Death warrant

[loetar44]

I've a question. Who can help please?

Who read the death warrant to Mary Surratt (and the others)? Was that John F. Hartranft, accompanied by Hancock? Or was it Atzerodt's brother in law John L. Smith?

Thanks!

[L Verge]

(04-15-2017 04:37 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  I've a question. Who can help please?

Who read the death warrant to Mary Surratt (and the others)? Was that John F. Hartranft, accompanied by Hancock? Or was it Atzerodt's brother in law John L. Smith?

Thanks!

Without my books to back me up, I believe that it was Hartranft. I have also read that he was accompanied by another general. However, I have a question: Was the death warrant read twice -- once in the cells on July 6 and again right before the drop from the gallows? Or, did Hartranft deliver the verdict in just common terms and announce that it would happen the next day during the visit to each cell? Did the second reading at the gallows consist of the legalese version?

As for Smith, I believe he was involved only with the arrest of Atzerodt. As Mike Kauffman used to say on our Booth tours, "Can you imagine coming home from work, and when your wife asked what you did that day, you had to tell her that you just arrested her brother?"

[RJNorton]

On p. 49 of The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators: Their Confinement and Execution, As Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft (Steers and Holzer) it says:


"In response to Hancock he wrote: "I (Hartranft) have the honor to report that in obedience to your orders, I did on July 6th 1865 between the hours of 11 A.M. & 12 M., read the 'Findings & Sentences' of Lewis Payne, G. A. Atzerodt, David E. Herold, and Mary E. Surratt to each of them respectively and also delivered a copy of the same to each. Hartranft handed each prisoner an envelope bearing the written findings and sentences of the tribunal."

Regarding the reading of the Order of Execution (Death Warrant) on July 7, please see Barry Cauchon's page here.

[loetar44]

Thanks Laurie and Roger. I was lead up the garden path by the Sept. 18, 1904 article in the Dallas Morning News in which John L. Smith stated that he read the death warrant to Mary Surratt.

http://lincoln-assassination.com/bboard/...656.0;wap2

Is there any further information about this?