Ruggles. Bainbridge and Jett at the River

[L Verge]

(01-23-2017 07:42 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(01-23-2017 09:21 AM)JMadonna Wrote:  I was under the impression that Stringfellow moved north through Baltimore after his escape. How did you determine he moved South.

I hope that John Stanton will pick up on your question and give a detailed answer. Otherwise, I am going to have to pull an old Surratt Courier out of the files.

About twenty years ago, I did a small article on Stringfellow and a piece of correspondence (or section from memoirs) in which he gives a description of heading south out of the city -- and it almost seems that he is describing Mrs. Surratt as his guide.

Finally had a chance to find the 1999 article that I did for the Surratt Courier regarding Benjamin Franklin Stringfellow's departure from D.C. I'll quote the pertinent points from that article:

"When Davis was writing his memoirs in the 1880s, he wrote to Stringfellow for suitable material to include...[Stringfellow wrote to Lee in the fall of 1864 with a proposal to kidnap Gen. August Katz. The plan failed. In February of 1865, he again wrote to Lee with a proposal to kidnap Grant. This one ended up with Jefferson Davis. By March 1, Stringfellow was on his way to Washington, posing as a student of dentistry. Why D.C.? Grant was in City Point near Richmond.]

"Stringfellow did not include his March 1865 mission in his report since Davis was already aware of it... He did offer enough information, however, to set us speculating. He tells of staying a few days at the Kirkwood House...[home to VP Andrew Johnson] and of being in constant contact with an officer 'occupying an important position' with Mr. Lincoln. He relates that his dentistry cover worked well and that he actually obtained a dental license within four weeks of arriving in Washington in hopes of using it to allow unhampered travel in the area. However, his plans changed abruptly, and he left Washington on April 1, 1865, for no explained reason. He headed through southern Maryland toward the lower Potomac crossing into Virginia. He had help, as he explains:

'Leaving the city of Washington by the aid of a person whose name is linked in
the history of these last dark days, I went some twelve miles the first evening.'

Twelve miles the first evening would put him at (or very near to) the Surratts' country home (now our museum), which continued to be a Confederate safehouse.
Could his aid...refer to help from Mrs. Surratt?"

In his testimony at the John Surratt trial in 1867, Weichmann describes Mrs. Surratt being at home on the morning of April 1, 1865, when he left for work, but not there when he returned from work. She arrived shortly thereafter in a buggy driven by her brother, John Zadoc Jenkins. Could the two have been on a mission to get Stringfellow to Charles County and across to Virginia?

Coincidentally, April 1, 1865, is also the day that Booth left D.C., telling Atzerodt that he was going to Canada.

The bulk of this article came from the research of James O. Hall.