John Surratt

[John Fazio]

(08-08-2013 10:36 PM)SSlater Wrote:  Rhatkinson. your post #91. This reply is very late, but each reply is based on our own analysis of the events discussed. ("We scratch our own itch"). Surratt did not get an assignment on Apr. 14. because he was not available. Booth and Surratt met after their failed attempt to abduct Lincoln - March 17 (+/-). From there on, Booth and Surratt never saw each other again - NEVER. The next day Booth went to NY. On March 25, Surratt went to Richmond, w/ Slater. April 2, Surratt headed for Montreal, w/ Slater. April 6/8 Surratt went to Elmira, w/ Slater. Surratt did not know there was to be an Assassination.
So, he did not betray anyone. He was "on duty", elsewhere. IMO if he had known, he would have been in D.C. It is apparent to me, that he headed North on April 15th, to report his findings to E.G. Lee. He made his way to Montreal by April 18, w/ Slater. Check the St. Lawrence Register for April 18, 1865. The signature, just below his , is "A. Reynaud". (Slater's mother's maiden name) Both names are in the same handwriting. (Which I believe is Rev. Cameron's). L.C. Baker got e report of the train trip from his Detectives, and tells us about it in his "Hist. of the U. S. Sec. Serv." Surratt was I.D'd several times along the train ride, but not Slater. She was in disguise.
(I wish I had studied this hard, when I was in School.)

SSlater:

I hope you do not mind my responding to your post to Rhatkinson. I am certain he or she is perfectly capable of responding, but you have raised some interesting points that I would like to address too.

To begin with, I believe some of your dates are off a bit, though I welcome correction. My understanding is that Booth did not leave for New York, after the Campbell Hospital episode, until 3-21, joining Powell, who was already there, having left Washington immediately, with a stop in Baltimore. Yes, Surratt met Slater in New York and they went to Richmond together, in the company of four or five others, arriving there on 3-31. (Trial of JHS, V. 1, p 467; Weichmann, p. 432) (Being in New York at the same time Booth was, would you not expect them to have met there?) They left Richmond on Saturday morning, 4-1, and arrived in Washington on 4-3. They left Washington on Monday morning, 4-4 (Weichmann, p. 433) They stopped in N.Y. to see Booth (what for, if he was no longer conspiring with him?), but was told he was in Boston for an engagement. (Weichmann, pp. 432, 433). They arrived in Montreal on 4-6. He was still there at the beginning of the week (4-9 or 4-10). If we are to believe him, at a time when the Confederacy was collapsing, evacuated on 4-2, occupied on 4-3, toured by Lincoln and Tad on 4-4, and with what was left of the government moving south toward the Savannah River, and with decapitation of the Federal Government by multiple assassinations the last hope of the Confederacy, he undertook a 1,200 mile journey (round-trip) to deliver to General Edwin Lee, on behalf of Judah Benjamin (who had previously masterminded a year's worth of terror plots) dispatches relating to "accounts of money transactions". He then soaked up the sights in this cosmopolitan Canadian city for a few days, while the Confederacy continued to sink like a stone, until, on 4-10, he received a "letter" (probably a telegram) from Booth, telling him that their plans had changed and to return to Washington forthwith. (Trial of JHS, V. 1, pp. 471, 476) Asked by McMillan what he did in response to the communication from Booth, he said he left "immediately" for Washington. But, he said, in a story that has three radically different versions (McMillan, Rockville lecture and Hanson Hiss), he didn't go to Washington (why not?); he went to Elmira, about a week after arriving in Montreal (4-13?), arriving in Elmira on 4-12??? His purpose, he said, was to make sketches of the prison there for General E. Lee, which he did. What happened to Booth's imperative re Washington??? He doesn't say. He does say, however, that he telegraphed Booth in New York to determine whether or not he had left for Washington yet, being advised that in fact he had. Why should he be doing this if he was no longer conspiring? In Hanson Hiss, however, he said he went to Elmira pursuant to orders from Gen. Wilder, not Gen. Lee, and that he stayed for "several weeks", not two or three days. Then he says he learned about Lincoln's assassination, either in Elmira, St. Albans or en route between Elmira and Albany--take your pick. Then he says he wanted to go to Baltimore to find out the "particulars of the tragedy", but finding no train to go south to Baltimore, decided to go north about 60 to 75 miles to Canandaigua, but he doesn't say what for --presumably to soak up some more scenery, while the Confederacy continued to sink. He does say, however, that he intended to go from Canandaigua to Baltimore via Elmira!!!! Why, for God's sake, did he not just wait for a train in Elmira? While in Elmira, in between sketching sessions, he calmly patronized haberdashers and tailors, while the Confederacy continued to slide away. Does any of this make sense to anybody?

Before answering that question, consider some evidence on the other side. Ste. Marie swore that he said, when he was safely away from Federal detectives and American jurisdiction, that "We have killed Lincoln, the *****'s friend". He also swore on the stand, at the trial, that Surratt told him he left Washington on the night of 4-14 or the morning of 4-15, disguised as an Englishman. Take that with a little salt, because Ste. Marie said in his Affidavit that Surratt told him that at the time of the assassination, he was "in New York prepared to fly as soon as the deed was done", which is why Pierrepont all but threw him away as a witness. But even that isn't much better, from the standpoint of culpability. Ste. Marie added that Surratt told him that they (he and Booth) had acted under orders of men who are not yet known, some of whom are still in N.Y. and others in London, and, further, that they had acted under the instructions of persons under the immediate orders of Davis. Does all this sound like someone who would traipse around New York state buying shirts when bloody work was being done in Washington? McMillan also said that Surratt told him that he and Booth had spent $10,000 on the conspiracy. That's $140,000 in today's money. Where on earth did this unemployed son of a boardinghouse keeper and his unemployed actor friend get $140,000?

If you believe that Surratt was only involved in a kidnapping scheme, consider that:

1. Arnold said he passed up many kidnapping opportunities in favor of a life of dissipation. (Arnold, Memoirs, pp. 45, 46)
2. The Jack Cade affair was a big nothing.
3. The Campbell Hospital episode was almost certainly staged. So believes Kauffman. So, too, believed Arnold, who said it was so demented and foolhardy that "we concluded that it was done to try the nerve of his (Booth's) associates". I agree.
4. Does anyone really believe that Davis, Benjamin, Seddon, Breckenridge, the Canadian Cabinet and the Secret Service were all persuaded that this 26-year old actor's kidnapping idea was brilliant and would save the Confederacy? What would they have done in the face of Northern stonewalling? Chopped off Lincoln's limbs? One at a time, pending the release of more Confederate POW's? Pulled out his fingernails?
5. ALL of the letters introduced at the trial (Hudspeth, Morehead City, Lon) spoke of assassination. None spoke of kidnapping.
6. In the entire corpus of testimony at the trial from Montgomery, Dunham (Conover) and Merritt, there is ONE reference to "abduction", but DOZENS of references to decapitation by multiple assassinations. Does anyone suppose that the Confederacy's top courier between Richmond and the Canadian Cabinet could have been ignorant of this fact? I already know about their perjury. That is a separate story; it in no way vitiates the sheer volume of testimony re assassinations.
7.If Booth and Surratt were intent on kidnapping, why did Booth urge Powell, on THREE occasions, to shoot Lincoln?
8. How were the kidnappers going to get Lincoln across the Navy Yard Bridge? "Shoot the sentinel"? At which point the detail would be alerted as well as the sentinels on the other side of the bridge.
9. Prisoner exchange was already being accomplished, which Arnold threw in Booth's face.
10. The Meadville etching and Mrs. McClermont's testimony at the trial (of Surratt) prove that Booth (and therefore Surratt) had murder in mind as early as April, 1864, if not earlier.
11. Atzerodt's May 1 confession states that Booth (and therefore Surratt) feared that the N.Y. crowd would "get the Presdt. certain" or "get him quick" if he didn't do it first. Does anyone read in these words anything about kidnapping?
12. Thomas Harris, Louis Weichmann and John Bingham all believed that "kidnapping" was a cover, that there never was serious intention to do it.
13. If the Confederacy intended to kidnap, how is it that at least a half dozen attempts were made on Lincoln's life from the middle of 1863 to April, 1865 (Mary's accident, the fire, the shot, Blackburn's shirts and the River Queen incident). Were these all rogue operations? Or maybe someone miscommunicated. Or maybe there was no intention to kidnap, but only to kill. Which is the most reasonable explanation?
14. If Booth was intent on kidnapping, why did he try to assassinate the President on Inauguration Day? Or are we to believe that he intended to kidnap him then too, presumably by throwing him over his shoulder and then marching through 30,000 spectators, half the Union army, the N.D.P. and the Capitol Police?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

John