Guest Blogger Michelle Hamilton on The President’s Medium: Nettie Colburn

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin coined the term “Team of Rivals” to describe President Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, but that was not the only team that Lincoln employed during the Civil War—virtually unknown was his “Team of Mediums.” While it is well known that Mary Lincoln frequently attended Spiritualist séances while living in the White House, historians have insisted that President Lincoln only attended a few séances in an attempt to humor and protect his mentally unstable wife. This narrative is incorrect. Following the death of their beloved son Willie President Abraham Lincoln and his wife became actively involved in the Spiritualist movement and formed friendships with the trance medium Nettie Colburn.

Born in upstate New York in 1841 Nettie Colburn first discovered that she was a Spiritualist medium following a childhood illness. Having developed her talent as trance medium, Nettie left home and traveled the country as a successful Spiritualist lecturer, one of the few careers open to women in the United States before the Civil War. In her memoir Nettie reflected on her career, writing, “It came to me in a sense unsought, and took me, an untaught child, from my humble home in the ranks of the laboring people, and led me forth, a teacher of the sublime truth of immortality opening to me the doors of wealthy and the prominent, as well as leading among the poor and lowly, speaking through my un-conscious lips words of strength and consolation, suited to all conditions, until everywhere, from the father’s quiet fireside to the palatial city mansion, I found only words of welcome and kindly care.”

By 1862, the petite, 21-year-old had become a successful and popular speaker on the Spiritualist lecture circuit. During one lecture, Nettie went into a trance where the medium claimed that she was informed by her spirit guide that she had been selected by a “Congress of spirits” comprised of prominent Americans who now resided on the other side for an important mission: she was to travel to Washington, D.C. where she would become a spiritual advisor to President Abraham Lincoln. Upon learning what the spirits wanted her to do, Nettie claimed that she was initially incredulous and concluded that she “would find but poor reception in the presence of the First Ruler of the Land.”

Despite her protests, Nettie Colburn found herself in the nation’s capital in December 1862 on family business. While lecturing in Baltimore, MD, Nettie received a letter from her younger brother who was seriously ill in a Union military hospital. Nettie’s brother begged for her assistance in getting a furlough so that he could return to their parents’ home to recover. Nettie rushed to her brother’s aide and quickly became acquainted with Washington, D.C.’s Spiritualist community. Through her new contacts she was invited to hold séances at the house of Cranston Laurie. The Laurie family had earned the reputation for “being remarkably under the spiritual influence.” Nettie latter recalled, “Mr. and Mrs. Laurie were both fine mediums.”

 

At the Laurie house, Nettie preformed séances in the family’s parlor where she met one of the Lauries’ clients, First Lady Mary Lincoln. During her first meeting with Mary Lincoln, Nettie wowed the First Lady with her talents. “Some new and powerful influence obtained possession of my organism and addressed Mrs. Lincoln, it seemed, with great clearness and force, upon matters of state,” Nettie recalled. Whatever the medium said during this meeting—and Nettie always claimed that while in a trance she had no memory of what she said—struck a chord with the First Lady. Following the séance, Mary Lincoln was so impressed that she is said to have declared, “This young lady must not leave Washington. I feel she must stay here, and Mr. Lincoln must hear what we have heard. It is all-important, and he must hear it.” Turning to Nettie, Mary Lincoln pleaded, “Don’t think of leaving Washington, I beg of you. Can you not remain with us?”

To keep Nettie in the capital, Mary Lincoln used her political clout as the President’ wife and arranged for her to be employed as a clerk for the Department of Agriculture. Besides assisting Nettie Colburn in finding employment, Mary Lincoln also assisted Nettie’s brother in receiving his furlough, thus began a pattern of mutual benefits for both the medium and the First Lady which would characterize their relationship.

Mary Lincoln was so impressed by Nettie that in late December 1862, the medium received an invitation to come to the White House. “I felt all the natural trepidation of a young girl about to enter the presence of the highest magistrate in our land, being fully impressed with the dignity of his office, and feeling that I was about to meet some superior being; and it was almost with trembling that I entered with my friends the Red Parlor at the White House, at eight evening (December 1862,” Nettie recalled. President Abraham Lincoln was amused by the sight of the petite medium. “Dropping his hand upon my head, he said, in a humorous tone, ‘so this is our ‘little Nellie’ is it, that we heard so much about,” the medium remembered President Lincoln saying.

After greeting the President and Mrs. Lincoln, Nettie went into a trance. According to Nettie, the spirits offered the President advice regarding the Emancipation Proclamation. “With the utmost solemnity and force of manner not to abate the terms of the issue, and not to delay its enforcement as a law beyond the opening of the year; and he was assured that it was to be the crowning event of his administration and his life; and that while he was being counseled by strong parties to defer the enforcement of it, hoping to supplant it by other measures and to delay action, he must in no wise heed such counsel, but stand firm to his convictions and fearlessly perform the work and fulfill the mission for which he had been raised up by an overruling Providence,” the spirits advised.

According to Nettie, her audience was shocked by her message, but the President confirmed that what she had to say was correct. “Under these circumstances that question is perfectly proper, as we are all friends. It is taking all my nerve and strength to withstand such pressure.” After a brief discussion over the spirits message the séance drew to a close. As Nettie was preparing to leave, President Lincoln turned to her and declared, “My child, you possess a very singular gift; but that it is of God, I have no doubt. I thank you for coming here tonight. It is more important than any perhaps can understand. I must leave you all now; but I hope to see you again.”

And indeed, Nettie would see President Lincoln again. One morning in February 1863, while the medium was staying with the Lauries’ the Spiritualists received a letter from Mary Lincoln that requested their services for the evening. Upon learning the contents of the letter, Nettie became controlled by her spirit guide, a 500-year-old Aztec princess called Pinkie, under the control of the spirit announced that the President would be accompanying his wife. Mr. Laurie rather questioned its accuracy; as he said it would be hardly advisable for President Lincoln to leave the White House to attend a spiritual séance anywhere; and that he did not consider it ‘good policy’ to do so,” Nettie remembered.

The spirit’s pronouncement proved correct. The President had decided to accompany his wife at the last minute. Nettie Colburn later recounted the scene in her memoir, “He came down from a cabinet meeting as Mrs. Lincoln and her friends were about to enter the carriage, and asked them where they were going. She replied, ‘To Georgetown; to a circle.’ He answered, ‘Hold on a moment, I will go with you.’” This shocked his wife who declared to Nettie Colburn, “Yes…and I was never so surprised in my life.”

As part of the evening’s events the spirits communicated with President Lincoln. “I believe that Mr. Lincoln was satisfied and convinced that the communications he received through me were wholly independent of my volition, and in every way superior to any manifestation that could have been given me as a physical being.” As the evening wore on the spirits got frisky and caused a piano to levitate. The séance then concluded, and the Lincolns’ returned to the burdens of the Civil War. “I believe that Mr. Lincoln was satisfied and convinced that the communications he received through me were wholly independent of my own volition, and in every way superior to any manifestation that could have been given me as a physical being,” Nettie declared in her memoir.

Throughout her memoir, Nettie Colburn took great pains to assert that even though President Lincoln did frequently attend Spiritualist gatherings, she did not claim that President Lincoln was a Spiritualist. “It has frequently been stated that Mr. Lincoln was a Spiritualist. That question is left open for general judgment,” Nettie wrote. Instead, the medium left it up to the reader to form their own opinion. Regarding the First Lady’s belief in Spiritualism, the medium was more definitive stating, “It is also true that Mrs. Lincoln was more enthusiastic regarding the subject than her husband, and openly and avowedly professed herself connected with the new religion.”

As the months passed, Mary Lincoln and Nettie Colburn formed a symbiotic relationship dependent on the mediums ability to channel the spirits. An incident that occurred during the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 perfectly illustrated their relationship. Because of the services that Nettie preformed for the Lincolns and was trusted by the First Lady, the medium was granted full access to the White House. This included the freedom to obtain flowers from the White House greenhouse. According to Nettie, one morning, the medium decided to obtain some flowers to bring to her father and brother who were patients at one of the countless military hospitals in the capital. “Intending to visit him, I went by permission of Mrs. Lincoln to the White House hothouse to obtain a bouquet of flowers for him,” Nettie recalled.

Arriving at the private entrance of the White House with her friend Parthenia “Parnie” Hannum, the young women expected to be given a pre-cut bouquet. Instead, Nettie found Mrs. Cuthbert, the White House housekeeper waiting for her. “Oh, my dear young ladies,” Mrs. Cuthbert exclaimed, “the madam is deestracted. Come to her, I beg of you. She wants you very much.” Following the French born housekeeper into the President’s private quarters, Nettie and her friend found the First Lady in her wrapper with her hair down frantically pacing up and down her room. Turning to the medium, Mary Lincoln explained the reason for her distress. The Battle of Chancellorsville was raging and the President had just received a telegram announcing that the Union army was in the process of being destroyed with numerous officers dead. “Will you sit down a few moments and see if you can get anything from ‘beyond?’” the desperate First Lady pleaded.

Not wishing to pass up such an opportunity to display her skill, Nettie complied with Mary Lincoln’s request. Nettie then preformed a short séance which calmed Mary’s frayed nerves. Upon the conclusion of Nettie’s impromptu séance, President Lincoln entered his wife’s bedroom. Mary Lincoln was enthusiastic over what Nettie had just done for her and according to the medium, “Mrs. Lincoln instantly began to tell him what had been said.” Seizing the moment, Nettie performed another séance for the benefit of the President and Mrs. Cuthbert. According to the medium the message she relayed to Abraham and Mary Lincoln from the other side brought reassurance that the apocalyptic tone of the telegram had been false. “My friend said she had never seen me more impressive or convincing when under control,” Nettie bragged in her memoir.

Grateful for the reassuring message, Mary Lincoln expressed her gratitude by giving the women large bouquets of flowers. “I need not say that our hands were well filled with flowers when we left the White House,” Nettie concluded. This incident illustrated the type of relationship Mary Lincoln had with the medium. Mary Lincoln relayed on Nettie for her skills as a medium and only brought her into the White House to employ Nettie to do a séance for her. Nettie in turn complied with the First Lady’s request due to the material advantages it brought her. Despite remaining discreet, Nettie’s activities in the White House became well known within the Spiritualist community.

On October 26, 1863, Abraham Lincoln received a note from his close friend Joshua Speed. Throughout the war Speed made periodic visits to the nation’s capital and it was during one of these visits that he decided to write a letter of introduction for the medium Nettie Colburn and her friend Anna Cosby. “My very good friend Mrs Cosby and Miss Netty Colburn her friend desire an interview with you,” Speed wrote. President Lincoln was already well acquainted with the medium and Anna Cosby. Nettie had just made her acquaintance with Speed in the fall of 1863 upon her return to Washington, D.C. after taking a trip to New York to visit her parents. At the time, Nettie was residing at the home of her friend Anna Cosby whose husband had just lost his position as consul to Switzerland amid accusations of associating with Confederate officials while at his post in Geneva. The medium was concerned that because of her friend’s fall from grace her access to the Lincoln White House would be affected. This would have hurt Nettie’s budding political power. Her access to the President and First Lady had become well known throughout Washington, D.C and people flocked to Nettie to beg her to plead their case with the President. The medium needed to be able to see Lincoln on the behalf of these claimants.

One of these petitioners, Colonel Morgan H. Chrysler had summoned Nettie back to the capital from her vacation in New York to aide him in acquiring the command of his brigade. “He had confidence in my power to reach the President, and he had also confidence in the unseen powers that controlled me, and he earnestly requested that I should make the effort in his behalf, offering to defray all expenses, which he did,” Nettie stated. In an attempt to ensure her admittance to the President, Nettie likely asked Joshua Speed to write her a letter of introduction. Joshua Speed, impressed by a séance Nettie Colburn had done for him gladly, performed the task. “It will I am sure be some relief from the tedious round of office seekers to see two such agreeable ladies,” Speed wrote.

Joshua Speed was quick to add that they were mediums gushing, “They are both mediums & believe in the spirits—and are I am quite sure very close spirits themselves.” In the postscript, Speed added, “Mrs. Cosby says she is not a medium though I am quite sure she is or should be.” The medium’s concerns were unfounded. Upon her arrival at the White House, she was admitted into the President’s office where Lincoln gave her a friendly welcome. “How do you do, Miss Nettie?—glad to see you back among us,” President Lincoln announced. Though unable to help Nettie, the President appeared happy to see the young medium again and directed her to take the matter to the Secretary of the War. Undeterred, Nettie visited Edwin Stanton and successfully persuaded the cantankerous Secretary to grant her request.

Throughout 1864 Mary Lincoln continued to summon Nettie and her Spiritualists friends to the White House. Shortly after Nettie’s public lecture, the medium was invited to the White House to show off her talents for the First Lady’s friends. Mary Lincoln declared she had a friend she wanted Nettie to meet, but she wanted to test the medium’s powers and would not tell her who the guest was. Instead, Mary decided that Nettie’s spirit guide Pinkie should be able to guess the true identity of the mysterious guest. Naturally, according to Nettie the undefeatable Pinkie correctly guessed that the guest was a military officer who turned out to be none other than General Daniel Sickles. What made this séance stand out, besides the presence of the Union Army’s most notorious general, was that in a rare moment of bravado Nettie Colburn gave herself credit for the creation of the Freedman’s Bureau.

During this séance, Nettie, speaking for the spirits, lectured the President about the condition of the freed slaves. “While the spirits realized fully the many cares resting upon the President, there was duty to perform that could not be neglected—a duty that demanded immediate attention. They counseled him in the strongest terms to prove the truth of their statements, extravagant as they seemed, by appointing a special committee, whose duty it should be to investigate the condition of these people, and to receive their report in person, and on no account to receive it second hand,” Nettie instructed.

In her memoir it is clear that Nettie Colburn fully believed that the President took her message to heart. A few weeks later while visiting her parents in Hartford, New York, her father showed her a newspaper article reporting that President Lincoln was creating a commission to evaluate the condition of the freedmen. “This item confirmed what I had told my father more than a week before of my recent sitting at the White House. It also proved that Mr. Lincoln considered the counsel he had received through me sufficient importance to engage his attention, as he had literally followed the direction given him by the spirit world,” Maynard crowed.

As the strain of the Civil War began to emotionally and physically separate Abraham and Mary Lincoln, the couple’s mutual interest in Spiritualism was one thing that kept them together. It is highly likely that Mary Lincoln scheduled a number these séances in a bid to spend time alone with her husband. “During the latter part of February, and the month of March [1864], I had a number of séances with President Lincoln and his wife; but, as there were no other witnesses, and as they did not inform me of the nature, but simply allude to the fact. These séances took place by appointment. At the close of one, Mrs. Lincoln would make an appointment, engaging me to come at a certain hour of the day, which usually would be in the vicinity of one o’clock, the time when Mr. Lincoln usually partook of his luncheon, which generally occupied about half to three-quarters of an hour,” Nettie disclosed. Concerning the issues discussed during the séances, the medium would only admit, “Many subjects of interest were discussed at the various meetings I had with Mr. Lincoln.”

As the Civil War drew to the close, Nettie Colburn asserted in her memoir that she tried to warn the President that his life was in danger. During her last audience with Abraham Lincoln in February 1865 the medium again tried to voice her concern. “He turned half impatiently away and said, ‘Yes, I know. I have letters from all over the country from your kind of people—mediums, I mean—warning me against some dreadful plot against my life. But I don’t think the knife is made, or the bullet run, that will reach it. Besides, nobody wants to harm me,’” Nettie recalled Lincoln saying. The President then tried to soothe the medium, “Well, Miss Nettie, I shall live till my work is done, and no earthly power can prevent it. And then it doesn’t matter so that I am ready—and that I ever mean to be.” Nettie would never see President Lincoln again. On April 14, 1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. With the President’s death, the “Team of Mediums” disbanded. After the Civil War, Nettie married but continued to lecture and perform séances. On her deathbed in 1890 Nettie Colburn Maynard penned her memoirs Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist? Or, Curious Revelations from the Life of a Trance Medium in which she recorded her experiences. Without Nettie’s memoir a valuable chapter in American history would have been lost.


Sources:
Hamilton, Michelle L. “I Would Still Be Drowned in Tears”: Spiritualism in Abraham Lincoln’s White House.

Maynard, Nettie Colburn. Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist? Or, Curious Revelations from the Life of a Trance Medium

Michelle L. Hamilton is a Historian, lecturer, Civil War re-enactor and Grad Student working on her MA in History at San Diego State University. She is also the author of “I Would Still Be Drowned in Tears”: Spiritualism in Abraham Lincoln’s White House.

Scandalous Women on Film - The Conspirator

Cast:

James McAvoy as Frederick Aiken
Robin Wright as Mary Surratt
Evan Rachel Wood as Anna Surratt
John Simmons as John Surratt.
Toby Kebbell as John Wilkes Booth
Tom Wilkinson as Reverdy Johnson,
Norman Reedus as Lewis Payne
Kevin Kline as Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s secretary of war.
Danny Huston as Joseph Holt, the prosecuting attorney.
Stephen Root as John W. Lloyd
Jonathan Groff as Louis Weichmann
Colm Meaney as Maj. Gen. David Hunter

Synopsis:

In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, eight people are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth (Toby Kebbell) and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks. Against the ominous back-drop of post-Civil War Washington, Senator Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) who was supposed to defend Mary asks his colleague, the newly-minted lawyer Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy), a 27-year-old Union war hero, to take over as counsel.  Because he is a Southerner from Maryland, he feels that the jury will be automatically prejudiced against her.  Aiken reluctantly agrees to defend Surratt before a military tribunal.

Aiken is at first very reluctant to take the case and believes his client is guilty. However, he uncovers evidence casting doubt on the allegations and conducts a spirited defense. He realizes his client is being used as bait and a hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt, her own son, John Surratt (Johnny Simmons). As the nation turns against her, Surratt is forced to rely on Aiken to uncover the truth and save her life.

My thoughts:  I had planned on seeing this film when it came out this past Spring but somehow never made it to the movie theatre, so I was quite happy to find out that my local library had a copy. I had written about Mary Surratt a few years ago, and I was eager to see how the story was dramatized. The film, directed by Robert Redford, is not really about Mary Surratt.  The film is more an indictment against the power of the Presidency and the War department who are trying Mary and her fellow consipirators in a military tribunal instead of criminal court.  Their reasoning is because the nation is still at war but really they want revenge for the death of President Lincoln, and are willing to ride roughshod over the civil liberties of the defendents to do so.

The film is also about Aiken's loss of innocence.  He initially believes that Mary is flat out guilty, and while he's sure that she was somehow involved in the conspiracy, he's appalled at how the law is being twisted and perverted. The audience watches as he grows from a green attorney into a more confident one as the trial progresses and he tries to do what little he can to save his client from a fate he now feels that she does not deserve. He also has to deal with the consequences of defending an unpopular defendent while the nation is still mourning.  It's not clear in the film that Surratt and the conspirators are actually tried a year after Lincoln's death.  The film makes it seem as if the trial takes place soon after Lincoln is buried (FYI, I stand corrected by Anonymous.  The film is correct on the timeline. Surratt and her co-consipirators were hung in July of 1865). Unfortunately, at least for this viewer, I found the documentary on the Special Features disc more compelling than this film. The film in the end is nothing more than a Civil War Courtroom drama, although anyone who knows history knows how it ends. Robin Wright is required to do no more than look stoic in her widow's weeds, and James McAvoy is full of righteous indignation at the knowledge that his client is being railroaded primarily in the hopes that her son will step forward and turn himself in to save his mother.

For a moment, I thought the film was going to create some sort of love triangle between Aiken, his sweetheart (played by Alexis Bledell as Rory from Gilmore Girls in a hoopskirt) and Anna Surratt (played Evan Rachel Wood).  Thank god, Redford and the screenwriters didn't throw that Hollywood cliche into the mix. I think I would have thrown something at the screen at that point. The film could have benefited if we had actually seen a little bit of the conspirators say conspiring. The audience gets a little hint in flashbacks, and Mary Surratt does admit that she knew that her son and John Wilkes-Booth were planning on attempting to kidnap the President.  Lucky for her, there is such a thing as attorney-client privilege.  It's hard to feel sympathy for Mary, although it is clear that her role in the conspiracy was minor, she was no more than an accessory like Samuel Mudd, who ended up with a prison sentence instead of being hanged for his role in hiding Booth and giving him medical attention, although he was the one who introduced John Surratt to Booth.

The irony in all this, is that the one person, who should hanged for his role in the conspiracy ended up getting off due to a mis-trial, that person being John Surratt. If the point of the film was to change people's minds about capital punishment, I'm not sure it was successful.  Those who oppose capital punishment will surely point to this film as an example of why capital punishment does not work, those for it will say the conspirators got what they deserved.

Still, it was interesting to see a big budget historical film that doesn't star Keira Knightley!

Mary Surratt - Mother of all Conspirators

You may not recognize her name but in 1865 everyone knew who Mary Surratt was. She was the only woman implicated in Lincoln’s assassination, and the first woman to be executed by the United States government. But questions still remain as to how much of a role Mary actually played in the conspiracy or if she played a part at all. Was she the “mother of all conspirators,” as the papers claimed? Or was she an innocent woman who was railroaded by the government in their rush to justice?

Mary Surratt was born Mary Jenkins in Waterloo, MD in 1823. She grew up around slavery and accepted it as a way of life. Her parents were slave-owners, owning a modest plantation, although her father passed away when she just two years old, leaving her mother to pick up the pieces as best she could. Elizabeth Jenkins didn’t remarry, instead she became a competent manager of the properties that her husband left, actually expanding the holdings considerably.

When Mary was sixteen she met John Surratt, who was ten years her senior. Married in 1840 in Washington, DC, over the next four years, Mary gave birth to three children, two sons and a daughter. Married life however turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing. The couple suffered financial worries mainly due to John Surratt’s drinking and gambling. He was also thought to be emotionally and physically abusive to Mary.

Having no one to turn to, Mary confided in her parish priest Father Finotti. The relationship caused gossip and Father Finotti was transferred to Massachusetts. In 1853, John saved enough money to buy property on which he erected a tavern/boarding house in Prince George’s county. The property was twelve miles from Washington, DC, placing it at the crossroads for travelers coming to and from the capitol. While Mary was able to send her children off to school, not wanting them to grow up in the raucous tavern atmosphere, the majority of the work running the tavern fell on her shoulders. 1n 1854, after John Surratt was appointed the area’s postmaster, the town was renamed Surrattsville (now Clinton, MD).

By April 1861, the Civil War had begun. Maryland, although still part of the Union, was a hotbed of confederate sympathizers, including the Surratt family. It was later stated at her trial that Mary Surratt was devoted ‘body and soul to the cause of the South.’ Their eldest son Isaac joined the Confederate army, and John Surratt Jr. was soon working for the Confederate Secret Service as a courier.

The tavern also became known as safe haven for rebel sympathizers, couriers and spies although outwardly they all professed allegiance to the Union. In 1862 John Surratt died suddenly, probably from a severe stroke, leaving Mary burdened with debt. Although the tavern business had done well, John’s drinking and gambling had consumed a great deal of the profits. Mary was now faced with the prospect of being forced into bankruptcy. After consolidating her debts,in 1864, Mary Surratt decided to move to the house she owned in Washington at 541 High Street. The tavern in Surrattsville she rented to an ex-policeman named John Lloyd, who would later provide the key evidence against her in the conspiracy trial. Like the tavern, the boardinghouse soon became known as a safe haven for rebel sympathizers. Although the capitol of the union, Washington still harbored a number of people sympathetic to the South although outwardly pro-Union. Mary’s son John continued his work as confederate courier, although Mary worried constantly that he would be forcibly drafted into the Union army.

John soon made a new friend that would change not only their lives but also the nations. His name was John Wilkes Booth, the devastatingly handsome and incredibly racist actor and confederate sympathizer. A member of the famous Booth family, he had already fallen out with his older brother Edwin, when Edwin admitted that he had voted for Lincoln (Edwin Booth had also once saved the life of Robert Todd Lincoln) Like the Surratts, Booth was from southern Maryland. Booth later boasted that he too had worked for the Confederate secret service. Given his celebrity status as an actor, and his ability to move freely between the North and the South, it seems more than likely.

Booth was introduced to John Surratt Jr. by another name familiar to history, Dr. Samuel Mudd, another confederate sympathizer from southern Maryland. Mudd later became infamous after the assassination for setting Booth’s leg, while Booth was fleeing the authorities. Booth was soon a frequent visitor to Mary Surratt’s boarding house in Washington. As well as being incredibly handsome, Booth was also charming and persuasive (he was found to have pictures of 5 of his girlfriends in his pocket after his death). Mary’s daughter Anna was quite sweet on the handsome actor, and it has been speculated that Mary wasn’t immune to his charms either.Soon Booth had involved Mary’s son John, and several other conspirators in a plot to kidnap Lincoln.

Over the months of planning, Booth spent a great deal of time at the boarding house. He was also seen in private conversations with Mary, although no one knows what they talked about. Soon after Lincoln’s second inauguration, the conspirators decided to grab Lincoln on the way back from his weekend retreat, but the President foiled them by changing his plans.Booth was incensed at being thwarted. He’d already missed an opportunity to assassinate Lincoln at the inauguration. On Palm Sunday, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. The week before Richmond had fallen to Union forces. Mary Surratt was seen to weep over the South’s failure and defeat as the capitol erupted into revelry at the news.

Louis Weichmann, a friend and former schoolmate of John Surratt Jr. lived at the boarding house on H Street. He later testified that on the day of the assassination, April 14, Mary Surratt sent him to hire a buggy for another two-hour ride to Surrattsville. Weichmann reported that Surratt took along "a package, done up in paper, about six inches in diameter." Surratt and Weichmann arrived sometime after four at Surratt's tavern. Surratt went inside while Weichmann waited outside or spent time in the bar. Surratt remained inside about two hours. Between six and six-thirty, shortly before their return trip to Washington, Weichmann saw Mary Surratt speaking privately in the parlor of the tavern with John Wilkes Booth. At nine o'clock, Surratt saw Booth for a last time when he visited her home in Washington. After the visit, according to Weichmann, Surratt's demeanor changed--she became "very nervous, agitated and restless."

Three days after the assassination, on April 17, 1865, Mary Surratt was arrested at her boarding house on H Street. It didn’t help her case, that Lewis Powell, one of the conspirators who had attempted to kill Secretary of State Seward, showed up at her front door claiming to be a workman. Although she denied she had ever seen him before, his appearance, plus a bullet mold and cap, were enough to warrant her arrest. Mary proclaimed her innocence; she denied any knowledge that she knew what Booth had planned. She claimed that her trips out to the tavern were simply to collect a past debt. However her tenant John Lloyd testified that she had given him packages to hold for Booth.

Mary was taken to prison where she was held, until her trial, which proceeded swiftly. There were arguments that continue to this day about whether or not the defendants should have been tried by a military tribunal instead of a civil trial. It is possible that the government worried that it would be hard to find an impartial jury amongst the pool of eligible men in Maryland, Washington and Virginia. She was tried along with seven other conspirators including Lewis Powell, who proclaimed her innocent, George Azerodt, and David Herold.

Although Mary had the money to hire a good defense lawyer, her case was given over into the hands of two inexperienced associates in the law office of her chief counsel Reverdy Johnson, who disappeared after the first few days in court. The prosecution made mincemeat out of the defenses witnesses to her character. Mary didn’t help herself by appearing in court everyday heavily veiled so that no one could see her face, nor did she give her lawyers a convincing argument for her actions. Since criminal defendants were not allowed to take the stand, Mary was not able to give her side of the story. The tabloids were hungry for blood, vilifying her on a daily basis, attacking her looks and her character, accusing her of hastening her husband’s death.

She was convicted mainly on the testimony of Louis Weichmann and John Lloyd. The jury voted the death penalty for her but added a recommendation for mercy due to her "sex and age." The recommendation was that the penalty be changed to life in prison. 5 of the 12 commissioners of the military tribunal petitioned President Andrew Johnson to show clemency because of her age and sex. Although only 42, she was at least two decades older than the other defendants. By 19th century standards, she was an old woman. President Andrew Johnson maintained that he never was shown the plea for mercy although several cabinet members stated that he was. Judge Advocate Joseph Holt said he had been in Johnson's presence when the president read the plea. However, Johnson believed that Mary Surratt ‘kept the next that hatched the egg,’ of the conspiracy and deserved to be hung (he also said that more women during the war should have been hung. Nice man!).

And where was her son John? Well after the aborted kidnapping, John continued his work as a courier. He was actually in Elmira, NY when the assassination occurred; from there he fled to Canada since it was neutral and had no extradition with the United States. From there he made his way to Europe where he served in the Pope’s army. It wasn’t until two years later that authorities caught up with him in Egypt and brought him back to stand trial in 1867. Surratt maintained that his mother was innocent as well but it was too much, too little, too late since she was dead. Surratt’s trial ended in a mistrial.

As for Mary, she went to the gallows on July 7, 1865, along with Powell, Herold and Azerodt. Right up until the end, people expected that her sentence would be commuted. Four years after her death, her daughter Anna petitioned successfully to have her mother reburied in Mount Olivet cemetery in DC. Her grave simply reads Mrs. Surratt.

Although during her trial, newspapers and public opinion considered her guilty, after her execution the tide swung the other way. Mary Surratt’s situation pointed out the changing roles of women in society, particularly during the Civil War where women not only served as nurses but also as soldiers, spies, abolitionists, wearing pants in public. Women particularly working in espionage posed a dilemma for Union soldiers and federal officials. Did they treat them like they would a man? Or did they deserve special treatment because of their sex?

It seems clear from the evidence that Mary knew about Booth’s plan to kidnap the President, whether she knew about his plan to assassinate Lincoln is still unclear and historians will probably still be debating this point for years to come. While Powell claimed Mary was innocent, George Azerodt and David Herold claimed until the end that she was not. What is clear is that Mary Surratt gave safe harbor to Booth, treated him like family, and aided and abetted his efforts. Perhaps if John Surratt had given himself up when Mary was arrested, she would have been spared.

Further Reading:

The Assassin’s Accomplice – Kate Clifford Larson, Basic Books, 2008
Manhunt: The 12 Day Hunt for Lincoln’s Killer – James L. Swanson, HarperCollins, 2006
Assassination Vacation – Sarah Vowell
A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans – Michael Farquhar, Penguin, 2008