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John Surratt | |
---|---|
Born | John Harrison Surratt Jr. April 13, 1844 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Died | April 21, 1916 72) | (aged
Burial place | New Cathedral Cemetery |
Nationality | American [1] |
Alma mater | |
Occupation(s) | U.S. postmaster, farmer, parochial school teacher, Pontifical Zouave, public lecturer, company treasurer |
Known for | Co-conspirator in plan to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Friend of John Wilkes Booth |
Spouse | Mary Victorine Hunter (m. 1872) |
Children | 7 |
Parent(s) | Mary Surratt John Harrison Surratt |
Espionage activity | |
Allegiance | Confederate States of America |
Service branch | Confederate Secret Service |
Rank | courier, spy |
John Harrison Surratt Jr. (April 13, 1844 – April 21, 1916) was an American Confederate spy who was accused of plotting with John Wilkes Booth to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln; he was also suspected of involvement in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. His mother, Mary Surratt, was convicted of conspiracy by a military tribunal and hanged; she owned the boarding house that the conspirators used as a safe house and to plot the scheme.
He eluded arrest following the assassination by fleeing to Canada and then to Europe. He thus avoided the fate of the other conspirators, who were hanged. He served briefly as a Pontifical Zouave but was recognized and arrested. He escaped to Egypt but was eventually arrested and extradited. By the time of his trial, the statute of limitations had expired on most of the potential charges. He was tried in civilian court in 1867 in Washington D.C. and was not convicted due to a hung jury. He was never tried again.
He was born in 1844, to John Harrison Surratt Sr. and Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt, in what is today Congress Heights. His baptism took place in 1844 at St. Peter's Church, Washington, D.C. In 1861, he was enrolled at St. Charles College, where he was studying for the priesthood [2] and also met Louis Weichmann. When his father suddenly died in 1862, Surratt was appointed the postmaster for Surrattsville, Maryland.
Surratt served as a Confederate Secret Service courier and spy. After he had been carrying dispatches about Union troop movements across the Potomac River, Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced Surratt to Booth on December 23, 1864, and Surratt agreed to help Booth kidnap Lincoln. The meeting took place at the National Hotel, in Washington, D.C., where Booth lived.
Booth's plan was to seize Lincoln and take him to Richmond, Virginia, to exchange him for thousands of Confederate prisoners of war. On March 17, 1865, Surratt and Booth, along with their comrades, waited in ambush for Lincoln's carriage to leave the Campbell General Hospital to return to Washington. However, Lincoln had changed his mind and remained in Washington.
William H. Crook, one of Lincoln's bodyguards, claimed that Surratt had boarded the River Queen shortly before the Third Battle of Petersburg, using the name of Smith and demanding to see Lincoln (who was aboard at the time). Crook later stated his belief that Surratt "was seeking an opportunity to assassinate the President at this time". [3]
After the assassination of Lincoln, on April 14, 1865, Surratt denied any involvement and said that he was then in Elmira, New York. He was one of the first people suspected of the attempt to assassinate Secretary of State William H. Seward, but the culprit was soon discovered to be Lewis Powell.
When he learned of the assassination, Surratt fled to Montreal, Canada East, arriving on April 17, 1865. He then went to St. Liboire, where a Catholic priest, Father Charles Boucher, gave him sanctuary. Surratt remained there while his mother was arrested, tried, and hanged in the United States for conspiracy.
Aided by ex-Confederate agents Beverly Tucker and Edwin Lee, Surratt, disguised, booked passage to England under a false name. He landed at Liverpool in September, where he lodged in the oratory at the Church of the Holy Cross. [4]
Surratt would later serve for a time in the Ninth Company of the Pontifical Zouaves, in the Papal States, under the name John Watson. [5] [6]
An old friend, Henri Beaumont de Sainte-Marie, recognized Surratt and notified papal officials and the US minister in Rome, Rufus King. [7]
On November 7, 1866, Surratt was arrested and sent to the Velletri prison. He escaped and lived with the supporters of Garibaldi, who gave him safe passage. Surratt traveled to the Kingdom of Italy and posed as a Canadian citizen named Walters. He booked passage to Alexandria, Egypt, but was arrested there by US officials on November 23, 1866, still in his Pontifical Zouaves uniform. [8] He returned to the US on the USS Swatara to the Washington Navy Yard in early 1867. [9]
Eighteen months after his mother was hanged, Surratt was tried in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia now the United States District Court for the District of Columbia criminal court. [10] It was not before a military commission, unlike the trials of his mother and the others, as a US Supreme Court decision, Ex parte Milligan , had declared the trial of civilians before military tribunals to be unconstitutional if civilian courts were still open.
Judge George P. Fisher presided over Surratt's trial, and district attorney E.C. Carrington, assisted by Edwards Pierrepont conducted the federal government's case against him. [11] Surratt's lead attorney, Joseph Habersham Bradley, admitted Surratt's part in plotting to kidnap Lincoln but denied any involvement in the murder plot. After two months of testimony, Surratt was released after a mistrial; eight jurors had voted not guilty, four voted guilty.
The statute of limitations on charges other than murder had run out, and Surratt was released on bail. [12]
Surratt tried to farm tobacco and then taught at the Rockville Female Academy. In 1870, as one of the last surviving members of the conspiracy, Surratt began a much-heralded public lecture tour. On December 6, at a small courthouse in Rockville, Maryland, in a 75-minute speech, Surratt admitted his involvement in the scheme to kidnap Lincoln. However, he maintained that he knew nothing of the assassination plot and reiterated that he was then in Elmira. He disavowed any participation by the Confederate government, reviled Weichmann as a "perjurer" who was responsible for his mother's death and said his friends had kept from him the seriousness of her plight in Washington. After that revelation, it was reported in Washington's Evening Star that the band played "Dixie" and a small concert was improvised, with Surratt the center of female attention.
Three weeks later, Surratt was to give a second lecture in Washington, but it was canceled because of public outrage. [13]
Surratt later took a job as a teacher in St. Joseph Catholic School in Emmitsburg, Maryland. In 1872, Surratt married Mary Victorine Hunter, a second cousin of Francis Scott Key. The couple lived in Baltimore and had seven children. [14]
Some time after 1872, he was hired by the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. He rose to freight auditor and, ultimately, treasurer of the company. Surratt retired from the steamship line in 1914 and died of pneumonia in 1916, at the age of 72. [15]
He was buried in the New Cathedral Cemetery, in Baltimore. [16]
Surratt was portrayed by Johnny Simmons in the 2010 Robert Redford film The Conspirator . [17]
Surratt was portrayed by Josh Mikel in the 2024 Apple TV+ miniseries series Manhunt .
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer; denouncing President Lincoln, he lamented the then-recent abolition of slavery in the United States.
Samuel Alexander Mudd Sr. was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth concerning the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Mary Elizabeth Surratt was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and remains controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried in the conspiracy, but was not convicted.
David Edgar Herold was an American pharmacist's assistant and accomplice of John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. After the shooting, Herold accompanied Booth to the home of Samuel Mudd, who set Booth's injured leg. The two men then continued their escape through Maryland and into Virginia, and Herold remained with Booth until the authorities cornered them in a barn. Herold surrendered, but Booth was shot to death by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Herold was tried by a military tribunal, sentenced to death for conspiracy, and hanged with three other conspirators at the Washington Arsenal, now known as Fort Lesley J. McNair.
George Andrew Atzerodt was a German American repairman, Confederate sympathizer, and conspirator in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. He was assigned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve and made no attempt. Atzerodt was tried by a military tribunal, sentenced to death for conspiracy, and hanged along with three other conspirators.
Joseph Holt was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician. As a leading member of the Buchanan administration, he succeeded in convincing Buchanan to oppose the secession of the South. He returned to Kentucky and successfully battled the secessionist element thereby helping to keep Kentucky in the Union. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. He served as Lincoln's chief arbiter and enforcer of military law, and supporter of emancipation. His most famous roles came in the Lincoln assassination trials.
Lewis Thornton Powell was an American Confederate soldier who attempted to assassinate William Henry Seward as part of the Lincoln assassination plot. Wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, he later served in Mosby's Rangers before working with the Confederate Secret Service in Maryland. John Wilkes Booth recruited him into a plot to kidnap Lincoln and turn the president over to the Confederacy, but then decided to assassinate Lincoln, Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson instead, and assigned Powell the task to kill Seward.
Nathaniel Beverley Tucker was an American journalist, printer, and diplomat. During the American Civil War he was a Confederate States (Southern) economic agent in France, England, and Canada, and also a secret representative in the North.
Louis J. Weichmann was an American clerk who was one of the chief witnesses for the prosecution in the trial following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Previously, he had also been a suspect in the conspiracy because of his association with Mary Surratt's family.
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died of his wounds the following day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. His funeral and burial were marked by an extended period of national mourning.
Michael O'Laughlen, Jr. was an American Confederate soldier and conspirator in John Wilkes Booth's plot to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and later in the latter's assassination, although he ended up not directly participating.
Samuel Bland Arnold was an American Confederate sympathizer involved in a plot to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. He had joined the Confederate Army shortly after the start of the Civil War but was discharged for health reasons in 1864.
The Lincoln Conspiracy is a book by David W. Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier, Jr. promoting certain conspiracy theories concerning the 1865 assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
The Surratt House is a historic house and house museum located at 9110 Brandywine Road in Clinton, Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The house is named for John and Mary Surratt, who built it in 1852. Mary Surratt was hanged in 1865 for being a co-conspirator in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. It was acquired by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) in 1965, restored, and opened to the public as a museum in 1976.
The Day Lincoln Was Shot is a 1998 American television film based on the book by Jim Bishop. It is a re-creation of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, co-written and directed by John Gray, and stars Lance Henriksen as Abraham Lincoln and Rob Morrow as John Wilkes Booth.
John Minchin Lloyd was a bricklayer and police officer in Washington, D.C., in the United States. He was one of the first police officers hired by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia when its Day Watch was first formed in 1855. He played a role in the trial of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. Arrested but never charged in the conspiracy, Lloyd's testimony was critical in convicting Mary Surratt.
James W. Pumphrey was a livery stable owner in Washington, D.C., who played a minor role in the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and its aftermath. Assassin John Wilkes Booth hired a horse from Pumphrey which he used to escape after the deed.
The Conspirator is a 2010 American mystery historical drama film directed by Robert Redford and based on an original screenplay by James D. Solomon. It is the debut film of the American Film Company. The film tells the story of Mary Surratt, the only female conspirator charged in the Abraham Lincoln assassination and the first woman to be executed by the US federal government. It stars Robin Wright as Mary Surratt, together with James McAvoy, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, Jonathan Groff, Tom Wilkinson, Alexis Bledel, Kevin Kline, John Cullum, Toby Kebbell, and James Badge Dale.
The Mary E. Surratt Boarding House in Washington, D.C. was the site of meetings of conspirators to kidnap and subsequently to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It was operated as a boarding house by Mary Surratt from September 1864 to April 1865.
Frederick Augustus Aiken was an American lawyer, journalist and soldier. A veteran of the Civil War, Aiken was called on to serve as one of the defense attorneys for Mary Surratt, who was tried for conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Footnote 1 lists documents and works related to Surratt.