Was there an assassin on Grant's train?

[Wild Bill]

Well, I cannot match John Fazio in his writing style, not being much on semi-medieval wording, and having no law degree, as I am nothing but a worn-out cowboy and horseshoer who has been run over, stomped, and kicked by too many horses and mules, and still uses “ain’t,” “cain’t,” “it don’t.” Leastways, I was out in the corral looking for Fazio’s thrown gauntlet, but found instead that what we out West call “the 70 cent spread” seems to have covered it up pretty thoroughly. As with most things Fazio writes, his assertions read more like a law brief (“Let that serve to indicate his true intentions”) than a balanced look at history, and thus proceeds to obfuscate the mullings of the jury in favor of his client, Yankee justice in starting the Civil War and Southern stupidity in losing it. Whoops! I left out “alleged.”

Fazio blithely overlooks (“let us pass over”) that the War might have had other causes. These include that the war was a just cause rom the Rebels point of view, it rested upon the principles of 1776 (Declaration of independence), 1787 (the Constitution), 1798 (the Kentucky and Virginia Resolves), not to mention the Yankees’ threat of secession in 1814 at the end of the War of 1812 (at the Hartford Convention—damn that Andrew Jackson in winning the Battle of New Orleans!), 1832 (Nullification), and Popular Sovereignty in the territories approved by the Dred Scott Decision in the 1850s.

What really happened here is that the Yankees’ forefathers compromised on the slavery issue in 1787 to gain the first real common market in history since the Hanseatic League, and their Civil War era heirs could no longer abide the deal and tried to change it by legislation and, failing in that, by a successful war.

To have the temerity to think of the War in any other way is foreign to what we all have been taught from our youths, but why not, as suggested by historian William Hanchett, “Lincoln’s Assassination as a Military Necessity,” look on the war another way? After all, a lot of what Lincoln did in winning the war was looked upon as military necessity in the North.

I hate outlines, they smack too much of yellow lawyers’ pads and law briefs not history, but Fazio loves them, so I will go over Fazio’s presentation, point by point.
1. [John Surratt] masqueraded as a legitimate United States postmaster in Surrattsville, after his father died, while at the same time using the facility as a Confederate safe house and doing double duty as a Confederate courier.

“Masqueraded?” He was postmaster in addition to his tasks for the Confederate underground. That is vile only if one is a Union man in the 21st century. That’s how spies operate, John, during wartime or peacetime.

2. He was co-leader, with Booth, of a conspiracy against the United States government. He was so identified not by his enemies, but by his co-conspirators, after their arrest and incarceration. The conspiracy resulted in the kidnapping of no one, but the assassination of the President and the attempted assassination of at least four other federal officeholders. Let that serve to indicate his true intentions.

You need to read David W. Gaddy’s “Under a Southern Rose: Of A Time When CIA meant Confederate Intelligence Activities,” where he describes the military implications of Surratt’s activities and the Confederate military Campaign of 1865. This is also in THG, Come Retribution and Tidwell’s book, April ‘65

3. With Harbin's help, he recruited Atzerodt into the conspiracy and then abandoned him, after the assassination, to the hangman.

Surratt did not leave Atzerodt. He was not in DC when the assassination happened.

4. With Parr's help, he recruited Powell into the conspiracy and then abandoned him too, after the assassination, to the hangman.

My understanding is that Powell was recruited by Judah P Benjamon and again Surratt was not there to abandon Powell. Both Powell and Atzeodt were big boys, fully capable of assuming responsibility for their actions.

5. He participated in the Jack Cade affair, lying to his employer and even dragging his mother along to lie to his employer, so that he could participate.

You really expect John or his mother to go up to the Adams Express company boss and say “let me have time off to go capture Lincoln?” Note the word capture here. It was a military operation not a civilian crime. (Gaddy again)


6. He participated in the Gautier's Restaurant meeting, at which a well-oiled Booth clearly implied that murder was in the cards. By his silence, he approved the same. In failing utterly to stand with Arnold against Booth, he demonstrated where his first loyalty lay and his true intentions.

Look at it from Booth and the others’ point of view, including Surratt, Arnold was a coward, not the hero you make him out to be.

7. He participated in the Campbell Hospital fiasco, following which he had a hand in depositing guns, ammunition and tools at the Surrattsville Tavern for later use. The only use made of the guns (one of them) was by Booth and Herold, after the assassination. Let that serve to indicate his true intentions.

What was he supposed to do with such guns, etc., had them over to the Federals with an apology?

8. He may have attempted to assassinate Lincoln in March, 1865, aboard the River Queen at City Point, Va. William Crook and Tad Lincoln both thought Surratt was the man who tried to access Lincoln at that time and place, with purpose, in Crook's opinion, to assassinate him.

Purely hearsay.

9. He arranged with Smoot for a boat to be used to cross the Potomac. Only Booth and Herold crossed the Potomac. Let that serve to indicate his true intentions.

It was not Booth and Herold’s fault that only they crossed the Potomac using instead Thomas A Jones’ boat

10. He went to the home of James L. Walker Murray in Richmond, with Booth, in March 1865, for the purpose of securing funds for their conspiracy, a conspiracy that resulted in the assassination and attempted assassination of at least five federal officeholders.

Military expeditions are expensive. You expect them to act without adequate funds?

11. He knew all about the assassination plan and even admitted to Ste. Marie, in Italy, that "We killed Lincoln, the *****'s friend".

So what? A lot of people North and South wanted to see Lincoln neutralized.

12. He admitted to McMillan that he and his party, including Sarah Slater, murdered in cold blood about a half dozen emaciated Union POW's whom they encountered during their last trip to Richmond in late March, 1865. Laurie doubts this, calling it "braggadocio", but Laurie, respectfully, people do not brag about killing defenseless POW's in cold blood; they brag about heroic deeds, about overcoming long odds, about triumphing despite adversity. This is the opposite of that.

“Encountered?” The Surratt party was assaulted by Union POWs escaped from a Reb prison. They were supposed to succor the enemy while they were on a mission? You are a lawyer. Have you not heard such confession without remorse before? Remember that this was the enemy.

13. He and his party executed in cold blood a Union telegrapher caught in the act of telegraphing.

As I remember the story, the Union telegrapher was a spy and hanged for that.

14. He and his party treacherously fired into a Union gunboat, killing some of its occupants, after they had agreed to surrender to the officers on board the gunboat.

Never assume that the enemy has surrendered rather than dragged you in on a sucker ploy. This dodge is as old as warfare.

15. He gave three radically different accounts of his meanderings after arriving in Montreal on April 6--where he went; where, when and how he learned of the assassination and what he did in response thereto.

You expect him to confess to the truth?

16. He told McMillan, waving a gun for emphasis, that he hoped to God he lived long enough to serve Andrew Johnson the same way Abraham Lincoln had been served.

A lot of people, including many Radical Republicans, would have given their all to have had such an opportunity.


17. He told McMillan that if he, McMillan, knew all the things he had done, it would make him stare or gape or words to that effect.

I bet you and I could lay claim to the same.

18. Putting his own skin first, he fled the country after the assassination, first to Canada, then to Europe, leaving his co-conspirators to the hangman and four years in hell and leaving his own mother to the hangman, whom he could surely have saved if he had returned to Washington. Powell regarded his desertion of his mother as "detestable".

Admittedly this looks bad for the evil Surratt. But let’s face up to the fact that had he surrendered both he and his mother probably would have hanged. Just how much Surratt knew hidden away in Quebec Province is debatable. He also was assured that no one would hang his mother. The US had never hanged a woman before. He reckoned without Joseph Holt and Edwin Stanton.

19. After he was freed, because of a hung jury, he peddled his story in the form of a Rockville lecture, in 1870, for a fee of course.

The American way, even in the 19th century.

20. He threatened to kill Weichmann, one of the Prosecution's two star witnesses, who was lauded by numerous others because of his steadfastness and courage.

Weichmann was yellow and turned in the conspirators to save his own hide.

21. He expressed no regret or remorse over the events of April 14, 1865.

He had none. He had done his best to defeat the North and lost.

22. He lied about his escape in Italy (the "leap" into a 100-foot ravine) to flatter his ego, rather than admit that he had escaped by crawling through a sewer with the connivance of a dozen Zouave comrades.

Oh, come on. Have you never told a tall tale before? Or at least heard one? It is an American art form.

If this is but the tip of your iceberg, you might ought to look at the part underwater. I think it may have melted. John Surratt is vile only in the same way all warfare is vile. As General WT Sherman allegedly said, “War is Hell.”