged, I suppose, by the reports of their friends who had attended early on. There were so many of them, they overflowed into the spaces occupied by the press and by the defense counsel. Sometimes they forgot where they were and began to chatter among themselves as if they were leaving church after a particularly interesting sermon. The commissioners, who would surely have dealt with them swiftly if they were men, appeared to be completely intimidated by these pretty women in their finery, and when they were forced to shush them, did so in the mildest way possible.
The ladies’ greatest occupations were gazing at Mr. Payne and at me. Mr. Payne seemed to overawe them, so they kept their thoughts about him to themselves, but they had no such compunctions when it came to me. Each day before court started, they got within mere feet of me and debated whether I was ugly or pretty, whether my proportions were stout or mannish, whether I had an evil face or a benevolent one. If it were not for Mr. Payne, a look from whom quailed them, they would probably have tried to lift my veil.
It hurt me to the very bone. When had I ever done a sister woman an unkindness? Could not they think how it pained me to sit every day and hear my Johnny spoken of as a criminal? Did they know how I longed to see my poor Anna, of whom I had not had a word since being brought here?
I had sinned, and perhaps I deserved this pointing and giggling, but that still made it no easier to bear.
On a hot morning in mid-May, the ladies subsided into their seats, whispering that they hoped there would be some interesting witnesses today and not a bunch of dreary bores. They got their wish, for soon Mr. Weichmann emerged from the room where the witnesses waited their turn to be called.
Mr. Weichmann started by identifying the telegram he received from Mr. Booth, telling him to ask Johnny to telegraph an address to Mr. Booth. Judge Holt asked, “Did you or did you not deliver to Mr. Surratt the message contained in the dispatch?”
“I delivered it to him the same day.”
“What did he say?”
“I asked him what particular number and street was meant, and he said, ‘Don’t be so damned inquisitive!’”
Sourly, I thought Mr. Weichmann had never in his life had so many women hanging on his every word.
Mr. Weichmann told the court about the day Johnny, Mr. Payne, and Mr. Booth returned to the house after the failed kidnapping. No one asked him what we had for dinner that night, but I had no doubt that if someone had, he would remember it to the last biscuit.
Rising to cross-examine Mr. Weichmann, Mr. Aiken asked him about my meeting with Mr. Lloyd at Uniontown, and Senator Johnson—here in court for the first time in several days—joined in, albeit to no account I could see. He made matters even worse by asking my boarder about Mrs. Slater. As Mr. Weichmann prepared to answer—never in this trial had I heard him utter the words “I don’t know”—I wondered what had become of that pert young woman. Although her name had come up from time to time before at the trial as Johnny’s companion and a guest at the boardinghouse, no one had accused her of plotting to kill the president, and no one seemed to know what she was doing now or where she was doing it. Was she back with her inconvenient husband, warming my Johnny’s bed somewhere in Canada, or locked up in some Yankee prison? For all I disliked the chit, I hoped she was free. She ought to be: not even Mr. Weichmann knew her Christian name, and she had certainly kept herself well hidden with that veil of hers.
“Mrs. Surratt told me that she was a North Carolinian, I believe, and that she spoke French, and that she was a blockade runner, or bearer of dispatches.”
“When, if ever, had I told Mr. Weichmann those things?”
Echoing my doubts, Mr. Aiken asked, “Are you certain, beyond all doubt, that Mrs. Surratt told you Mrs. Slater was a blockade runner?”
Mr. Weichmann said resoundingly, “Yes, sir,” and the ladies clucked their tongues comfortably, assured beyond all doubt that I was on the best of terms with the spy Mrs. Slater.
Mr. Aiken asked Mr. Weichmann whether, while employed at the War Department, he had agreed to share any of its information with those of us in the prisoners’ dock. I tensed with attention, for Johnny had told me he did precisely that. But Mr. Weichmann batted back his question with a firm “No, sir,” lying with a conviction I doubted I would have been able to muster.
Left with no choice but to move on, Mr. Aiken asked, “You state that all the prisoners at the bar were free and unreserved in your presence in their conversation?”
“They spoke in my presence on general topics, and so on, but, on their private business, they never spoke to me.”
“In all your conversation with them, you never learned of any intended treasonable purpose or act or conspiracy of theirs?”
“No, sir.”
“You never did?”
“No, sir.”
“And you were not suspicious of anything of the sort?”
Mr. Weichmann raised his right hand. “I would have been the last man in the world to
suspect John Surratt, my schoolmate, of the murder of the president of the United States.”
“You state that your suspicions were aroused at one time by something you saw at Mrs. Surratt’s?”
“My suspicions were aroused by John Surratt and this man Payne and Booth coming to the house. My suspicions again were aroused by their frequent private conversations. My suspicions were aroused by seeing Payne and Surratt playing on the bed with bowie knives.”
“Then, if your suspicions were aroused on all these different occasions that you have mentioned, and you had reason to believe that something was in the wind that was improper, did you communicate any of them to the War Department?”
“My suspicions were not of a fixed or settled character,” Mr. Weichmann said a little sulkily. “I did not know what they intended to do. I made a confidant of Captain Gleason in the War Department. I told him that Booth was a secesh sympathizer: I mentioned snatches of conversation that I would hear from these parties, and I asked him, ‘Captain, what do you think of all this?’ We even talked over several things they could do. I asked him whether they could be bearers of dispatches or blockade runners. At one time I saw in the paper the capture of President Lincoln fully discussed, and I remarked to Captain Gleason, ‘Captain, do you think any party could attempt the capture of President Lincoln?’ He laughed and hooted at the idea.”
“You were a roommate of Surratt’s?”
“John Surratt has been my companion for seven years now.”
“And did you still profess to be a friend and confidant of his at the time you were giving this information that you speak of to the War Department?”
“I was a friend so far as he was concerned, but when my suspicions were aroused as to the danger to the government in particular, I preferred the government to John Surratt. I did not know what he was contemplating. He said he was going to engage in cotton speculations. He was going to engage in oil.”
“If you did not know what he was contemplating, how could you forfeit your friendship to him? What is the rationale of that proceeding?”
“I never forfeited my friendship to him. He forfeited his friendship to me.”
“Not by engaging in the cotton speculation?”
“No, sir. By placing me in the position in which I now am—testifying against him.”
The commissioners, along with the lady spectators, all nodded sympathetically at poor Mr. Weichmann’s plight.
40
NORA
MAY 13 TO MAY 31, 1865
Soon after the trial began, my friend Tall One visited me in Mr. Wood’s office. “You are on the list of witnesses to testify for the prosecution,” he informed me. “Testify satisfactorily, and you will find yourself safe at home.”
“What do you call testifying satisfactorily?”
“I call it testifying to the points you’ve been cooperative on, which haven’t been all that many. You saw Booth, Payne, and Atzerodt at Mrs. Surratt’s house. Are you prepared to admit to that?”
“I can hardly deny it.”
“Then don’t try. Second point: you went to Ford’s Theatre with John Surratt and Payne, sat in a box there, and saw Mr. Booth pay the men a visit. Are you prepared to admit to that?”
“I am.”
“Then just don’t make any unpleasant surprises for us, miss, and testify as you just promised me.”
“I will not have to testify against Mrs. Surratt?”
Tall One eyed me. “Is there something you know against her?”
“Nothing.”
“And if you did, I doubt you’d tell it,” Tall One remarked. He rang for my guard. “Women,” he muttered.
• • •
With the start of the trial, I soon became accustomed to a new routine. Each morning, a group of us prisoners would be herded into ambulances, which took us to the Old Arsenal. There, we were crowded into a small room adjoining the courtroom, waiting to be called to testify if needed that day. Usually we were not needed but would sit there for hours under guard, listening to the day’s proceedings.
Mr. Weichmann often shared the ambulance with me. Over the first few days of the trial, he took the stand no fewer than four times, and I listened as he testified about Port Tobacco and Mr. Payne, about Mr. Surratt’s meeting with Mr. Booth and Dr. Mudd, about Mrs. Slater and Mr. Howell, about Mr. Booth’s comings and goings, about Mrs. Surratt’s trips to the tavern with him, even about my own visit to Ford’s Theatre. All of it made a nice little package of conspiracy, which Mr. Weichmann tied up with a pretty bow and handed to the government. Whether he did so out of fear of being placed in the prisoner’s dock himself or out of a genuine desire to see the guilty punished, I cannot say, but when he left the stand and went to sit with the rest of us, awaiting the drive back to Old Capitol Prison, he left off the fine posture he exhibited on the witness stand and sat slumped in a chair, toying with a pocket watch.
We never spoke in the room or in the ambulance, as we were under guard the entire time. Only once, as we stood waiting our turn to climb into the ambulance, did I get a chance to hiss to him, “Since you volunteer testimony from time to time, I wish you would tell the rest, Mr. Weichmann.”
“The rest?”
“Yes. About Mrs. Surratt comforting me when Private Flanagan died. About you and Mr. Surratt singing ‘Dixie.’ About the time we went to see the election results. About the readings we did for Mr. Booth. The times when we were amusing ourselves and no one was plotting anything.”
Mr. Weichmann gazed at me rather sadly. “It’s not relevant, Miss Fitzpatrick.”
“Maybe,” I said just as the guard came into view. “But it’s part of the story, isn’t it?”
• • •
On Monday, May 22, an officer said, “You’ll be first today, Miss Fitzpatrick,” as we were led to our usual gathering place.
I gulped.
As my name was called and I walked to the stand, I glimpsed Mrs. Surratt sitting in a chair in a corner. Clad in black, she held a fan in her hand. I could not see her expression through her veil, and I could only pray that she realized I had not chosen to testify for the prosecution.
I had learned through the chattering of our guards to one another and the newspapers that the trial had attracted many spectators, women as well as men, and the former were especially well represented this morning. Their titters followed me to the stand, and I could see why, for I was a shabby-looking creature. Although Father had been allowed to send in a change of undergarments for me, I was still wearing the dress I had worn when I was arrested at the church fair, and after nearly a month it was none too fresh. After much fuss, I’d finally been given a towel to wash with in the morning, but as the towel was seldom replaced, my face felt nearly as grimy as my dress.
At least I was free of lice, I consoled myself. Each morning, I sat down and coolly checked myself for them, and sometimes Mrs. Thomas and I checked each other for them, like a pair of monkeys. (Even Mrs. Thomas’s lack of squeamishness stopped at lice.) I had been imprisoned long enough to no longer find this particularly odd.
I stepped as far as I could into the witness box—there was a little chuckle when the audience noted it was not built to accommodate a lady’s crinoline—and gazed at the commissioners as I took my oath. Then rose Judge Advocate Bingham, a thin, stern-looking man of about fifty. “State, if you please, to the court your name and residence.”
“My name is Honora Fitzpatrick. I am a resident of Washington.”
“At whose house did you reside during the month of March last in Washington?”
“At Mrs. Surratt’s.”
“The house of the prisoner at the bar?”
It was such a cold appellation. “Yes, sir.”
“State to the court whether, during the time of your residence at her house last winter, you saw John H. Surratt and other men in company with him there.”
“I saw John Surratt there.”
Judge Bingham nodded approvingly. “State what other men
you saw there during the time of your stay last winter.”
“I saw Mr. Booth there.”
“John Wilkes Booth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“State whether you saw any of the prisoners at the bar there during your stay last winter.”
“Yes, sir.”
Judge Bingham snapped, “Who are they?”
Seven men with irons on their wrists and I looked at one another. “There is one, Mr. Payne there, and another, Port—I mean, Mr. Atzerodt.”
“How often did you see this Mr. Payne at Mrs. Surratt’s house? And when?”
“I never saw him there but twice.”
“How often did you see this Mr. Atzerodt that you speak of there?”
“He was there for a short time.”
“Do you understand whether he stayed there overnight once?”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
Judge Bingham gestured. “Look at the other prisoners at the bar—that one at the bar talking.” He pointed to a young man, whom I recognized from the wanted posters as Mr. Herold, who was conversing with a man I supposed was his lawyer.
“I do not know him. I never saw him.”
This seemed to disappoint Judge Bingham. “State to the court whether you accompanied Surratt and this Payne to Ford’s Theatre one night last March,” he said curtly.
“Yes, sir.”
“State whether you occupied a box in the theater that night with them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which box was it that you occupied?”
“I do not know.”
“On which side of the theater was it, as you went in?”
“I did not pay attention which side it was on.”
“And cannot tell now which side it was on?”
“No, sir.”
“Was it the upper or lower box?”
“I think it was the upper.”
“State whether John Wilkes Booth came into that box that night while you and Surratt and Payne were in there.”
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