The World's Best Orations Part 9

A.--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 post office kept 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.

Q.--What did they bring to your house?

A.--I saw nothing until they all three came into the bar-room, I noticed one of the buggies--the one I supposed Herold was driving or went down in--standing at the front gate. All three of them, when they came into the bar-room, drank, I think, and then John Surratt called me into the front parlor, and on the sofa were two carbines, with ammunition. I think he told me they were carbines.

Q,--Anything besides the carbines and ammunition?

A,--There was also a rope and a monkey-wrench.

Q.--How long a rope?

A.--I cannot tell. It was a coil--a right smart bundle--probably sixteen to twenty feet.

Q.--Were those articles left at your house?

A.--Yes, sir; Surratt asked me to take care of them, to conceal the carbines. I told him that there was no place to conceal them, and I did not wish to keep such things in the house.

Q.--You say that he asked you to conceal those articles for him?

A.--Yes, sir; he asked me to conceal them. I told him there was no place to conceal them. He then carried me into a room that I had never been in, which was just immediately above the store room, as it were, in the back building of the house. I had never been in that room previous to that time. He 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.

Q.--Were they put in that place?

A.--They were put in there according to his directions.

Q.--Were they concealed in that condition?

A.--Yes, sir: I put them in there. I stated to Colonel Wells through mistake that Surratt put them there; but I put them in there myself, I carried the arms up myself.

Q.--How much ammunition was there?

A.--One cartridge box.

Q.--For what purpose, and for how long, did he ask you to keep these articles?

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

It also appears in evidence against Mrs. Surratt, if the testimony is to be relied on, that on the Tuesday previous to the murder of the President, the eleventh of April, she met John M. Lloyd, a witness for the prosecution, at Uniontown, when, the following took place:--

Question by the judge advocate:--Did she say anything to you in regard to those carbines?

Answer.--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. I think she named "shooting irons" or something to call my attention to those things, for I had almost forgot about their being there. I told her that they were hid away far back--that I was afraid that the house would be searched, and they were shoved far back. She told me to get them out ready; they would be wanted soon.

Q.--Was her question to you first, whether they were still there, or what was it?

A.--Really, I cannot recollect the first question she put to me. I could not do it to save my life.

On the afternoon of the fourteenth of April, at about half-past five Lloyd again met Mrs. Surratt, at Surrattsville, at which time, according to his version, she met him by the woodpile near the house and told him to have those shooting irons ready that night as there would be some parties calling for them, and that she gave him something wrapped in a piece of paper, and asked him to get two bottles of whisky ready also. This mesage to Mr. Lloyd is the second item of importance against Mrs. Surratt, and in support of the specification against her. The third and last fact that makes against her in the minds of the court is the one narrated by Major H. W. Smith, a witness for the prosecution, who states that while at the house of Mrs. Surratt, on the night of the seventeenth of April, a.s.sisting in making arrest of its inmates, the prisoner, Payne, came in. He (Smith) stepped to the door of the parlor and said, "Mrs. Surratt, will you step here a minute?" As Mrs. Surratt came forward, he asked her this question, "Do you know this man?" She replied, quoting the witness's language, "Before G.o.d, sir, I do not know this man, and I have never seen him." An addition to this is found in the testimony of the same witness, as he was drawn out by the judge advocate. The witness repeats the language of Mrs. Surratt, "Before G.o.d, sir, I do not know this man, and I have never seen him, and did not hire him to dig a gutter for me." The fact of the photographs and card of the State arms of Virginia have ceased to be of the slightest importance, since the explanations given in evidence concerning them, and need not be alluded to. If there is any doubt as to whom they all belonged, reference to the testimony of Misses Surratt and Fitzpatrick will settle it.

These three circ.u.mstances const.i.tute the part played by the accused, Mary E. Surratt, in this great conspiracy. They are the acts she has done. They are all that two months of patient and unwearying investigation, and the most thorough search for evidence that was probably ever made, have been able to develop against her. The acquaintance with Booth, the message to Lloyd, the nonrecognition of Payne, const.i.tute the sum total of her receiving, entertaining, harboring and concealing, aiding and a.s.sisting those named as conspirators and their confederates, with knowledge of the murderous and traitorous conspiracy; and with intent to aid, abet, and a.s.sist them in the execution thereof, and in escaping from justice. The acts she has done, in and of themselves are perfectly innocent. Of themselves they const.i.tute no crime. They are what you or I or any of us might have done. She received and entertained Booth, the a.s.sa.s.sin, and so did a hundred others. She may have delivered a message to Lloyd--so have a hundred others. She might have said she did not know Payne--and who within the sound of my voice can say they know him now? They are ordinary and commonplace transactions, such as occur every day and to almost everybody. But as all the case against her must consist in the guilty intent that will be attempted to be connected with these facts, we now propose to show that they are not so clearly proven as to free them from great doubt, and, therefore, we will inquire:--

2. How are these acts proven? Solely by the testimony of Louis J. Weichmann and John M. Lloyd. Here let us state that we have no malice toward either of them, but if in the a.n.a.lysis of their evidence we should seem to be severe, it is that error and duplicity may be exposed and innocence protected.

We may start out with the proposition that a body of men banded together for the consummation of an unlawful act against the government, naturally would not disclose their purpose and hold suspicious consultations concerning it in the presence continually of an innocent party. In the light of this fair presumption let us look at the acts of Weichmann, as disclosed by his own testimony.

Perhaps the most singular and astonis.h.i.+ng fact that is made to appear is his omnipresence and co-action with those declared to be conspirators, and his professed and declared knowledge of all their plans and purposes. His acquaintance with John H. Surratt commenced in the fall of 1859, at St. Charles, Maryland. In January 1863 he renewed his acquaintance with him in this city. On the first of November, 1864, he took board and lodging with Mrs. Surratt at her house, No. 541 H. Street, in this city. If this testimony is correct, he was introduced to Booth on the fifteenth day of January, 1865. At this first, very first meeting, he was invited to Booth's room at the National, where he drank wine and took cigars at Booth's expense. After consultation about something in an outer pa.s.sage between Booth and the party alleged to be with him by Weichmann, they all came into the room, and for the first time business was proceeded with in his presence. After that he met Booth in Mrs. Surratt's parlor and in his own room, and had conversations with him. As near as Weichmann recollects, about three weeks after his introduction he met the prisoner, Atzerodt, at Mrs. Surratt's.

(How Atzerodt was received at the house will be referred to.) About the time that Booth played Pescara in the 'Apostate' at Ford's Theatre, Weichmann attended the theatre in company with Surratt and Atzerodt. At the theatre they were joined by Herold. John T. Holohan, a gentleman not suspected of complicity in the great tragedy, also joined the company at the theatre. After the play was over, Surratt, Holohan, and himself went as far as the corner of Tenth and E Streets, when Surratt, noticing that Atzerodt and Herold were not with them, sent Weichmann back for them. He found them in a restaurant with Booth, by whose invitation Weichmann took a drink.

After that the entire party went to Kloman's, on Seventh Street, and had some oysters. The party there separated, Surratt, Weichmann, and Holohan going home. In the month of March last the prisoner, Payne, according to Weichmann, went to Mrs. Surratt's house and inquired for John H. Surratt. "I, myself," says Weichmann, "went to open the door, and he inquired for Mr. Surratt I told him Mr. Surratt was not at home; but I would introduce him to the family, and did introduce him to Mrs. Surratt--under the name of Wood." What more? By Weichmann's request Payne remained in the house all night. He had supper served him in the privacy of Weichmann's own room. More than that, Weichmann went down into the kitchen and got the supper and carried it up to him himself, and as nearly as he recollects, it was about eight weeks previous to the a.s.sa.s.sination; Payne remained as Weichmann's guest until the nest morning, when he left on the early train for Baltimore. About three weeks after that Payne called again. Says Weichmann, "I again went to the door, and I again ushered him into the parlor." But he adds that he had forgotten his name, and only recollected that he had given the name of Wood on the former visit, when one of the ladies called Payne by that name. He who had served supper to Payne in his own room, and had spent a night with him, could not recollect for three weeks the common name of "Wood," but recollects with such distinctness and particularity scenes and incidents of much greater age, and by which he is jeopardizing the lives of others. Payne remained that time about three days, representing himself to the family as a Baptist preacher; claiming that he had been in prison in Baltimore for about a week; that he had taken the oath of allegiance and was going to become a good loyal citizen. To Mrs. Surratt this seemed eccentric, and she said "he was a great-looking Baptist preacher." "They looked upon it as odd and laughed about it." It seemed from Weichmann's testimony that he again shared his room with Payne. Returning from his office one day, and finding a false mustache on the table in his room, he took it and threw it into his toilet box, and afterward put it with a box of paints into his trunk. The mustache was subsequently found in Weichmann's baggage.

When Payne, according to Weichmann's testimony, inquired, "Where is my mustache?" Weichmann said nothing, but "thought it rather queer that a Baptist preacher should wear a false mustache." He says that he did not want it about his room--"thought no honest person had any reason to wear a false mustache," and as no "honest person" should be in possession of it, he locked it up in his own trunk. Weichmann professes throughout his testimony the greatest regard and friends.h.i.+p for Mrs. Surratt and her son. Why did he not go to Mrs. Surratt and communicate his suspicions at once? She, an innocent and guileless woman, not knowing what was occurring in her own house; he, the friend, coming into possession of important facts, and not making them known to her, the head of the household, but claiming now, since this overwhelming misfortune has fallen upon Mrs. Surratt, that, while reposing in the very bosom of the family as a friend and confidant, he was a spy and an informer, and, that, we believe, is the best excuse the prosecution is able to make for him. His account and explanation of the mustache would be treated with contemptuous ridicule in a civil court.

But this is not all. Concede Weichmann's account of the mustache to be true, and if it was not enough to rouse his suspicions that all was not right, he states that, on the same day, he went to Surratt's room and found Payne seated on the bed with Surratt, playing with bowie knives, and surrounded with revolvers and spurs. Miss Honora Fitzpatrick testifies that Weichmann was treated by Mrs. Surratt "more like a son than a friend." Poor return for motherly care!

Guilty knowledge and partic.i.p.ation in crime or in wild schemes for the capture of the President would be a good excuse for not making all this known to Mrs. Surratt. In speaking of the spurs and pistols, Weichmann knew that there were just eight spurs and two long navy revolvers. Bear in mind, we ask you, gentlemen of the commission, that there is no evidence before you showing that Mrs. Surratt knew anything about these things. It seems farther on, about the nineteenth of March, that Weichmann went to the Herndon House with Surratt to engage a room. He says that he afterwards learned from Atzerodt that it was for Payne, but contradicts himself in the same breath by stating that he inquired of Atzerodt if he were going to see Payne at the Herndon House. His intimate knowledge of Surratt's movements between Richmond and Was.h.i.+ngton, fixing the dates of the trips with great exact.i.tude; of Surratt's bringing gold back; of Surratt's leaving on the evening of the third of April for Canada, spending his last moments here with Weichmann; of Surratt's telling Weichmann about his interview with Davis and Benjamin--in all this knowledge concerning himself and his a.s.sociations with those named as conspirators he is no doubt truthful, as far as his statements extend; but when he comes to apply some of this knowledge to others, he at once shakes all faith in his testimony bearing upon the accused.

"Do you remember," the question was asked him, "early in the month of April, of Mrs. Surratt having sent for you and asking you to give Mr. Booth notice that she wished to see him?"

Weichmann stated in his reply that she did, that it was on the second of April, and that he found in Mr. Booth's room John McCullough, the actor, when he delivered the message. One of two things to which he swears in this statement cannot be true; 1. That he met John McCullough in Booth's room, for we have McCullough's sworn statement that at that time he was not in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, and if, when he delivered the message to Booth, McCullough was in the room, it could not have been the second of April.

ST. LAWRENCE HALL. MONTREAL, June 3. 1865.

I am an actor by profession, at present fulfilling an engagement at Mr. Buckland's theatre, in this city. I arrived here on the twelfth of May. I performed two engagements at Ford's Theatre in Was.h.i.+ngton, during the past winter, the last one closing on Sat.u.r.day evening, twenty-fifth of March. I left Was.h.i.+ngton Sunday evening, twenty-sixth of March, and have not been there since. I have no recollection of meeting any person by the name of Weichmann.

--John McCullough.

Sworn to and before me, at the United States Consulate General's, in Montreal, this third day of June, A.D. 1865.

C. H. POWERS, U. S. Vice Consul-General.

If he can be so mistaken about those facts, may he not be in regard to that whole transaction? It is also proved by Weichmann that before Mrs. Surratt started for the country, on the fourteenth of April, Booth called; that he remained three or four minutes, and then Weichmann and Mrs. Surratt started for the country.

All this comes out on his first examination in chief. The following is also told in his first cross-examination: Mrs. Surratt keeps a boarding house in this city, and was in the habit of renting out her rooms, and that he was upon very intimate terms with Surratt; that they occupied the same room; that when he and Mrs. Surratt went to Surrattsville on the fourteenth, she took two packages, one of papers, the contents of the other were not known. That persons have been in the habit of going to Mrs. Surratt's and staying a day or two; that Atzerodt stopped in the house only one night; that the first time Payne came to the house he was dressed genteelly, like a gentleman; that he heard both Mrs. Surratt and her daughter say that they did not care about having Atzerodt brought to the house; and at the conclusion, in swearing as to Mrs. Surratt's character, he said it was exemplary and lady-like in every respect, and apparently, as far as he could judge, she was all the time, from the first of November up to the fourteenth of April, "doing her duties to G.o.d and man." It also distinctly appears that Weichmann never had any conversation with Mrs. Surratt touching any conspiracy. One thing is apparent to our minds, and it is forced upon us, as it must be upon every reasonable mind, that in order to have gained all this knowledge Weichmann must have been within the inner circle of the conspiracy. He knows too much for an innocent man, and the conclusion is perfectly irresistible that if Mrs. Surratt had knowledge of what was going on, and had been, with others, a _particeps_ _criminis_ in the great conspiracy, she certainly would have done more than she did or has been shown against her, and Weichmann would have known it. How does her nonrecognition of Payne, her acquaintance with Booth, and the delivery of the message to Lloyd, compare with the long and startling array of facts proved against Weichmann out of his own mouth? All the facts point strongly to him as a co-conspirator.

Is there a word on record of conversation between Booth and Mrs. Surratt? That they did converse together, we know; but if anything treasonable had pa.s.sed between them, would not the quick ears of Weichmann have caught it, and would not he have recited it to this court?

When Weichmann went, on Tuesday, the eleventh of April, to get Booth's buggy, he was not asked by Mrs. Surratt to get ten dollars. It was proffered by Booth, according to Weichmann, and he took it. If Mrs. Surratt ever got money from Booth she paid it back to him. It is not her character to be in anyone's debt.

There was no intimacy with Booth, as Mrs. Surratt has proved, but only common acquaintance, and such as would warrant only occasional calls on Booth's part, and only intimacy would have excused Mrs. Surratt to herself in accepting such a favor, had it been made known to her. Moreover, Miss Surratt has attested to remarks of her brother, which prove that intimacy of Booth with his sister and mother were not considered desirable by him.

The preceding facts are proven by statements made by Weichmann during his first examination. But, as though the commission had not sufficiently exposed the character of one of its chief witnesses in the role of grand conspirator, Weichmann is recalled and further attests to the genuineness of the following telegram:

NEW YORK, March 23d, 1865.--To WEICHMANN, Esq., 541 H St.--Tell John telegraph number and street at once. [Signed] J. BOOTH.

What additional proof of confidential relations between Weichmann and Booth could the court desire? If there was a conspiracy planned and maintained among the persons named in the indictment, Weichmann must have had entire knowledge of the same, else he had not been admitted to that degree of knowledge to which he testifies; and in such case, and in the alleged case of Mrs. Surratt's complicity, Weichmann must have known the same by circ.u.mstances strong enough to exclude doubt, and in comparison with which all present facts of accusation would sink into insignificance.

We proceed to the notice and review of the second chief witness of the prosecution against Mrs. Surratt, John M. Lloyd. He testifies to the fact of a meeting with Mrs. Surratt at Uniontown on the eleventh of April, 1865, and to a conversation having occurred between Mrs. Surratt and himself in regard to which he states: "I am quite positive she asked me about the 'shooting irons'; I am quite positive about that, but not altogether positive. I think she named shooting irons, or something to call my attention to those things, for I had almost forgotten about their being there." Question.-- "Was her question to you first, whether they were there, or what was it?" Answer.--"Really, I cannot recollect the first question she put to me--I could not do it to save my life." The question was asked Lloyd, During this conversation, was the word 'carbine'

mentioned? He answered, "No. She finally came out (but I cannot be determined about it, that she said shooting irons), and asked me in relation to them." The question was then asked, "Can you swear on your oath, that Mrs. Surratt mentioned the words 'shooting irons'

to you at all?" A.--"I am very positive she did." Q. __ "Are you certain?" A.--"I am very positive that she named shooting irons on both occasions. Not so positive as to the first as I am about the last."

Here comes in the plea of "reasonable doubt." If the witness himself is not absolutely positive as to what occurred, and as to the conversation that took place, how can the jury a.s.sume to act upon it as they would upon a matter personally concerning themselves?

On this occasion of Mrs. Surratt's visit to Uniontown, three days before the a.s.sa.s.sination, where she met Lloyd, and where this conversation occurred between them, at a time when Lloyd was, by presumption, sober and not intoxicated, he declares definitely before the commission that he is unable to recollect the conversation, or parts of it, with distinctness. But on the fourteenth of April, and at a time when, as testified by his sister-in-law, he was more than ordinarily affected by intoxicating drink,--and Captain Gwynn, James Lusby, Knott, the barkeeper, and others, corroborate the testimony as to his absolute inebriation-- he attests that he positively remembers that Mrs. Surratt said to him, "'Mr. Lloyd, I want you to have those shooting irons ready. That a person would call for them.' That was the language she made use of, and she gave me this other thing to give to whoever called."

In connection with the fact that Lloyd cannot swear positively that Mrs. Surratt mentioned "shooting irons" to him at Uniontown, bear in mind the fact that Weichmann sat in the buggy on the same seat with Mrs. Surratt, and he swears that he heard nothing about "shooting irons." Would not the quick ears of Weichmann have heard the remark had it been made?