Countdown to July 7

[Linda Anderson]

Anna returned to the prison from the boarding house and spent the night weeping and praying with her mother. The next morning, July 7, Anna went to the White House to plead for her mother's life.

"Anna had been rebuffed by Johnson's secretary, General Muzzey, and refused an audience with the President. This made her hysterical. General Muzzey had no idea who Anna was when she begged and pleaded with him to let her see the President. According to Johnson, Muzzey told him 'there was a crazy woman...downstairs [who] wanted to see me and she wouldn't give her name, but she was crying and tearing her hair out and exhibiting all the evidence of insanity.' Anna was forced out of the building and left on the White House steps... Later, David Herold's sisters also tried to see the President, but as with Anna, they too, were refused." Kate Clifford Larson, The Assassin's Accomplice.

"By one o'clock, most of the reporters had filed through the door and moved into the fiery yard. In the windows surrounding the enclosure as well as on top of a nearby building, the onlookers were densely packed. Several hundred soldiers had also taken their places and formed ranks around the scaffold...All speculation [about a reprieve] abruptly ceased shortly after 1 P.M., when General Hartranft appeared in the yard. Behind him, trudging along in a row, came the condemned, including Mary Surratt...Slowly, solemnly the condemned scaled the stairs to the platform, their chains clanking with every step...Stepping quickly to the front of the scaffold, General Hartranft read the order of execution in a loud voice heard throughout the yard...When Hartranft had finished, Abram Gillette [Powell's spiritual adviser] knelt beside Lewis Powell and prayed aloud...Powell's eyes briefly filled with tears...At length it was the Lutheran minister's turn...While the prayer was in progress, Dr. George Porter watched the condemned closely. 'Mrs. Surratt was very feeble and leaned her head upon alternate sides of her armchair in nervous spasms. Her general expression was that of acute suffering, vanishing at times as if by the conjuration of her pride, and again returning in a paroxysm as she looked at the dangling rope before her. [Powell], the strongest criminal of our history, was alone dignified and self-possessed...He looked at death as for one long expected; not a tremor of a shock stirred his long stately limbs...Herold, although whimpering, showed more grit than was anticipated...Atzerodt was the picture of despair.'"

The ropes were placed around the prisoners' necks. "...at 1:25 P.M., Christian Rath silently motioned to General Hartranft that all was ready." General Hartranft clapped his hands. "At Hartrant's third clap, William Coxshall and the others 'with all our might' pushed their poles and shoved out the props. Instantly the trap floors fell with a heavy slam." Thomas Goodrich, The Darkest Dawn.

After the bodies were cut down, they were placed into boxes and buried next to the scaffold in freshly dug graves.