The Assassin's Accomplice By Kate Clifford Larson

[L Verge]

As director of the Surratt House Museum and a person who understands completely why the federal government had to take the stance it did relative to Mary Surratt, I agree completely with all of the above assessments of Kate's work.

Let me clarify one thing, however, The Conspirator movie was not based on her book. Kate was an adviser to the film, as was another forum member, Dr. Tom Turner. The script for the movie was in the works for nearly twenty years by Mr. James Solomon, the screenwriter. Mr. Solomon did work with our museum as did Kate, and I developed a friendship with both -- PS have known Tom Turner even years longer because of his work on Beware The People Weeping.

I have to add a personal comment: I grew up in a family that knew Mary Surratt, and they were not as sympathetic to the lady as books of my teenage research years were. Our family was shocked that they hung a woman, but they also knew of her anti-Lincoln sentiments. My family story is that my great-grandfather offered his sympathies to her younger brother upon the execution. James Archibald Jenkins supposedly replied, "I don't need sympathies. She deserved what she got; she knew exactly what she was getting into."

As a young person with an interest in the assassination, the more sympathy for the lady that I read about, the more I thought my family story was fabricated. However, when I had access to higher resources and under the mentoring of James O. Hall, John C. Brennan, and Msgr. Keesler and others, I started seeing the other side of Mary Surratt. Maybe my family had told the truth.

When I began as a volunteer at Surratt House, we had to overcome the hometown history that portrayed her as an innocent victim. Luckily, there were several of us trained in history who insisted that both sides of the story needed to be told and the visitors encouraged to make up their own minds. We have maintained that same stance for forty years.

Frankly, when Kate's book came out with a clear stance that there were a number of things (some circumstantial) working against Mrs. Surratt, it served as an affirmation for me that there are always two sides to every story in history. I still have a hard time accepting that she knew the true intentions of Booth on April 14, but I do understand the laws of conspiracy.