The Assassin’s Accomplice

[LincolnToddFan]

(04-04-2015 12:48 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I have said this before, but I felt Mary Surratt was bamfoozled by Booth and generally unknowing about what was going on UNTIL James O. Hall sucked me into transcribing her statements (and those of other conspirators) into a booklet that we sell in the gift shop -- From War Department Files. That transcription was done in the old days on one of those contraptions known as a typewriter. It was done on my kitchen table in between my being a mother and housewife.

The more I typed out Mary's statement, the more I came to realize that she had to know what was going on - at least a good portion of it. I was also struck by how strong and haughty she was during her interrogations. This was no shrinking violet, Victorian woman. In my mind, her answers were carefully rehearsed - as if she knew that moment would come and she would be ready for those Union fiends...

Perhaps she also felt confident that no matter how far deep into the conspiracy she got she would not pay the ultimate price. Frankly her confidence was not without reason. The Federal Gov't had never executed a woman. Maybe the persuasive and charming Booth reassured her of this.

It was a fatal miscalculation, if that is indeed what happened.