Herold and Surratt

[John Fazio]

(11-12-2013 11:10 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Any attempt on Stanton seems to have been a very half-hearted attempt. Ring the door bell and if no one answers, or Stanton doesn't come to the door, give up.
Could Surratt have been assigned to kill Stanton?

Gene:

There is more to the atempt on Stanton than that, as follows:

1. Montgomery, Dunham ("Conover") Merritt and Von Steinacker all mentioned him as an intended victim.
2. Davis, upon learning of the assassination of Lincoln, said "...and if the same had been done to...Secretary Stanton, the job would then be complete."
3. A may 15, 1865, anonymous report sent to Stanton advised him that there had been a conspiracy to murder him, the President and Seward.
4.Stanton aide, Britton Hill, reported that on the basis of his evidence, Stanton and Johnson were also to have been killed.
5. One of Baker's agents, D. V. Coldazer, said he learned in Boston, from one Goerge W. Wortman, a person of interest, that there was a plot to murder Lincoln, Seward, Stanton and Halleck.
6. David Homer Bates wrote of the "frustrated efforts to reach and kill...Secretary Stanton..."
7. Allan Pinkerton warned Stanton that on the basis of evidence he had, he (Stanton) was in danger.
8. Three witnesses at the trial--good, reliable witnesses, not fly-by-nights--put O'Laughlen at Stanton's home during the evening of April 13. There is corroborative evidence for this visit.
9. An anonymous letter sent to Booth on 4-10-65 said that an assassin had been assigned to each memer of Lincoln's Cabinet.
10. A cipher letter that came into the possession of Union intellience stated "The brute Stanton will meet his just deserts (sic) by a sure hand."
11. On the 14th, at night, a skulking figure was seen on Stanton's porch. He fled upon the approach of officers (variously described) coming to apprise the Secretary of the carnage at the Seward home. Stanton and his biographer, Flower, as well as his close friend, Hudson Taylor, credited a broken doorbell with saving his life.
12. Secretary of the Interior, John Usher, reported that a man was found at Stanton's home hiding behind a tree box, He too fled. This report received corroboration from one Edwin Bates, a patron at Ford's Theatre that night.

I have learned not to reject evidence or tradition too easily.

John

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(11-09-2013 01:42 AM)SSlater Wrote:  I do no have a copy of Surratt's trial. So, I need some help. I have a copy of one page of the "Elmira Morning Telegram" for April 22, 1917, which has a "50th year Anniversary of the Surratt Trial" article, in which they say "It was finally admitted by the prosecution that Surratt was in Elmira on the morning of the 13th." The newspaper then adds that " an effort was made by the prosecution to show that he made a rapid journey to Washington to arrive there for the assassination." which the defense then shredded that ploy to bits.
My question is: Did the prosecution really admit that, during the trial?

SSlater:

By implication, if not expressly, inasmuch as they tried to show, by railroad schedules and such, that he could have made it to Washington from Elmira in time for the assassination.

John

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(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:

There is too much evidence against Surratt and the Confederate Government and its Secret Service, including the Canadian Cabinet, implicating them in the assassination and attempted assassinations, to acquit them.

Surratt could have been on the train, or on Stanton's doorstep, or in Elmira. I do not know. I do know, as well as I know my name, that Surratt and the Confederate Government, etc., are not innocent of the great crime. If he was in Washington, I don't know what he did. But Booth did tell Atzerodt that he expected Booth to help him in the box, which fits with Rhodes's testimony at the 1867 trial, namely that he saw Surratt in the box doing carpentry during the day. I do not know of any evidence putting Surratt on the train. Johnson was already provided for ---Herold, with Atzerodt as back-up. I believe I have responded to everything else elsewhere. I know nothing about Hunter.

John