Although I am a Civil War historian, my main interest is the Lincoln Assassination and Conspiracy. Below is the text of a presentation I gave on the July 7, 1865 execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt.
Please remember that these poor souls were not characters in a story or a movie. They were real people, just like you and me. They had friends and families that were left behind to suffer after their deaths. I ask you to please show a little respect for the departed and spare a kind thought for them.
Hundreds of people were arrested after John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer and famous actor, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, just five days after the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. It was Good Friday and the following Sunday was coined "Black Easter." Jails overflowed with suspects but eight were eventually put on trial. They were charged for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to kill President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. All were found guilty. Four, Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, were sentenced to death by hanging. The other four were given various prison sentences. Dr. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to life in prison. Edmund Spangler was sentenced to six years. They were sent to the Dry Tortugas, an island down near the Florida Keys. All were eventually pardoned in 1869 with the exception of Michael O'Laughlen. He had died in 1867 after being bitten by a mosquito and contracting yellow fever. I am only going to discuss the first group. If you want to learn more about the second group, I recommend reading Memoirs of a Lincoln Conspirator by Samuel Arnold.
First is Mary Elizabeth Surratt. She ran a boardinghouse at 541 H Street in Washington DC. Before turning to murder, Booth planned to kidnap President Lincoln. During the early years of the war, members of the conspiracy team were seen in the house but there is no evidence that any plot was formed there or conspiratorial meetings took place there. However, the government decided that she "kept the nest that hatched the egg" and deemed her guilty of conspiracy. She was 42 when she was sentenced to death by hanging. This was, and still is, a very controversial sentencing. She was the first woman to be executed by the Federal government and historians still debate whether she deserved death or was unaware of an assassination plot and should have been given a lesser sentence instead. The main witnesses against her were a drunk and a Confederate sympathizer who both gave questionable and contradictory statements that showed reasonable doubt of her guilt.
Then we have Lewis Thornton Powell, who went by the alias of Paine. Powell was assigned by Booth to kill Secretary of State William Seward. He failed due to dim lighting in Seward's bedroom. Medical headgear Seward was wearing while recovering from a carriage accident also helped block vital organs from Powell's knife. Seward’s cheek was severed and remained scarred forever. However, Seward, his sons Fredrick and Gus, Sergeant George Robinson, and messenger Emerick Hansell, all survived being attacked by Powell. Lewis Powell was only 21 when he was sentenced to death.
Third is David Edgar Herold. Herold met up with Booth in southern Maryland about an hour after Lincoln's assassination. Historians still debate what Herold's role was on the night of the assassination since he was the only one not assigned to kill someone. He guided Booth through Maryland and Virginia for twelve days. On the night of April 26, he and Booth were sleeping in a tobacco barn that belonged to Richard H. Garrett, a Virginia Farmer. The 16th New York Cavalry, made up of 26 Union soldiers and led by Everton Conger, Lafayette Baker, and Edward Doherty, surrounded the barn. Thomas "Boston" Corbett would fatally shoot Booth in the neck. Herold surrendered when the soldiers threatened to set fire to the barn. He was barely 23 as his birthday was on June 16 and he was executed on July 7.
Last is George Andrew Atzerodt. He was assigned to kill Andrew Johnson but got drunk in the bar of the hotel where Johnson was staying instead. Overcome with fear, he fled into the night and made no attempt to go near Johnson. He was captured a few days later, around 4 AM, at the home of his cousin in Maryland. Although he made no effort to kill Johnson, he was 33 years old when he was given the death penalty.
The trial only lasted seven weeks, from May 10th to June 30th. Interesting fact about the trial was how the prisoners were seated in court. The four who would be executed sat together and the four who received prison sentences sat together. Whether that was done on purpose will never be known. The sentences were read to the condemned on July 6th and carried out the very next day. Priests and family members barely had time to be contacted. Lewis Powell asked that his family not be called since they would not make it to Washington from Florida in time. Some jerk did make sure to send the family pictures of their deceased son hanging from a rope though. The scaffold from which the four condemned were executed was built overnight. The sawing and hammering of the carpenters could be heard throughout the prison. One can only imagine what was going through the minds of the prisoners as they heard the loud noises of the construction and the silence when it finally ended. We do know that none of them got much sleep that night. The strips of cloth that would bind the condemned and the death hoods they would wear were made from canvas Union tents. The nooses were also made overnight. Mary Surratt's was made by the hangman, Captain Christian Rath, that morning. Tired from making nooses all night, and not believing a woman would hang, he made her noose with five turns instead of seven. The scaffold stood 28 feet high and 30 feet long.
(Side note: it was here I stood on a table to demonstrate the height of the gallows. I used the technique once before because it always got the audience's attention. I was planning to jump off but my professor decided to help me down instead, fearing I was going to kill myself. I guess I can't blame him for worrying about my well being :)
The four walked up thirteen steps to reach the top and then stood on two trapdoors that were supported by wooden props. On July 6th, the troops stationed in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary were assembled in front of Rath. Without saying exactly what he wanted, Rath said, "I want four able-bodied men to volunteer for a special duty." Knowing that most soldiers would volunteer to do something other than their monotony normal routines, Rath had plenty to pick from. He selected Corporal William Coxshall, Private Daniel Shoup, Private George Taylor, and Corporal Joseph Haslett. The four men were marched to where the scaffold was being constructed and Coxshall remembered that it was not long before they "had the first hint of what we were to do." They were to actively participate in the execution as "prop knockers." When Rath gave the signal, they would knock out the beams that supported the gallows traps the condemned would be standing on. Rath promised them a canteen of whisky if they did a good job. For Coxshall, as he stood below the gallows on the morning of the execution, "the strain was getting worse. I became nauseated, what with the heat and waiting, and taking a hold of the supporting post...I vomited. I felt a little better after that, but not too good." When the traps sprung, the four fell. They hit the end of the rope and were stopped and yanked up by the neck. If done right, that would break the neck and lead to instant death. The four men returned to camp to boos and jeers. Their fellow soldiers called them "hangmen" and a fight almost broke out. Coxshell wrote in defense, "None of us relished the work we had done...Had we known what it was we were to do that day we volunteered, none of would have stepped forward." He called his involvement "one of the grimmest events I ever participated in." And they never did get that whisky.
Before the execution, the condemned were seated on top of the gallows with umbrellas over their heads. The fear of the soldiers in charge of the hanging was that the conspirators would get to the top of the gallows and faint. It was over 100 degrees and there was no shade. They were all wearing dark clothing. Mary Surratt had on about six layers of clothing and the men were dressed in pants, sweaters, and jackets. All but Powell had taken sedative drugs and were not very steady on their feet. They were also walking to their death, seeing the looming gallows and rope nooses moving in the breeze, passing the pine gun box coffins and shallow open graves. The execution had to be done between ten and two. The soldiers held off as long as they could thinking that a plea would come in for Mary Surratt. They emerged from the prison a little after one and all was done in about a half hour to forty minutes. Even after the condemned, all of whom were chained wrist and ankle except for Mary Surratt, made it up the stairs to their seats, the death warrant had to be read, the priests had to say their final prayers, and the four needed to be prepared. Fearing that one or more of them would collapse and prolong the already long execution schedule, the soldiers decided to cover them with umbrellas.
Remember how I said that the purpose of hanging is to achieve quick death? Sadly, that did not happen in this case. The execution was faulty and none of the conspirators died instantly. Their heights and weights were not taken into account and the drop was too short to kill any of them by way of snapping their necks. All fell 5 feet. Lewis Powell needed to fall about 5 feet 11 inches to die instantly. Mary Surratt, Herold, and Atzerodt needed to fall about 7 feet.
Mary Surratt fell and ceased moving and Atzerodt only shuddered once. This was due to the fact that the rope hit a certain part of their necks and knocked them unconscious. Herold and Powell remained conscious and both strangled to death, Herold for about five minutes and Powell for about seven. This article was published by the New York Herald on July 8, the day after the execution.
"There was no struggle on the part of Mrs. Surratt. She hangs and swings as if within the dark folds of her puffed dress no life had ever been. A bag of old clothes if might be but for that flesh we see between the rope and the cap. Atzerodt still shakes as if the fear of death were to continue beyond it, and outlive consciousness itself. Harold struggles-his chest heaves. Payne slowly draws himself up till he assumes for a second the shape of a man sitting in a rather low chair. He straightens again, but the broad chest heaves and swells. It is twenty-six minutes and fifteen seconds after one. Six minutes and a half have they swung there, and again a curving of the body and bending proves Payne still alive, but it is the last."
The government hired Alexander Gardner, a well-known photographer, to take pictures. This was the first photographed execution. It was also public. Many Union soldiers were in attendance. About 1,000 other people applied for tickets to the execution. However, only about 100 were printed. Most were given to high ranking members of the government, some witnesses, and newspaper reporters. Oddly enough, friends and family of the condemned could have obtained passes to see the execution. I'm not quite sure how well that was thought through and it still baffles me how some of those same people actually won the Civil War. However, no one who had a personal connection to one of the conspirators attended. Citizens stood outside the prison and sold cake and lemonade as if they were attending a party. Some stood on the other side of the wall and asked the soldiers for information. Other sailed up the river in order to watch. Gardener's photos captured many interesting details. For example, one of the prop knockers was missing part of his finger. Gardner also captures the story of 13 year old John Collins, probably the youngest person to witness the execution. He recalled later in life, "I have never quite known exactly how I did it, but I actually went through all these lines of troops without a pass, and in less than twenty minutes from the first attempt, I was stationed not thirty feet away from the scaffold and in full view of everything said or done in connection with the execution...Boy though I was, I turned away with a sensation of horror and faintness and a feeling that I have never since lost, that I had no wish ever to witness another such scene."
Because no woman had ever been executed, no one thought Mary Surratt would be killed until she fell. In fact, soldiers were set up between the Old Arsenal and the Executive Mansion should Andrew Johnson send any pardon for her. Her lawyers, Fredrick Aiken and John Clampitt, tried to secure a writ of habeas corpus for her. They succeeded in getting it but Andrew Johnson suspended it. A few members of the military commission would sign a petition asking Johnson to spare her life because of her sex. Although a messenger claimed to deliver it, Johnson said he never saw it. Anna Surratt tried to see the President to beg for her mother's life. Politician Preston King from New York and Senator James Lane from Kansas refused to let her by, even when she threw herself sobbing at their feet. Both would commit suicide within the year. King would walk off a Hoboken ferry into the Hudson River and Lane would proclaim "goodbye, me" before firing a pistol into his mouth.
The sisters of David Herold also tried to see the President in the hopes of saving their brother's life. Also unsuccessful, they went home to their distraught mother. She had lost her husband in October of 1864 and was now going to lose her only surviving son. In an effort to shield their mother from knowing when it was time for the execution of her son, since the time was set between ten and two, the girls stopped all the clocks in their home. However, they forgot that church bells rang out the hour. When the bells chimed two o'clock, the sound seeped into the house, and Mary Herold knew her son was dead.
Speaking of the dead, their last words were recorded minutes before the drop fell. Mary Surratt whispered to a soldier standing nearby, "Please don't let me fall." Lewis Powell called out to the crowd below, "Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us" and then said to a guard through his hood, "I thank you. Goodbye." George Atzerodt address his companions, "Farewell, Gentleman. May we all meet in the other world." Herold was silent.
The dead were allowed to hang for about twenty minutes before being cut down. Atzerodt fell the twenty eight feet and landed with a thud. The soldiers cutting the ropes were reprimanded and told to take the others down more carefully. Mary Surratt's head fell forward and a soldier remarked that she "would make a good bow." He was also reprimanded. They were unbound and unchained but were buried with the death hoods on. The nooses were also removed from around their necks. As soldiers tried to remove Mary Surratt's noose, they noticed that the rope had dug into her flesh and the skin was not detaching from it. As they tried to take it off, the skin of her neck peeled off and stuck to the rope. This morbid image remained with the men for the rest of their lives.
The four were buried in shallow graves alongside the gallows. About the same times letters began coming in from Edwin Booth asking for the remains of his younger brother, John, Anna Surratt began asking Andrew Johnson for the return of her mother's body. All requests were denied. The prison was torn down a year later and all coffins were moved into a warehouse. Four years later, the bodies were released to their families. Mary Surratt is buried Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Fredrick, Maryland. George Atzerodt is buried in Saint Paul's Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland under a fictitious name. David Herold is buried in an unmarked grave in Congressional Cemetery in Washington DC. Lewis Powell's body was the only one not claimed and his skull ended up as an exhibit in the Smithsonian. Like the revolver that killed Booth, where his body went remains a mystery. The skull was eventually discovered by historians and buried in Geneva Cemetery in Seminole County, Florida.
All the conspirators were punished with the exception of one. Mary Surratt's youngest son, John Surratt Jr., who was involved in the earlier kidnapping plot, fled. He was captured in Egypt a year later and sent back to Washington for trial. Similar evidence was brought against him. However, the jury deadlocked and decided that John Surratt had no knowledge or involvement in the assassination. He was released and lived to be 72. However, he was labeled a coward for not attempting to save his mother. And what became of the men responsible for this? Andrew Johnson went down in history as arguably the worst President to hold office. Four years after the execution, as Johnson packed his office, Edwin Stanton would die suddenly at the age of 55 after suffering from an asthma attack and dying due to lack of oxygen. How ironic.
With a Thousand kind wishes for your future happiness,
XOXO, Kate
