PRESIDENTS' DAY WEEKEND - "THE LINCOLN CONSPIRACY: THE MILITARY TRIBUNAL THAT HANGED A WOMAN"

0:03 Caalaruga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Friday, February thirteenth, twenty twenty six, President's Day weekend, and we're spending it where we always end up in the courtroom or in this case, the military tribunal, because before there was a holiday celebrating American presidents, there was the night that killed one, the conspiracy that tried to destroy the government, and the trial that executed four people, including a woman who may have been innocent. April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five, Good Friday, Ford's Theater, Washington, d C. President Abraham Lincoln watching a comedy called Our American Cousin with his wife Mary. The Civil War was effectively over. Lee had surrendered five days earlier.

0:55 The nation was supposed to be healing. Then a gunshot. A twenty six year old actor named John Wilkes Booth stepped into the presidential box, pressed a single shot derringer to the back of Lincoln's head and pulled the trigger. Jumped to the stage, broke his leg on landing, shouted sick semper tyrannus, thus always to tyrants, fled into the night. Lincoln died the next morning, April fifteenth, eighteen sixty five, first American president assassinated. But here's what most people don't know. Booth didn't act alone. This was a coordinated attack on the entire federal government. Three targets, three assassins, same night, same hour. Secretary of State William Seward was stabbed repeatedly in his bed by Lewis Powell. Vice President Andrew Johnson was supposed to be killed by George Azarot, who got drunk and chickened out. Booth escaped for twelve days before being shot dead in a Virginia barn. But eight other conspirators were captured, tried by military tribunal, not civilian court, and four of them hanged, including Mary Surrett, the first woman executed by the United States federal government. I'm reed, Carter.

2:10 This is celebrity trials today. The Lincoln assassination, the conspiracy, the controversial military tribunal, and the hanging of Mary Surrett, Part one of our President's Day Assassination Trials series. Let's set the scene, Washington, d c. April eighteen sixty five. The Civil War is ending. Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse on April ninth. The Confederacy is collapsing. Lincoln is planning reconstruction. The mood in the Capitol is euphoric. John Wilkes Booth is not celebrating twenty six years old. Famous actor from a famous acting family. His brother Edwin Booth was considered the greatest American actor of the era. But John Wilkes was a star in his own right. Handsome charismatic, traveled the country performing Shakespeare, made the equivalent of half a million dollars a year in today's money. He was also a Confederate sympathizer.

3:14 Didn't fight in the war. His mother made him promise not to enlist, but he supported the Southern cause passionately. Attended Lincoln's second inauguration in March eighteen sixty five, stood just feet from the president. Later told a friend, what an excellent chance I had to kill the president on inauguration day if I had wished. Originally, Booth's plan wasn't assassination. It was kidnapping. Capture Lincoln, transport him to Richmond, trade him for Confederate prisoners of war. He recruited a team. Lewis Powell, a former Confederate soldier built like a linebacker. David Harold, a twenty two year old pharmacy clerk who knew the back roads of Maryland. George Atserot, a German immigrant and boat operator who could get them across the Potomac.

4:02 Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin childhood friends of Booth who'd served in the Confederate Army. John Surrat, a Confederate courier and spy, and John Surrat's mother, Mary Surrat. She owned a boarding house on h Street in Washington where the conspirators met. Whether she knew the full scope of the plot would become the most controversial question of the trial. March seventeenth, eighteen sixty five, the kidnapping attempt failed. Lincoln changed his schedule at the last minute, didn't show up where Booth expected him. Arnold and O'Laughlin quit the conspiracy after that, said it was too risky. But Lee's surrender on April ninth changed everything for Booth. The kidnapping plan was useless now no prisoner exchange needed. The Confederacy was dead, so Booth escalated. Kidnapping became assassination, and not just Lincoln Booth wanted to decapit tate the entire government in one night.

5:02 Kill the president, kill the Vice president, kill the Secretary of State, create chaos, maybe reignite the war. April fourteenth, Good Friday, Booth learned that Lincoln would attend Ford's Theater that evening. He knew the theater intimately, he'd performed there many times. Knew the layout, knew the schedules, knew exactly which door led to the presidential box. That afternoon, Booth held a final meeting. Assigned targets. Powell would kill Secretary of State William Seward, who was bedridden at home recovering from a carriage accident. Harold would guide Powell to Seward's house and help him escape. Afterward, Atzerot would kill Vice President Andrew Johnson at the kirkwood House hotel, where Johnson was staying. Booth would handle Lincoln himself. Ten fifteen pm, Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were in the Presidential Box at Ford's Theater with Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, cl Clara Harris. The play was in its third act, a comedy. The audience was laughing. Booth entered the theater through the front door. Nobody stopped him. He was famous.

6:12 Everyone knew his face. Walked up the stairs to the dress circle, approached the outer door to the Presidential Box. He'd prepared it earlier that day, carved a small peep hole in the inner door and placed a wooden brace to jam the outer door shut behind him so nobody could follow. Booth waited for a line he knew would get a big laugh. The audience erupted in that moment of noise. Booth opened the inner door, stepped behind Lincoln, pressed his point four to four caliber single shot derringer to the back of Lincoln's head and fired. The ball entered behind Lincoln's left ear and lodged behind his right eye. Lincoln slumped forward, never regained consciousness. Major Rathbone lunged at Booth.

6:54 Booth slashed him across the arm with a hunting knife, deep wound, nearly severed an artery. Then heaped from the box to the stage eleven feet below. His riding spur caught on the Treasury Guard flag decorating the box. He landed hard, fractured his left fibula, but he stood up faced The stunned audience raised the bloody knife, shouted sick semper tyrannus. Some witnesses also heard him shout the South is avenged. Then he limped across the stage and out the back door, where a horse was waiting, gone into the Maryland darkness. Across town, Lewis Powell arrived at Secretary Seward's home on Lafayette Square. Told the servant he was delivering medicine from Seward's doctor, talked his way inside, walked upstairs, found Seward in bed, his jaw wired shut from the carriage accident. Powell pulled out a bowie knife and started slashing.

7:47 Stabbed Seward in the face and neck, cut his cheek open so badly the wound flapped like a hinge. Seward's son, Frederick, tried to intervene Powell fractured his skull with a pistol. Another son, Augustus, was stabbed. A State Department messenger was stabbed. A soldier guarding Seward was stabbed. Five people injured, but Seward survived. The metal jaw splint from his carriage accident deflected the knife from his jugular vein. The device that immobilized him, saved his life. Powell fled into the night. Harold, who was supposed to guide him, panicked and ran when he heard screaming. Powell was left alone in a city he didn't know, and George Atsarrot, the man assigned to kill Vice President Johnson. He went to the Kirkwood House, sat in the bar, drank and drank and drank, never went upstairs, never attempted the assassination, lost his nerve, entirely, left the hotel and wandered the streets. One assassin succeeded, one failed, one didn't even try. Lincoln was carried across the street to the Peterson boarding House, laid diagonally on a bed too short for his six foot four frame.

9:00 Doctors examined him. The wound was mortal, nothing could be done. Abraham Lincoln died at seven twenty two am on April fifteenth, eighteen sixty five. He was fifty six years old. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton reportedly said, now he belongs to the ages. The largest manhunt in American history began immediately. The federal government mobilized everything ten thousand troops, cavalry detectives, a one hundred thousand dollars reward equivalent to over two million dollars today. Booth's photograph distributed everywhere. Telegraphs sent to every city on the eastern seaboard. Booth and David Harold fled south through Maryland. Booth's broken leg was agony. Around four am on April fifteen, they arrived at the home of doctor Samuel Mudd in Bryantown, Maryland. Mud set and splinted Booth's leg, made him crutches. Whether Mud knew what Booth had done or even who he was, became another contested point at trial. The fugitives continued south, crossed into Virginia with the help of Confederate sympathizers. Hid in forests and swamps, waited for a chance to cross the Rappahannock River.

10:25 April twenty sixth, twelve days after the assassination, Federal troops tracked Booth and Harold to Richard Garrett's tobacco farm near Port Royal, Virginia. Surrounded the barn where they were hiding. Harold surrendered, Booth refused. The soldiers set the barn on fire. As the flames spread, Sergeant Boston Corbett spotted Booth through a gap in the slats, fired his Colt Revolver. The bullet struck Booth in the neck, severing his spinal cord, nearly the same spot where Booth had shot. Lincoln soldiers dragged Booth from the burning barn. Paralyzed, dying, he whispered, tell my mother, I died for my country, then looked at his hands. His final words useless. Useless. John Wilkes Booth died on the porch of the Garrett Farmhouse at seven fifteen am on April twenty sixth, eighteen sixty five.

11:21 He was twenty six years old. Meanwhile, the conspirators were being rounded up. Louis Powell showed up at Mary Surret's boarding house three days after the assassination while detectives were searching it, wearing a disguise carrying a pickaxe. Said he was there to dig a ditch at midnight. The detectives weren't buying it. Powell was arrested on the spot. Atsorot was found hiding at his cousin's farm in Maryland, arrested April twentieth. Edmund Spangler, a stage hand at Ford's Theater who'd held Booth's horse, was arrested. Doctor Samuel Mudd was arrested after investigators learned he'd treated Booth's leg and failed to report it. Samuel Arnold was arrested after a letter he'd written to Booth about the kidnapping plot was discovered.

12:08 Michael O. Laughlin turned himself in, and Mary Surrett was arrested at her boarding house. Her son, John, the original conspirator, had fled to Canada and eventually to Europe. He wouldn't be captured until eighteen sixty six. Eight people in custody, the leader of the conspiracy dead, and the question how do you try them? The answer was controversial? Then it's controversial. Now we'll be right back with the military tribunal that tried eight civilians for conspiracy to assassinate the president, including Mary Surrett, the woman whose execution still haunts American justice.

12:58 May first, eighteen sixty five, President Andrew Johnson ordered a military tribunal to try the eight conspirators, not a civilian court, not a jury of their peers, a panel of nine military officers serving as judge and jury. This was immediately controversial. The war was effectively over. The defendants were civilians. The Constitution guarantees the right to trial by jury, but Attorney General James Speed argued that because the assassination was an act of war, a Confederate operation designed to destabilize the government, military jurisdiction was appropriate. Defense attorneys challenged the tribunal's legitimacy, filed habeas corpus petitions, argued their clients deserved civilian trials with constitutional protections, all denied. The military tribunal proceeded May ninth, eighteen sixty five. The trial began in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington. The eight defendants, Mary Surrett, UIs Powell, David Harold, George Atserot, doctor Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, and Edmund Spangler all shackled, some hooded, treated as prisoners of war, not criminal defendants. The proceedings lasted seven weeks.

14:18 Three hundred sixty six witnesses testified. The prosecution, led by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, presented a sweeping conspiracy theory connecting Booth's plot to the Confederate government itself, claimed Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders ordered the assassination. That claim was likely exaggerated, but it served a political purpose. Framing the assassination as an act of war justified the military tribunal. For most of the defendants, the evidence was overwhelming. Lewis Powell had nearly killed the Secretary of State. Multiple witnesses identified him, his knife was recovered, his clothes were bloody, open and shut. David Harold had guided Powell to go Seward's house and fled with Booth for twelve days. George Atserot had been assigned to kill the vice president and was found with weapons. His hotel room at the Kirkwood House contained a loaded revolver, a bowie knife, and a bank book belonging to Booth. But Mary Surrett's case was different and deeply troubling the prosecution's case against her. She owned the boarding house where conspirators met, She knew Booth.

15:26 She allegedly told her tenant, John Lloyd to have shooting irons ready at her Surretzville tavern, where Booth and Harold stopped for weapons during their escape. Lloyd testified she'd told him the firearms would be needed soon. Her defense, she was a devout Catholic widow a mother. She rented rooms to boarders. Her son, John was involved in the conspiracy, not her. She may have known something was being planned, but didn't know the specifics. Lloyd, the key witness against her, was a known alcoholic who'd been drinking heavily the day he claimed she gave instructions. His testimony was unreliable. Mary Surrat's attorneys argued she was being convicted for her son's crimes, that the government couldn't catch John Surrat, so they punished his mother instead, that she was a passive landlord, not an active conspirator. The tribunal wasn't convinced. June thirtieth, eighteen sixty five, the verdicts came down. All eight defendants found guilty Mary Surrat, Lewis Powell, David Harold, George Atsot death by hanging, doctor Samuel Mudd life in prison, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlin life in prison Edmund Spangler six years in prison. Five of the nine tribunal members signed a clemency petition for Mary Surrett, asked President Johnson to commute her sentence to life imprisonment on account of her age and sex. Johnson later claimed he never saw the petition.

16:54 Holt claimed he personally showed it. To the President. The truth died with both of them. July seventh, eighteen sixty five, Execution Day, a blazing hot Friday afternoon, the courtyard of the old Arsenal Penitentiary, gallows built for four reporters, Soldiers and officials gathered. Mary Surrett's daughter, Anna, frantically tried to reach President Johnson, went to the White House, collapsed on the steps, begged anyone who would listen to save her mother. Johnson refused to see her. The four condemned were let out Powell, Atserot, Harald and Mary Surret, supported by soldiers because she could barely walk. Wearing a black dress and bonnet, shielded from the sun by an umbrella held by a soldier.

17:41 Nooses placed, hoods pulled over their heads. Mary Surret reportedly whispered, please don't let me fall. One twenty six p m. The trap doors dropped. All four fell. Louis Powell's neck didn't break. He strangled slowly, his massive body writhing for five minutes. Mary Surret died quickly. Harold struggled. Atserat's last words were, may we all meet in the other world. Mary Surret was forty two years old. First woman executed by the United States federal government. Whether she deserved it remains debated. One hundred sixty one years later, her son john was eventually captured in Egypt in eighteen sixty six, brought back to stand trial in civilian court, not military tribunal.

18:29 His jury deadlocked. He was released. Lived until nineteen sixteen, never convicted of anything. The mother hanged, the sun walked free. Make it make sense. Doctor Samuel Mudd served four years at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas before being pardoned by President Johnson in eighteen sixty nine after helping combat a yellow fever outbreak at the prison. His case gave rise to the expression his name is Mud, though historians debate whether that phrase predates it him. Samuel Arnold was also pardoned in eighteen sixty nine. Edmund Spangler served his full sentence and died in eighteen seventy five. Michael O. Laughlin died of yellow fever at Fort Jefferson in eighteen sixty seven. Never made it out. That's part one of our President's Day Assassination Trial series. Abraham Lincoln fifty six years old, sixteenth President, led the nation through its greatest crisis preserved, the Union, freed the enslaved shot in the back of the head watching a comedy on Good Friday.

19:35 John Wilkes Booth never stood trial, got a bullet in a burning barn instead, but eight others did. Tried by military tribunal. Four hanged, including a woman whose guilt remains one of the most debated questions in American legal history. Mary Surratt was forty two years old. Her daughter begged the president for mercy. The president said no. The mother hanged, her son walked free tomorrow. President James Garfield and the trial of Charles Guiteau the most bizarre courtroom spectacle in American history. A man who believed God told him to kill the president, who argued the doctors killed Garfield, not him, and who was probably right about that last part. I'm reed, Carter.

20:19 Someone has to say their names. This is celebrity trials.