The Lincoln Conspiracy

Today in the Lincoln Conspiracy:  June 7

During the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial, prosecutors went to great lengths to paint Mary Surratt as an active member of the plot to kill the president.  Witness after witness described the fervid pro-Confederacy sentiments of Mrs. Surratt and members of her family.  They painted the Surratt boardinghouse in Washington as a nest of murderous vipers bent on destroying the United States.

Mrs. Surratt had three children.  Her elder son Isaac was a soldier in the Confederate Army.  Her younger son John was a Confederate spy who had schemed with John Wilkes Booth since the earliest days of the conspiracy.  Her middle child, Elizabeth Susanna (known as Anna), lived at the boardinghouse from November of 1864 until her mother's arrest.

Elizabeth Susanna "Anna" Surrattv

Defense lawyers called Anna as a witness to dispute testimony that her mother was consorting with the other conspirators.  She testified that both George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell (whom she knew under the name of "Wood") had visited the boardinghouse and had on some occasions stayed the night.  She said both men were there to see Lewis Weichmann, the War Department clerk who was the government's chief witness.

Anna Surratt also admitted she owned two photographs of John Wilkes Booth, whom she had met through her brother John.  She kept them hidden on the back of a painting given to her by Weichmann.  Anna told the tribunal her brother was furious when she bought them and demanded she tear them up.  She insisted that her acquaintance with Booth was casual, limited to a few brief encounters at the boardinghouse.

On June 7, 1865, a defense lawyer showed Anna a card bearing the state seal of Virginia.  She admitted she owned the card.  She testified a woman had given it to her two and a half years earlier.  Printed on the card was the state's motto, "Sic semper tyranis" -- the very words Booth shouted as he fled from Ford's Theatre the night he shot Abraham Lincoln.