Was there an assassin on Grant's train?

[L Verge]

Has anyone ever considered that it was his mother who pulled John Surratt into the conspiracy? If her brother's comment to my great-grandfather upon being given sympathy means anything: "She got exactly what she deserved. She knew what she was getting into."

I was not the one who posted that John's having a large family after the war was proof that he was a good father; but from the various descendants that I have spoken with over the past forty years, I have heard nothing to the contrary. I also consider it a good sign that Anna allowed John to come to her wedding and that both Isaac and Anna stayed in close contact (even to the point of both men working for the same company) with all three living in Baltimore City for the rest of their lives a positive. Would any of us have been as forgiving?

I was hoping that somewhere along the line the fact that the Civil War changed people's lives would sink in to our psyche. I once started a television interview with the thought that, if it had not been for the Civil War and John Wilkes Booth, Mary Surratt would never have been heard of. That has always been what fascinated me about the war, and even about Lincoln. I don't care a bit about military campaigns - or even what started the war. I enjoy learning about its effects on the common man. As for John Surratt, I consider him a typical teenager caught up in the high drama of a war that had pitted the country against itself. He could easily be those impressionable young people in America and Europe today who are enticed to offer their services to ISIS. Has anyone else considered such a comparison? That's what the study of history is all about.