Judicial Murder of Mrs. Surratt

[wpbinzel]

(10-28-2017 06:39 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(10-28-2017 02:36 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(10-28-2017 11:51 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Also, I am at home without Kate Larson's book, Assassin's Accomplice. Could someone check to see if Kate lists the Johnson Papers held by the NPS as a source?

I just checked, and I do not see them listed, Laurie.

Thanks, Roger. That's unfortunate if those papers have many references to the Surratt case - it would seem primary source materials. However, maybe there is nothing new that she didn't find elsewhere. I think I'm going to have to develop a friendship with the NPS personnel at the Johnson Home... Or, do any of this forum's members live in the vicinity?

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I should have mentioned that the University of Tennessee Press published 16 volumes of the Johnson Papers back in the 1980s, and each volume is nearly 1000 pages. My days of wading through tons of such things are over!

Laurie - I have the text of W. E. McElwee's May 1, 1923 manuscript, in which he recounts a chance conversation with Andrew Johnson on July 29, 1875. Johnson died two days later. McElwee wrote that he was "not attempting to quote his [Johnson's] exact words, but in substance."

With regard to why Booth shot Lincoln, McElwee wrote that Johnson said: "I made no investigation of the matter but it was asserted that Boothe [sic] had a friend that had been condemned to death. That Booth had seen Lincoln and had been led to believe the president would commute the sentence but that Stanton and Seward had interfered and prevented any clemency[.]"

With regard to Stanton's death, McElwee wrote:

Johnson said: "Stanton was the Marat of American politics. He was not assassinated by Charlotta Cordy [sic] but he committed suicide by cutting his own throat."

McElwee asked: "Do you want us to understand you, Mr. Johnson, as saying that Mr. Stanton committed suicide?"

Johnson replied: "Yes, he cut his damned throat from ear to ear but it was kept out of public print."

With regard to Mrs. Surratt, McElwee wrote:

Johnson said: "The execution of Mrs. Surrat [sic] was a crime of passion without justice or reason. She knew no more about the intentions of Boothe [sic]and his associates than any other person who chanced to know Booth or Asterot [sic]. They had simply boarded, as others had done, at her boarding house. She was entitled to a tral [sic] in open court and the record of the trial preserved. But her executioners knew the records would condemn them if kept till passion had subsided and they were destroyed."

McElwee asked: "Is there no record of the condemnation and execution of Mrs. Surrat [sic]?"

Johnson replied: "No sir, the records were immediately destroyed. They were not even kept till John [Surratt] was arrested and tried."

McElwee: "If She was not guilty why did not you interpose Executive clemency?"

Johnson: "If I had interfered with the exectution it would have been my death and a riot that would probably ended in war."

McElwee: "Was there any appeal made to you for mitigating the sentence as reported after the execution?"

Johnson: "No appeal reached me. Her daughter forwarded one but it was suppressed by Secretary Stanton. I heard of it afterwards but never saw it[.] It was a murder founded on perjury and executed to gratify passion. The chief witness afterwards confessed to his perjury."

For many reasons, not the least of which are outright falsehoods, I do not consider the recollections of Mr. McElwee to be credible. Chance meetings that result in detailed "confessions" hours before a historic individual's death are always suspect, muchless when they are first reported nearly 50 years after the fact, out of character, and demonstrably false. For example, McElwee's Johnson is cowardly. Of his many flaws, few historians have described Andrew Johnson as a coward. I certainly would not.