Mike
Scruggs
Several years ago I wrote
a series of articles entitled “The Hanging of Mary Surratt.” Those
articles were published in the North Carolina Tribune Papers and South
Carolina’s Times-Examiner and
held considerable reader attention for months. They were later incorporated into
my book, The Un-Civil War: Shattering the
Historical Myths, published by Universal Media in
2011.
Mary Surratt was
an attractive, dark-haired widow and boarding house proprietor, who was one of
four alleged conspirators in the Lincoln assassination hanged on July 7, 1865.
At forty-two, she was the first woman ever to be executed by the United States
government.
No nation can
long endure without a strong sense of patriotism, and Americans, like most of
the more prominent peoples of mankind, have a strong tendency to whitewash
history in order to protect the purity of their national narrative. It is more
pleasant to remember and teach an unblemished historical narrative of national
virtue. The blemishes of such national narratives tend to be swept under the
rug, and lifting up the edges of that rug to inspect the blemishes is not always
welcome. The defenders of an unblemished national narrative often react harshly
and go to great lengths of academic and political cover-up to defend strongly
entrenched but fallacious interpretations of history. Such is the case
with the trial and execution of Marry Surratt.
The hanging of
Mary Surratt was not a triumph of justice. It was a disgraceful political and
judicial atrocity that still stains the national conscience and mars the
American ideal of justice. There are still many who feel compelled to defend her
hanging lest we have to look directly into unwelcome truth. But genuine
patriotism is undermined when truth becomes subservient to propaganda and
political ambitions. Truth and genuine love of country are inseparable.
Patriotism without truth is a monstrous imposter.
The Lincoln
assassination conspiracy trial was marked by judicial despotism, suborned
perjury, bribery, and the intimidation and torture of witnesses and defendants.
The investigation, prosecution, trial, and sentences were all managed by the
U.S. War Department under its politically ambitious and ruthless Secretary,
Edwin Stanton, aided by his Chief of Detectives, Col. Lafayette
Baker.
Stanton is often
portrayed as one of Lincoln’s “team of rivals” who ultimately became his most
supportive, loyal, and sympathetic cabinet member. Stanton often did seem to
work well with Lincoln as part of a “good cop-bad cop” team in making stressful
political and military decisions. Stanton often played the “bad cop” who allowed
the President to maintain a more kindly public face in often-harsh dealings with
Northern Democrat opposition and what became a total war policy against Southern
civilians. The reality was that Lincoln was more kindly in disposition than
Stanton, whose ruthlessness often manifested itself with other cabinet members
and independent actions unknown to the President.
One of the
Lincoln cabinet members I have come to admire was Secretary of the Navy Gideon
Welles, who finally felt compelled to privately convey to Lincoln the ugly truth
of Stanton’s devious and “back-stabbing’ nature. Stanton had well-earned the
“back-stabbing” reputation with other cabinet members and several Union General
officers.
Stanton and the
fifteen or so leading “Radical Republicans” in Congress were anxious to connect
Confederate President Jefferson Davis with John Wilkes Booth’s shooting of
Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington on April 14, 1865. Stanton had
orchestrated an attempted assassination of Davis in February 1864. Davis,
however, publicly and privately decried assassination of political leaders as a
strategy of war. No one who is thoroughly familiar with Davis’s highly ethical
character places any credence on such an accusation. I also believe that
Vice President Andrew Johnson was an unlikely assassination conspirator. He was
very anti-secession but very pro-Constitution. He had a drinking problem, but
had sterling qualities of character, which eventually showed though his faults.
As the former Tennessee Democrat’s passion for the Constitution and renewing
compassion for the Southern people began to show, Stanton and the Radicals began
to hate him and would soon attempt to impeach him.
I also place no
credibility in theories that someone other than John Wilkes Booth fatally
wounded Abraham Lincoln on the evening of April 14, 1865. Booth’s first plan was
to capture Lincoln and hold him ransom in pursuit of the release of Confederate
prisoners of war and possibly a negotiated peace. Booth’s own diary indicated he
did not decide to kill Lincoln until April 13. Stanton withheld that diary and
information from the Military Court.
Lincoln’s plan
for a relatively benign reconstruction of the Southern States after the War was
a concern to Stanton and the Radical Republicans. They were determined to wreak
vengeance and continued economic exploitation on the formerly seceded states.
More importantly, Lincoln’s relatively mild reconstruction plan risked the
return of a Democrat Congressional majority. The Radical Republicans were not
about to hand power back to a Democrat majority.
Readers
should bear in mind that the Republican and Democrat parties were quite
different from their modern descendents. Democrat and “conservative” were
virtual synonyms then. Democrats, North and South, were particularly strong on
preserving limited Constitutional government and States Rights. The
Republicans varied from conservative to radical, but were largely a big
business-big government dominated party. The Radical Republicans were the most
unapologetic and ruthless advocates of using big government to profit big
business and big business funding for successful political campaigns. They
favored harsh and exploitive reconstruction that disenfranchised Confederate
veterans and maintained Republican power in the South through Northern
“carpetbaggers” and newly franchised Republican former
slaves.
Secretary
Stanton’s Chief Detective, Lafayette Baker, on taking charge of the pursuit of
Lincoln’s assassins gave official orders “to extort confessions and procure
testimony to establish conspiracy…by promises, rewards, threats, deceit, force,
or any other effectual means.”
Why did Stanton go so far
in breaking all the rules of honest investigations and fair trials to
hang Mary Surratt? Why did he persuade General Grant to reject the
President’s invitation to attend the theater with him on April 14? There are
more peculiar coincidences and unanswered questions.
