On April 21, 1865, as part of its coverage of President Lincoln’s assassination and its aftermath, the Washington Evening Star reported the arrival of the captured George Atzerodt in Washington. In addition, the Star noted that a man had been detained for questioning at Fort Thayer after repeatedly trying to break through the picket lines […]
The Strange, Sad Case of George B. Love Read More »
A while back, I posted about Mary Lincoln’s close friend Mercy Conkling (née Levering). In December 1862, the Conklings’ oldest son, Clinton, was attending college at Yale, where he remained over the Christmas holidays. Accordingly, on December 28, 1862, his mother wrote to him to tell him of the family’s celebrations back home in Springfield, Illinois,
Christmas in Springfield, Illinois, 1862 Read More »
Of the residents of Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse, the best known–and the most controversial–is Louis Weichmann, whose testimony would help send his landlady to the gallows. Weichmann was born in Baltimore in 1842. His father, a tailor, moved to Washington and then to Philadelphia, where Weichmann attended the Central High School. One of his classmates was
Louis Weichmann: Boarder and Witness Read More »
The second of John and Mary Surratt’s three children, Elizabeth Susanna Surratt was born on New Year’s Day, 1843, and was christened on December 10 of that year at St. Peter’s Church in Washington, D.C. For most of her life, she would be known simply as “Anna.” Though married to a non-Catholic, Mary Surratt had
Mary Surratt’s Loyal Daughter: Anna Surratt Read More »
The failed conspiracy to kidnap President Lincoln in 1865, and the conspiracy to assassinate him which grew out of the first, drew a host of disparate people into their orbit. Among them was a Catholic schoolteacher named Anna F. Ward. Born in 1834 (according to her death certificate), Anna Ward emigrated with her parents, William
The Schoolteacher and the Surratt Family Read More »
On December 23, 1864, Louis Weichmann left his Washington, D.C., boardinghouse to do some Christmas shopping for gifts for his sisters. Instead, he was waylaid by history. Weichmann, age twenty-two, was employed in the War Department. In the fall of 1864, a friend and former classmate, John Surratt, told Weichmann that his widowed mother, Mary,
The Christmas Shopping Trip that Never Was Read More »
As those who are familiar with the goings-on at Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse know, one of the more intriguing characters to pass through its doors was a veiled lady named Sarah Slater, a courier for the Confederate government who traveled on several occasions with Mary’s son John. Known as the “French lady” because of her excellent
Sarah Slater and Her Souvenir Spoons: Her Last Will and Testament Read More »
In the fall of 1864, Mary Surratt, a widow from Prince George’s County, Maryland, moved to Washington, D.C. and opened her property at 541 H Street (the light-colored house below) to boarders. Mary’s late husband, John, had acquired the house years before as part of a land deal. So who were the people Mary chose to
Mary Surratt’s Boarders Read More »
Whatever one believes about the guilt or innocence of Mary Surratt, her daughter, Anna, is surely deserving of our sympathy. On July 6, 1865, she had been given the horrifying news that her mother would be executed; the following day, despite Anna’s desperate efforts to beg for her life, the sentence was carried out. Anna
Two Letters from a Grieving Daughter Read More »
On July 6, 1865, General John F. Hartranft, who had been placed in charge of Washington, D.C.’s Old Arsenal Prison, went from cell to cell, informing Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell (known at the time by his alias of Lewis Payne), George Atzerodt, and David Herold that they had been condemned to die for their roles