Chapter XXXII: Preface: To Appendix (8)

One of the main points in President Johnson's response to this evidence was that in the published volume of the record of the trial of the assassins, prepared by Mr. Ben. Pittmann, of Cincinnati, under my official supervision, this recommendation to mercy does not appear. There is no force in this. The petition or recommendation to mercy constituted properly no part of the official record of the trial. Mr. Pittmann, who had his desk and place in my office at the War Department, was one of the official stenographers of the court, and had special charge and custody of the record from day to day. The other reporters sent in to him their portions of the testimony as they were written up, and thereafter he was responsible for them. My recollection is also that as the testimony was written up a press copy was made of it, which he (Mr. Pittmann) took with him to Cincinnati, and used, after he had received permission from the War Department to publish.

The commission met with closed doors at 10 A. M. on the 29th of June to consider its findings, and continued and concluded its labors with closed doors on the 30th. From these meetings all stenographic reporters were excluded. The findings and sentences, when finally made and recorded, were handed to me to be attached to the record, or to go with the record to the Judge Advocate General's office, as was then the course of procedure. By the oath administered, all the members of the commission, as well as the Judge Advocates, were bound not to reveal those findings and sentences. I therefore retained them in my possession, instead of passing them on to the stenographers. When the recommendation to mercy was drawn, and signed by five members of the commission, that was also handed to me to accompany the findings.

Mr. Pittmann never saw, I presume, either the original findings or the recommendation to mercy, and the first knowledge he had of the former doubtless was after they were promulgated by the Adjutant General on the 5th day of July. This is evidenced by the fact that the Adjutant General, in promulgating the proceedings, took Mrs. Surratt's name from the position it occupies in the records, and placed it next that of Payne, evidently for the purpose of grouping together the four persons condemned to death. Mr. Pittmann gives the findings and sentence in the order promulgated by the Adjutant General--that is to say, he places the findings and sentence in Mrs. Surratt's case next after that of Lewis Payne; while the Court, in making up its findings, followed the order named in the charge and specifications, where Mrs. Surratt's name follows that of Samuel Arnold.

When I reached my office at the War Department on the 30th--possibly on the morning of the 1st of July--I attached the petition or recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt to the findings and sentence, and at the end of them, and then directed some one--probably Mr. Pittmann--to carry the record of the evidence to the Judge Advocate-General's office. I carried the findings and sentences and the petition or recommendation and delivered them to the Judge Advocate General in person or to the clerk in charge of court-martial records. Before leaving the War Department I may have attached these findings and sentences and petition to the last few days of testimony, and carried that to the Judge Advocate General's office. I never saw the record again until many years after--I think in 1873 or 1874.

I left Washington several days before, and was not there on the day of the execution. My recollection is, that I left there either on the evening of the 5th or on the morning of the 6th of July. On the 5th day of July, when Judge Holt had his conference with President Johnson over the record and proceedings of the military commission, when the President considered and passed upon the findings and sentences of the accused persons, after that interview Judge Holt came directly to Mr. Stanton's office in the War Department. I happened to be with Mr. Stanton as Judge Holt came in. After greetings, the latter remarked, "I have just come from a conference with the President over the proceedings of the military commission." "Well," said Mr. Stanton, "what has he done?" "He has approved the findings and sentence of the Court," replied Judge Holt.

"What did he say about the recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt?" next inquired Mr. Stanton. "He said," answered Judge Holt, "that she must be punished with the rest; that no reasons were given for his interposition by those asking for clemency, in her case, except age and sex. He said her sex furnished no good ground for his interfering; that women and men should learn that if women committed crimes they would be punished; that if they entered into conspiracies to assassinate, they must suffer the penalty; that were this not so, hereafter conspirators and assassins would use women as their instruments; it would be mercy to womankind to let Mrs. Surratt suffer the penalty of her crime." After some futher conversation, and after making known to Mr. Stanton that the President had fixed Friday, the 7th, as the day of execution, Judge Holt left. In giving the above conversation I cannot say that I have given the exact words; but the substance of what Judge Holt said I know I have given. It is indelibly impressed upon my memory. This conversation, while it does not constitute legal evidence of the fact of President Johnson's consideration of the recommendation to mercy, has always been a circumstance strong and convincing to my mind that President Johnson's charge was totally false. It showed that Mr. Stanton had knowledge of the recommendation--probably had examined the record in the four or five days which had intervened since the trial. As Secretary of War he was at that time daily--almost hourly--in consultation with the President over the disbandment of the military forces; the occupation by the army of the rebel States; the powers and duties of officers there, and the innumerable questions semi-military in character arising out of the chaotic political and social condition of the rebel States; and they could hardly have come together at that time without the question of the conviction and execution of the assassins coming up. The circumstances of the assassination, the plot or conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln and his Cabinet, the Vice President himself, and General Grant; who were concerned in it; the evidence submitted to the Court, the weight given to it by the Court, and the conclusion reached by the Court, were matters in which the President and the Secretary of War could not fail to take, and, as is well known, did take the deepest possible interest. It is past human credulity to believe that they would thus come together during the time intervening between the conclusion of the trial on the 30th day of June and the execution of the sentences on the 7th of July, and the result of the trial, together with the recommendation to mercy, not be discussed between them. It is inconceivable to me that Judge Holt, even if he were so malicious and murderous in purpose, could be so reckless and foolish in execution of such purpose as to withhold from and try to conceal from President Johnson this recommendation to mercy, when the fact of its existence was known to Mr. Stanton, and was so certain to be made known to the President by him, and its contents discussed between them.

The historian in passing judgment upon this event, and in weighing evidence as to the truth or falsity of this charge made by President Johnson, will take into consideration the mental characteristics and moral fibre of the two men, and what adequate motive there was actuating one occupying the exalted position of President Johnson to make the charge, or of Judge Holt to commit so wicked and cruel a wrong.

Andrew Johnson's mental make-up is well known to the officers of the old Union army, and to the American people. His life, his acts, and his speeches are still remembered, and the public judgment formed and registered. I do not propose here to-night to take your time in going into a statement or discussion of this subject. It is sufficient to say that he was endowed by nature with more than ordinary intellectual abilities, and that he had risen from the lowest walks of life by the vigor of his own will, energy, and mental power, through many intermediate places of honor and trust, to the second place in the gift of the American people--the Vice-Presidency of the United States. He was a man of controlling prejudices and strong personality. He was ambitious, bold, hot-tempered, obstinate, and in the achievement of the ends and aims he sought--right ends and aims he may have thought them--he was unscrupulous in the means he used. This is well illustrated in the instance given by General Sheridan in his memoirs of President Johnson's treatment of him while he was in command of New Orleans in 1866.

You will recall the intense feeling aroused throughout the country by the wanton and bloody massacre of the convention assembled at New Orleans, on the 30th of July, that year, to remodel the constitution of that State. General Sheridan had been absent several days in Texas, and was returning, when the riot occurred. He reached New Orleans August 1st, made an investigation, and on the same day sent the following telegraphic report to General Grant:--

"You, are doubtless aware of the serious riot which occurred in
this city on the 30th. A political body styling themselves the
'Convention of 1864,' met on the 30th for, as it alleged, the
purpose of remodeling the present constitution of the State.
The leaders were political agitators and revolutionary men, and
the action of the convention was liable to produce breaches
of the public peace. I had made up my mind to arrest the head
men if the proceedings of the convention were calculated
to disturb the tranquility of the department, but I had no
cause for action until they committed some overt act. In the
meantime official duty called me to Texas, and the mayor of
the city, during my absence, suppressed the convention by the
use of the police force, and in so doing attacked the members
of the convention and a party of two hundred negroes with
fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so unnecessary and
atrocious as to compel me to say that it was murder. About
forty whites and blacks were thus killed, and about one hundred
and sixty wounded. Everything is now quiet, but I deem it best
to maintain a military supremacy in the city for a few days,
until the affair is fully investigated. I believe the sentiment
of the general community is great regret at this unnecessary
cruelty, and that the police could have made any arrest they
saw fit without sacrificing lives.

"P. H. SHERIDAN,
_Major General commanding_."

General Sheridan adds: "On receiving the telegram, General Grant immediately submitted it to the President. Much clamor being made at the North for the publication of the despatch, President Johnson pretended to give it to the newspapers. It appeared in the issues of August 4th, but with this paragraph omitted, viz.:--

"'I had made up my mind to arrest the head men, if the proceedings were calculated to disturb the tranquilty of the department, but I had no cause for action until they committed some overt act. In the meantime official duty called me to Texas, and the mayor of the city, during my absence, suppressed the convention by the use of the police force, and in so doing attacked the members of the convention and a party of two hundred negroes with fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say it was murder.'"

* * * * *

General Sheridan adds: "Against this garbling of my report, done by the President's own order, I strongly demurred, and this emphatic protest marks the beginning of Mr. Johnson's well-known personal hostility toward me."

It will be observed that the omission of this portion of the despatch--this "garbling," done by President Johnson's own order--changes its whole tenor and meaning; made General Sheridan say exactly contrary to what he did in fact say. Omitting the part struck out, and connecting the two sentences that come together, the President made the despatch read: "The leaders were political agitators and revolutionary men, and the action of the convention was liable to produce breaches of the public peace. About forty whites and blacks were _thus_ killed, and about one hundred and sixty wounded."

Observe--this makes General Sheridan say that the action of the convention was liable to produce breaches of the public peace, and thus,--in this wise,--about forty whites and blacks were killed and about one hundred and sixty wounded. General Sheridan said nothing of the kind--nothing in the whole despatch had any such implication or meaning. What he did say was that the mayor of the city "suppressed the convention by the use of the police force, and in so doing attacked the members of the convention and a party of two hundred negroes with fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say that it was murder"; and "thus" by this means, by this mayor and his police, about forty whites and blacks were killed and about one hundred and sixty wounded.

Is it too much to say that a man who could do this wrong to General Sheridan,--could mutilate and corrupt a despatch so as to cause him to make a false report about a people over whom he was placed in government; to cause him to state falsely the facts and circumstances about an event in which forty persons had lost their lives, and one hundred and sixty had been grievously wounded,--would hesitate to state a falsehood about Judge Holt? Is it too much to say that a man who could do this, and then try to mislead and deceive the people of the United States as to this tragic event, about which they were clamoring to know the truth, perpetrating a lie upon them by mutilating and corrupting a despatch and promulgating it as the true one, would hesitate to deceive the people about the fact as to whether he did or did not see the recommendation to mercy of Mrs. Surratt? Is it not fair to say that he was of such mental structure and moral fibre as to do this wrong?

And now the motive:--

It is known of all men that Andrew Johnson had only fairly settled himself in the presidential chair of the great Lincoln, before he began to dream, to scheme, and to intrigue for an election by the people to that office.

The presidential bee was buzzing under the accidental presidential hat. The Southern leaders, clever diplomats and long-headed politicans as they are, soon took the measure of the man, and began to consider how best they could use him, and his ambition for their own purposes. It was noticed that Andrew Johnson had not been many months in the White House before there was a decided change in the style and type of visitors passing in and out under the great white portico. The men of the North,--the old "Union Republican group" of the House and Senate that were daily visitors there in the days of Lincoln, began to find the atmosphere of the White House less kind and congenial; there was a lack of warmth in the welcome, and a constraint in talk and exchange of ideas, progressing gradually to actual antagonism over the questions of amnesty, reconstruction, and constitutional guarantees to the freedmen. Then the Northern men dropped away; seemed not to go there any more. Men from the South who but lately had borne arms against the government, and who had not yet taken the oath of allegiance, were found plentiful about the White House, and apparently basking in the sunshine of presidential favor, as in the rays of a southern sun. It became the reign of the unreconstructed and unreconciled. Somebody had whispered loud enough for Mr. Johnson to hear,--perhaps the bee buzzed it,--that if the Southern States could be reconstructed previous to the presidential convention of 1868, and he (President Johnson) should be found friendly and faithful to the South in that work, there were fifteen Southern States whose electoral votes might be found solid for him as the Democratic nominee, and he would only need the votes of two or three Northern States in addition to carry off the nomination. You know how the poison took--how from the most radical of Union Republicans he became the most extreme--the leader--of the "strictest sect" of the Democrats; how the words "treason should be made odious," "traitors should take back seats," "a few traitors should be hung," with which his mouth was filled when elected, and were still sounding in the air when he sat down in Lincoln's vacant chair, had hardly died away before he had turned against and upon all those who had upheld the Union cause--all his old Union friends; how he fought the Congress with a bitterness and a boldness unparalleled in history. He took issue with it on every measure by which the Congress sought to fix in statute and in the fundamental law what the sword had achieved, what war had enacted. Thus he stood.

And now turning to Mrs. Surratt and her case. Over her execution a great clamor was raised throughout the country, not only by those who were lately in rebellion, and those in the North who were in sympathy with that rebellion, but almost universally by the Roman Catholics of the country, she being a member of that Church, they believing her innocent and a martyr. Mr. Johnson heard this clamor, and "his startled ambition grew sore afraid." He bethought him of some means to turn this wrath away from himself. The press kept referring to the fact that a recommendation to mercy had been signed by a majority of the Court; and his new friends and allies were calling upon him with a loud voice to know why he had not heeded the appeal for mercy, and saved this hapless woman. His fears whispered that the storm might grow so fierce and strong as to sweep away his carefully constructed political fabric. How could he turn away this wrath and clamor? How turn the fury of the storm? Were here not motive and interest enough? He doubtless remembered that, when he examined the record, he and Judge Holt had been alone. How easy to shift the blame, to turn the storm of wrath and execration upon another head by having it circulated that the recommendation had been suppressed by Judge Holt, and that he had never seen nor heard of it up to the time of the execution! Here was a sufficient motive--the motive of ambition--the motive which, as we have seen, changed the whole nature of the man,--changed his political thought and attitude--spoiled the purpose of his life.

Of Judge Holt's life little need be said. Born and reared in Kentucky, of the best blood of the State, he had achieved fame and stood in the front rank with the great lawyers and orators of that State before the rebellion began, and before he was called to the Cabinet of James Buchanan, first, as Postmaster-General, and afterward as Secretary of War, to fill the place made vacant by the retirement of the traitor John B. Floyd. Judge Holt was a man of collegiate education, a student and a scholar of wide and varied reading, and a rhetorician and logician second to few men in the country. Of the next generation after Henry Clay, he was of the time and type in intellectual grasp and power of the Marshalls, the Breckinridges, and the Crittendens of that State. He breathed in the spirit of loyalty, patriotism, and love of the Union of Clay, and never doubted, never swerved in giving all his powers--in dedicating his life to the work of saving the Union. It is related by the historian that at one of the Cabinet meetings of President Buchanan, when several of the Southern secretaries were still occupying their places and were boldly demanding that the forts at Charlestown should be evacuated, and Mr. Buchanan was too weak to take a position against them, Mr. Stanton, who had been called to fill the office of Attorney General, sprang to his feet and said, "Mr. President, it is my duty, as your legal adviser, to say that you have no right to give up the property of the government, or abandon the soldiers of the United States to its enemies, and the course proposed by the Secretary of the Interior, if followed, is treason, and will involve you and all concerned in treason!" For the first time in this Cabinet treason had been called by its true name. Floyd and Thompson, who had had everything their own way, sprang fiercely to their feet, while Mr. Holt sprang to Mr. Stanton's side, indorsing his utterances, and ready to uphold him in any struggle. Mr. Buchanan begged that there would be no violence, and for the gentlemen to resume their seats. Thus bolstered by Mr. Stanton and Judge Holt, the President determined not to withdraw Major Anderson. Soon after this meeting, Floyd resigned, and Judge Holt was appointed Secretary of War in his place.

Save this charge of Andrew Johnson, no stain or blot, nor the least spot or soilure, has ever rested on the fair name and fame of Joseph Holt. For the last year or two of the war I was brought in close official and personal relations with him. I learned to know him well. He was most refined and sensitive in his nature, gentle and kindly in his intercourse, and in all his relations with those about him, pure in his private life, exalted in his ideas and ideals, dignified, and courtly in his bearing, yet always thoughtful, considerate, and courteous. He had traveled much, read much, and held as his friends, strongly attached to him, the best men of the land. I can now as little associate him in my mind with the commission of a dishonorable action as any man I have ever known.

One of the interesting episodes connected with this charge against Judge Holt is his appeal to Mr. Speed, Mr. Lincoln's Attorney General, to "speak out" and state the fact whether or not the recommendation to mercy was before President Johnson and his Cabinet, and considered by them. The correspondence between Judge Holt and Mr. Speed is published in the _North American Review_ for July, 1888. It will be remembered that Mr. Speed, in his letter to Judge Holt of March 30, 1873, had said:--

"After the finding of the military commission that tried the assassins of Mr. Lincoln, and before their execution, I saw the record of the case in the President's office, and attached to it was a paper, signed by some of the members of the commission, recommending that the sentence against Mrs. Surratt be commuted to imprisonment for life; and according to my memory the recommendation was made because of her sex."

As I have heretofore said, this settled, so far as the testimony of James Speed could settle it, that the charge of Andrew Johnson that Judge Holt had withheld the recommendation to mercy was false. It settled the fact that previous to the execution the recommendation to mercy was in the President's office, and was attached to the record. But in this letter Mr. Speed added: "I do not feel at liberty to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings. In this case I know I differ from other gentlemen, but feel constrained to follow my own sense of propriety."

Judge Holt had learned, through the statements of Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton to Judge Bingham, that the recommendation to mercy had been presented to the President, and had been considered by him and members of the Cabinet before the execution. But when this information came to him, both Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton were dead, and the statement of Judge Bingham of what they told him was secondary evidence; and Judge Holt was anxious, therefore, to get the direct evidence of Mr. Speed that his recommendation was, to his personal knowledge, before Mr. Johnson and his Cabinet, and considered by them. His appeals to Mr. Speed are pathetic in the earnestness and depth of feeling they reveal. What could be more profoundly sorrowful or touching than this, in his letter of April 18, 1883: "Allow me to add that we are now, each of us, far advanced in years, so that whatever is to be done for my relief should be done quickly. While, however, it is sadly apparent that I can remain here but a little while longer, I have not been able to bring myself to the belief that you will suffer the closing hours of my life to be darkened by a consciousness that this cloud, or even a shred of it, is still hanging over me--a cloud which can be dissipated at once and forever by a single word spoken by yourself in defense of the truth and in rebuke of a calumny, the merciless cruelty of which none can better understand than yourself. I make this final appeal to your honor as a man to do me the simple justice, which, under the same circumstances, I would render to you at once and joyfully."

But Mr. Speed would not speak--finally saying, in his letter of October 25, 1883, "After very mature and deliberate consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot say more than I have." Neither would he enter into consideration or discussion of his determination not "to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings." It seems to me that Judge Holt was right and Mr. Speed was wrong in their relative positions upon this question. In his letter of April 18, 1883, addressed to Mr. Speed, to which I have referred, Judge Holt forcibly presents his view: "You were a member of his (President Johnson's) Cabinet, and I have the strongest reasons for believing that this atrocious accusation is known to you to have been false in its every intendment. It originated with President Johnson, and for years was industriously circulated by his unscrupulous abettors, though he did not dare make open proclamation of it until he felt assured, through your letter of the 30th of March, 1873, that no damaging disclosures were to be apprehended from yourself.... The question whether a President of the United States, as a craven refuge from accountability for official action, did seek to blacken the reputation of a subordinate officer holding a confidential interview with him, is in no just sense a private question; it is essentially a public one, which concerns the whole country, and one of which the country may well expect to speak, seeing that you were a member of that President's Cabinet, at the time of this disgraceful transaction. Your unwillingness thus to speak of it in 1873, seemed to have arisen from an exaggerated estimate of a rule which once prevailed with regard to the inviolability of Cabinet councils and secrets. But whatever may have been, in the remote past, the recognized force of this rule, the frequent and conspicuous disregard of it during the last two decades, by statesmen of the highest probity and rank, leaves the impression that the rule itself has lived its day and is now practically dead and inoperative. Waiving, however, this view, it is clear to me that, were the rule accepted as now binding in its utmost rigor, it could have no application to this case. I can not be misled in supposing that the relations between the President and the Cabinet are relations of honor, and that, therefore, they cannot be held to oblige any member of his Cabinet to protect, by his concealment, and thus become a moral accomplice in it--any criminal or wrongful act into which the President may be drawn by a guilty ambition, or by any other unworthy passion or purpose. In a word, the rule never has been and never should be so construed as to become a shelter for perjury or crime.

"Your associates in the Cabinet,--Messrs Seward and Stanton,--condemning the rule by which I have been so long victimized, declared the truth fully to Judge Bingham, as he has so forcibly set forth in his letter to which you are referred."

But, as I have said, Mr. Speed would not speak. I can only account for it by the life, circumstances, and education of the man. In the old slave States, in the _ante-bellum_ days, there existed many of the ideas, traditions, and rules of personal conduct of the feudal times. Things touching personal honor, or trusted to it, or that partook of the knightly and chivalrous, were esteemed above common right, common honesty, or common sense. Restrained by these limitations of birth and tradition, and controlled by his chivalrous idea of not revealing what he regarded as Cabinet secrets, Mr. Speed would not speak, even to save a public officer from a great wrong, or his personal friend from a calumny which he knew would walk beside him, shadowing and embittering a life, noble and void of wrong, down to its close. In this I think the judgment of mankind will be that he erred. He knew that this charge of Andrew Johnson was a cruel falsehood. Not only what he said, but what he refused to say, proves this. His letter of March 30, 1873, states that he saw the record, with the recommendation attached to it, in the President's office before the execution. Judge Holt did not, therefore, "withhold," as the President alleged. But, stronger than this, and conclusive, I believe, in the mind of every honest and unprejudiced man, were Mr. Speed's utterances, less than two years ago, at a meeting of the Loyal Legion at Cincinnati. Mr. Speed read a paper at the meeting of this society, held there on the 4th of May, 1887, in which he said:--

"Only the group of fiends who stilled the pulsations of Lincoln's great heart, paid the penalty of the crime. A maudlin sentiment has sought to cast blame on the officials who dealt out justice to these. One in particular is my distinguished friend, the then Judge Advocate General of the army. Judge Holt performed his duty kindly and considerately. In every particular he was just and fair. This I know; but Judge Holt needs no vindication from me nor any one else. I only speak because I know reflections have been made, and because my position enabled me to know the facts, and because I know the perfect purity and uprightness of his conduct." Could any words say in stronger form, he knew that in this matter Judge Holt did his whole duty, and that President's Johnson's charges were false? Could he have said, "In every particular he was just and fair, this I know," if he did not _know_ and intended to say that he knew Judge Holt did his whole duty and had presented this recommendation to mercy to President Johnson? But what he refused to say is as strongly convincing to my mind of the fact that the recommendation to mercy was, to his knowledge, duly brought to the President's attention, and was read and considered by him and members of his Cabinet, as anything he has affirmatively stated.

He was asked by Judge Holt to state whether this paper was or was not before President Johnson and his Cabinet. He refused to answer "because he did not feel at liberty to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings." If nothing was said about the recommendation, if no such paper ever came before the Cabinet, might he not have so stated; might he not have said, "No such matter ever came before the Cabinet?" This would not reveal any Cabinet secret, would come nowhere near the limitations he had prescribed for himself "not to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings."

Is it not the inevitable logical conclusion that it was because of this knowledge that this recommendation had been before, and had been discussed by, the President and his Cabinet, and his determination "not to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings," that he would not speak?

But, finally, my friends, has not the faith of Judge Holt been realized? Has not time caused the truth to shine forth and his innocence to appear? In 1873, he said: "An abiding faith, however, remains with me that the public will do these witnesses justice, and myself, also; and that if truth has power to disarm the cloud of calumny of its lightnings, that then, standing in their presence and under their shelter, I may well feel that for the future this cloud can have no terrors for me."

Saith an old poet:--

"... I have ever thought
Nature doth nothing so great for great men
As when she's pleased to make them lords of truth.
Integrity of life is fame's best friend,
Which nobly beyond death shall crown the end."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Life of Lincoln," by Nicolay and Hay, _Century Magazine_, pp. 431-32.

[2] The evidence before the Commission left Booth and Herold, from the time they left Dr. Mudd's until they arrived at Port Conway, unaccounted for. I am indebted to articles in the _Century Magazine_, by George A. Townsend, Major Ruggles, and Lieutenant Bainbridge, for the ability to fill up this interval, and to General Baker's "History of the Secret Service," for facts connected with the capture, death, and burial of Booth.--AUTHOR.

[3] Conspiracy Trial, pp. 29, 30, testimony of Conover; also p. 36, testimony of Dr. Merritt; also p. 25, testimony of Montgomery.

[4] The archives of the rebel war department reveal the fact that the powder was placed under the Libby Prison by order of Davis and Seddon, sanctioned by a committee of the rebel congress.

[5] The Charles Selby letter was proven to be in the handwriting of John Wilkes Booth by experts, on comparison, on the trial of John H. Surratt.

[6] It is highly improbable that the witness would have given false testimony as to this conversation between Davis and General Breckinridge because of the certainty of its contradiction by the latter.

[7] Trial John H. Surratt, p. 468, testimony of Dr. McMillen.

[8] Official Report of the Conspiracy Trial, p. 114, testimony of L. J. Wiechmann.

[9] See Report Conspiracy Trial, pp. 114, 115 and pp. 85-87. Testimony of L. J. Wiechmann and John M. Lloyd.

[10] Official Report Conspiracy Trial, p. 115.

[11] Official Report Conspiracy Trial, p. 114.

[12] Official Report Conspiracy Trial, p. 115, and Trial of John H. Surratt, pp. 377, 378.

[13] Conspiracy Trial, p. 113. Trial of Surratt, pp. 377, 378.

[14] Trial of Surratt, pp. 385, 386.

[15] Trial Conspirators, pp. 113, 114, and Trial Surratt, 383, 384.

[16] Trial Conspirators, p. 113.

[17] Trial Conspirators, pp. 118-119. Trial Conspirators, p. 85. Testimony of John M. Lloyd.

[18] Trial Conspirators, p. 113, and Trial Surratt, pp. 391, 392.

[19] Conspiracy Trial, pp. 85, etc.

[20] See supplemental affidavit of L. J. Wiechmann, and Trial of Surratt, p. 394.

[21] Trial Conspirators, pp. 121, 122.

[22] Conspiracy Trial. Testimony for the defense and testimony in rebuttal, pp. 132, 139 inclusive.

[23] Trial of Surratt, pp. 136, 137, and pp. 186, 187, 188.

[24] Trial of Surratt, pp. 163, 164, 165.

[25] Trial of Conspirators, p. 86. Trial of Surratt, pp. 282, 283.

[26] See testimony of L. J. Wiechmann and John M. Lloyd on the trial of the conspirators and on the trial of J. H. Surratt. Also testimony of Trial Conspirators, p. 126.

[27] See testimony of John M. Lloyd, Trial Conspirators, pp. 85, 86, and testimony of Mrs. Emma Offutt, pp. 121-125, and Trial of Surratt, p. 281.

[28] See supplemental affidavit of L. Wiechmann and Trial of J. H. Surratt, p. 295.

[29] As Judge Pierrepont is now dead, I deem it best to cut out a certain statement, which I had from him, with his consent to publish it.--AUTHOR.

[30] See testimony of Father Boucher, Trial of Surratt, p. 895, and onward. Also testimony of Rev. Stephen F. Cameron, p. 793 and onward. Trial of Surratt.

[31] See p. 394, Trial of Surratt; also supplemental affidavit of L. J. Wiechmann.

[32] Testimony of L. J. Wiechmann, p. 454, Report of the trial of John H. Surratt.

[33] In a communication to a Philadelphia paper.

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Transcriber's note:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Unless the correction was unambiguous, inconsistent and unbalanced (missing) quotation marks have not been changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Text uses "henious" almost as often as "heinous"; not changed.

Page 69; "12 M." could stand for "Midnight" or be a misprint for "A.M."

Page 91: No obvious opening quotation mark to match the closing one at the end of: and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense".

Page 198: The anchor numbers for footnotes 20 and 21 (originally 2 and 3) were printed in reverse sequence, and have been swapped here.

Page 156: Closing quotation mark added after 'put him down as a damned fool.'

Page 243: No closing quotation for: "I do not rise for the purpose ...

Page 249: Missing opening quotation mark before 'And when the facts'.

Page 292: No closing single quotation mark for "'What! would you have this great...." and the opening mark was poorly printed, so it could be something else.

Page 367: No obvious closing quotation mark for ' "if I (the witness) did not hear....'