(11-11-2013 01:09 PM)Thomas Thorne Wrote: If John Surratt, JWB's deputy, was in Washington on 4/14/65. what role did he play in the assassination and what do the number of people directly involved in the assassination and their choice of of targets reveal about the attackers ?
Some people have asserted that Booth assigned Surratt the job of killing l Grant on the train that night. When did Booth discover that Grant would not be coming to the theater and what is the evidence that Surratt was on the General's train?
We all know that JWB assigned himself the task of killing Lincoln. As a Julius Caesar buff he appreciated that Brutus was not the lone stabber. It is surprising that Booth did not believe that the presence of a vigorous 42 year old soldier who might be armed and worse might be accompanied by one or more aides might require more than one assassin.
If we believe that George Atzerodt expressed a reluctance to kill, Surratt was the obvious choice to kill Andrew Johnson.
People have speculated that Booth via the fiendish legal knowledge of Judah Benjamin and/or George Sanders was aware of the provisions of the Presidential Succession Act of 1792. Yet we have no evidence that the conspirators ever targeted Lafayette Foster,President Pro Tempore of the US Senate. Foster was the only person in the presidential succession if both Lincoln and Johnson were killed. Does anyone know where Foster was that nite?
Lewis Powell assaulted Frederick Seward because the latter tried to bar him from entering his father's room. We also know that Booth expressed regret over the extent of the carnage in the Seward household in which four people in addition to Secretary of State Seward were attacked. Both Booth and Powell were unaware that killing Frederick Seward was from the perspective of preventing the Secretary of State from calling for a presidential election just as important as killing his father. Frederick was Acting Secretary of State and by law the duties of Secretary of State devolved upon him during the period of his father's disability. No one has to my knowledge ever alleged the conspirators sought to kill Frederick Seward . Anther job for John Surratt.
Another person the conspirators did not target was William Hunter, the chief clerk of the Department of State on 4/14/65. Several months ago the State Department had an article-since removed - by its official historian giving a brief biography of Hunter- asserting that by law he became acting secretary of state with the full legal powers of secretary of state upon the disability of both Sewards. I have seen documents of his performing the legal ministerial functions of the Secretary of State such as officially informing the diplomatic corps of the death of Lincoln and the accession of Johnson to the presidency.
There were lots of things that John Surratt in the service of the general Confederate conspiracy could have done on 4/14/65. As the whole affair seems to have too few people ,who lacked the knowledge often attributed to them, that such a conspiracy could have deployed, we must acquit both John Surratt and the Confederate government of killing Lincoln .
Tom
PS My earlier post on this topic never got to the board.
Tom,
You make a good argument but there seems to be so much evidence that the CSA was involved to some degree.
I'm guessing Surratt was not in Washington on the 14th and was not truly involved with the assassination directly.
But---if he were, I see no other explanation for him not being at the Herndon House meeting unless he was, at the last minute, taken from his original assignment and sent after Grant.
Perhaps he was assigned to help Booth in the box when it was still believed Grant would be there. Or maybe he was goinng to take care of Johnson before things changed and Booth sent him to the train station after Grant. Who knows? There is no evidence.
Apparently Grant's train left at 6:00PM (or later if running late). According to secondary sources, Booth saw the Grants leaving town at around 4:00PM outside of the Willard Hotel while talking to Mathews. If his next move was to find Surratt and send him after Grant he had two hours to get him there. Possible I guess. Of course he would have to wait until that night on the train to pull the trigger as to not set off alarms in Washington and keep Lincoln on course for his appointment at Ford's.
Perhaps the change in plan helps explain Atzerodt being promoted to the role of assassin at the Herndon House meeting.
Anyway, it's all speculation. He was probably in Elmira the whole time.
Bill C
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