The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt
John Stuart Mill · en
"Liberal rewards will be paid for any information that shall conduce
to the arrest of either of the above-named criminals or their
accomplices.
"All persons harboring or secreting the said persons, or either of
them, or aiding or assisting in their concealment or escape, will be
treated as accomplices in the murder of the President and the
attempted assassination of the Secretary of State, and shall be
subject to trial before a military commission and the punishment of
death."
What is noteworthy about this document is that Stanton had already made up
his mind as to the guilt of the persons named as accomplices of Booth;
that he needed only their arrest, being assured of their consequent
conviction; and that he had already determined that their trial and the
trial of all persons connected with the great crime, however remotely,
should be had before a military tribunal, and that the punishment to
follow conviction should be death.
At four o'clock in the morning of the very day this proclamation was
issued, Atzerodt was apprehended at the house of his cousin in Montgomery
County, Md., about twenty-two miles northward of Washington, by a detail
of soldiers, to whom, by the way, notwithstanding the arrest preceded the
proclamation, $25,000 reward was subsequently paid. With Atzerodt his
cousin, Richter, was taken also. O'Laughlin, Payne, Arnold, Atzerodt and
Richter, as they were severally arrested, were put into the custody of the
Navy Department and confined on board the Monitor _Saugus_, which on the
morning of Saturday, when the President died, had been ordered to swing
out into the middle of the river opposite the Navy Yard, prepared to
receive at any hour, day or night, dead or alive, the arch-assassin. Each
of these prisoners was loaded with double irons and kept under a strong
guard. On the 23d, Atzerodt, by order of the Secretary of War, was
transferred to the Monitor _Montauk_, to separate him from his cousin, and
Payne, in addition to his double irons, had a ball and chain fastened to
each ankle by the direction of the same officer. On the next day Spangler,
who had hitherto been confined in the Old Capitol Prison, was transferred
to one of the Monitors and presumably subjected to the same treatment. On
the same day the following order was issued:
"The Secretary of War requests that the prisoners on board iron-clads
belonging to this department for better security against conversation
shall have a canvass bag put over the head of each and tied around the
neck, with a hole for proper breathing and eating, but not seeing, and
that Payne be secured to prevent self-destruction."
All of which was accordingly done.
And still no Booth! It seems as though the Secretary were mad enough to
imagine that he could wring from Providence the arrest of the principal
assassin by heaping tortures on his supposed accomplices.