Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth

[Gene C]

This weeks chapter is "The Trial"

This is one of the more interesting chapters with his comments about the accused.
https://ia802500.us.archive.org/4/items/...67town.pdf

p63
"These are they who are living not by years nor by weeks, but by breaths."

About Mrs Surratt he says on p63-64,
"Let men remember that she is the mother of a son who has fled to save
his forfeit life by deserting her to shame, and perhaps, to death. Let women,
who will not mention her in mercy, learn from her end, in all succeeding
wars, to make patriotism of their household duties and not incite
Mrs. Surratt is a graduate of that seminary which spits in soldiers' faces,
denounces brave generals upon the rostrum, and cries out for an interminable
scaffold. when all the bells are ringing peace.

... If she did not devise the assassination, she was privy to it long. She was
an agent of contraband mails—a bold, crafty, assured rebel—perhaps a spy —
and in the event of her condemnation,
let those who would plead for her spend half their pity upon that victim whose heart
was like a woman's, and whose hand was merciful as a mother's."

- This is how she is presented to the public by the press.
More on the rest of the participants later.