Did Surratt and Slater know about Harney's Mission?

[JMadonna]

(04-07-2016 03:43 PM)SSlater Wrote:  Somewhere after the 10th, Booth went to New York (for Orders?) Upon his return, he wired Surratt "to Come here - immediately, the plan has changed." (No known reply). Later, Surratt learned of the assassination, but dallied in Elmira, and arrived back in Montreal on the 18th. (Booth had tried to rally his squad, for the new plan, but they balked. (( I'm beginning to understand their thinking)) Murder was not in their thinking)

Did Booth involve Mary Surratt, Dr. Mudd and the Secret Line - in the murder, after the fact?

Surratt and Slater never knew that there was to be an assassination - until it was a done-deal.

What are your thoughts on this?

“It never occurred to me for an instant that it could have been Booth or any of the parties to our conspiracy, for the simple reason that I had never heard anything regarding assassination spoken of during my intercourse with them. I had good reason to believe that there was another conspiracy afloat in Washington: in fact we all knew it.”
- John Surratt, New York Times, February 7, 1909

Jefferson Davis remark upon hearing of the assassination:

" If it were to be done at all, it were better that it were well done; and if the same had been done to Andy Johnson, the beast, and to Secretary Stanton, the job would then be complete.”
Pitman; p. 47

I believe that Mary Surratt's message to 'get the shooting irons ready' was meant to get word down the line that the execution of the plot (kidnapping) was imminent. IMO Neither Mary nor Mudd was aware the plot had changed