Countdown to July 7

[Linda Anderson]

Crowding Memories by Mrs. Thomas Bailey Aldrich contains Mrs. Aldrich's description of the conspirators at their trial.

"Mrs. Aldrich was the wife of Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), a key literary figure in the 19th century and a close friend of Mark Twain. This memoir offers much material on Twain, Bret Harte, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edwin Booth, and Longfellow - all friends of the Aldrich family."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1410214...8&n=283155

The book is available on Internet Archive or Google Books.

"The military court was held in a small room in the old arsenal. The surroundings were in their gloomy and sombre shade well fitted for the recital of the grim tragedy. The glittering of the uniforms of the officers who composed the court made a sharp contrast with the wretched prisoners, who were lined up against the walls of the room with a guard upon each side of them.
"Young Herold, a druggist's clerk who had joined John Wilkes Booth immediately after the assassination, and had been with him during the ten days that preceded their capture, was under the fire of the cross-questionings as we entered the court-room. It was a very slight and boyish figure that fronted his stern judges, the face set and colorless like yellow wax, with freckles that seemed almost to illuminate the waxen surface. The brown eyes were in expression as a deer that had been wounded; the whole body and face vibrant with anxious fear, like an animal that has been trapped and sees no escape. One turned away from it with a feeling that no mortal had the right to look at a soul so naked and unveiled.
"At the end of the line sat Lewis Payne, whose attempt had been to murder William H. Seward, Secretary of State. In his face there was depicted neither anxiety nor interest. During the time we were in the court-room, Payne, who was sitting near the open window, watched the swaying of a tree, face and figure expressing indifference to all the transitory things of life - life which he seemed to have no further interest in. One could not but wonder, looking at him as he sat so undisturbed and motionless, what was the composition of his thought.
"Mrs. Surratt sat more towards the centre of the group. She was rather a large woman, wearing a rusty-black woollen dress, and most of the time held before her face a large palm-leaf fan. Of the other five prisoners who were charged with conspiracy and the murder of Lincoln, I have no very distinct remembrance, beyond the tragic vision of seeing them hand-cuffed and an officer standing on each side of a sitting figure.
"We came out through a private door of the court-room which was in the second story of the building, and as we descended a spiral staircase set in grim gray stone a figure coming up the stairs for the moment blocked the way. It was Mr. Edwin Booth whom the Government had sent for; but happily for him, he was not called upon to testify. Years later, when the excitement of war was over, the Government sent word to Mr. Booth of the place of burial of John Wilkes and gave the right of re-interment."