Visitor's Passes to Prisoners

[Susan Higginbotham]

I was at the National Archives yesterday looking through the Old Capitol Prison visitors' passes to see if there were visitors to Mary Surratt and the other boarding house ladies. I didn't find any, but I thought these passes, one to issued to Edwin Booth to visit his brother Junius, the other issued to Emma Offut to visit her brother-in-law John Lloyd, might be of interest. Apologies for the intrusion of my fingers--I didn't have those thingies to hold down the documents I was photographing:

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A couple of other fun facts I learned: Virginia Lomax, who later published a memoir of her stay in prison, is listed in the records as Mattie Virginia Lomax, and her profession is given as a schoolteacher. Catherine Virginia Baxley, who was imprisoned as a courier in January 1865 and whose dying son Mrs. Surratt is said to have nursed, initially gave the false name of Frances Parker when she was arrested.