assassination

[Susan Higginbotham]

(12-15-2015 09:56 AM)L Verge Wrote:  You have much more information on this than what I have known. I'm going to turn this over to our new librarian to see if there is any mention of these "arrests" in the Hall files here at the museum. So far as I know, there were soldiers stationed at the boardinghouse when the occupants were taken in for questioning, but I don't know how long they stayed there. I also know that the name Boiseau runs through the earlier history of Mary Surratt.

I would also like to ask Susan H if she has run across any of this history in her research.

I remember reading somewhere that people who stopped by the boardinghouse after the arrests of Mary et al. were detained and questioned, but will have to look up the source. I think it may have been Mary's old servant Rachel who said this.

Edit: At John Surratt's trial, Rachel, aka Eliza Hawkins, testified that she went to the boardinghouse on the morning of Tuesday, April 18, to get her young daughter, and was told by the soldiers there that anyone who went there could not come out. She testified that Anna Ward and another unnamed young lady were detained after coming to the boardinghouse that day, and that Rachel herself was held there until 8 p.m., when she was taken to the provost marshal's for questioning. Her relevant testimony is in vol. I of the John Surratt trial book, pp. 693-94.

https://books.google.com/books?id=r3IDAA...ns&f=false

William Wallace Kirby, Mary Surratt's friend and neighbor, gave a statement on April 18 in which he said that he had gone to the boardinghouse (apparently in hopes of getting more information from Mary about the whereabouts of her son) that morning and was detained. His statement is on p. 783 of Edwards' and Steers' The Lincoln Assassination: The Evidence. It might be on Fold3 as well.