Where was John Surratt on April 14, 1865 ?

[loetar44]

Laurie (and others), I don’t know what exactly to believe. It's fairly easy to discount any testimony as unreliable or untrustworthy. It’s fairly easy too to portray a witness as a person who is purposely telling a lie hunting for reward money, or that he/she has a criminal past and can’t be trusted. It’s also fairly easy to debunk a testimony by saying that a witness is simply wrong, or that his memory failed, or that he/she testified under (enormous) pressure or fear, or that the witness was bribed, or that he committed perjury, or that a testimony is completely bogus, etc., etc. However we have:

- 8 witnesses who testified they were sure that John Surratt was in DC on April 14, 1865
- 4 witnesses who said that they saw a man resembling John Surratt in DC on that day
- 1 witness who said that he saw a man on horseback resembling Surratt in DC in the early morning on the 15th, informing if it gave trouble to pass the pickets (was he leaving town?)
- the testimony of Henri de St. Marie that Surratt himself told him that he left Washington for Baltimore on the morning of the 15th (by train or on horseback?)
- Richard Smoot visited on the 12th Surratt’s boarding house; Mary whispered to him that John Surratt would most likely there on the 14th (John Fazio “Decapitating”, p. 45)
- Booth told Atzerodt that John Surratt was in Washington
- Nobody knows for sure were John Surratt exactly was between 6 and 18 April 1865

What I want to say (again) is: is it believable that ALL testimonies and accounts are NOT true? Okay you can believe that, but it is probable that some are true! So, my conclusion is: you can ignore some testimonies, but not all. Even if ONLY ONE is true John H. Surratt Jr. was in Washington D.C. on April 14, 1865.

Roger, thanks ! It seems possible that John Surratt arrived in DC at 5:45 A.M. on April 14th. After reading “Decapitating” p. 187-188, and kudo’s to John Fazio, it is apparent that Rhodes was lying. But why would he have done that?