Execution Stereoviews

[LincolnToddFan]

KateH...this is my choice for Post Of The Day...beautifully worded!

Gene, I agree with what you posted too. I wish to God Atzerodt had run straight to the Metropolitan Police that awful day instead of hitting the bar where he was assigned to kill Andrew Johnson.

Lincoln would have lived. So would Booth and Surratt, Powell and Herold, and of course George himself. Their families' lives would not have been shattered and the country would not have been traumatized by the first assassination of a sitting president.

That is...if the police had believed Atzerodt ,and there is no guarantee they would have. He was an undistinguished German immigrant who spoke heavily accented English and seemed afraid of his own shadow. Look how prejudiced and unflattering the newspaper articles wrote about him during the trial.

There is no arguing that their ill-advised participation in the plot made them guilty. All I am saying is that they did not to hang for what they did.

In my opinion, the only one who deserved to hang was John Wilkes Booth.