The Assassin's Accomplice By Kate Clifford Larson

[Ashley Norman]

Has any one read this book yet by Kate Clifford Lasron.
its Mary Surrat's side of what happened and the plot to kille the president or should I say the kidnapping plot the turned in to the killing of the president. I'm mid way throguh and must say it is quite well written. I thkink so any ways. The Movie the Conspiriter is based off the book and the Movie was good but i think could have been better. Thoughts anyone?

[J. Beckert]

I enjoyed it and also thought it was well written. I thought it stripped away a lot of the sentiment that's been assigned to Mary over the years that painted her as an unjustly treated victim and showed who she really was.

[Gene C]

Ms Larson also has some her lectures on Mary Surratt on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmA6ousKQ5w and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jqaJDwgQ...re=related

She has written a book about Harriett Tubman, and is a member of this forum.

[Jim Garrett]

Has any one read this book yet by Kate Clifford Lasron.
its Mary Surrat's side of what happened and the plot to kille the president or should I say the kidnapping plot the turned in to the killing of the president. I'm mid way throguh and must say it is quite well written. I thkink so any ways. The Movie the Conspiriter is based off the book and the Movie was good but i think could have been better. Thoughts anyone?

The book is well written and well researched. Most important is that it reads so very well. The esteemed Dr. Larson put her heart and sole into this book, and it shows. I have two copies (hardback & paperback) and saw the movie in the theatre and bought it. I have recommended it to visitors at Ford's and have given it as gifts. When it first came out, Laurie Verge recommended it to me.

While this sounds like an shameless suck-up (er maybe), I do have multiple copies and have given it as gifts. Great read. I will bring my copies to the conference for autographs.

[Gene C]

While this sounds like an shameless suck-up (er maybe), I do have multiple copies and have given it as gifts. Great read. I will bring my copies to the conference for autographs.

Shameful, Jim, that's just shameful
(wish I'd thought of that)

[Jim Garrett]

In reality, it's great to find something original and well written. Kate's book fits the bill.

[BettyO]

IMHO, Kate's book is the definitive book on Mary Surratt -

Extremely well written and researched -- it is definitely a "Must Read" - and is already considered a "classic" in assassination literature -

The movie, The Conspirator , was not without it's historical glitches - but this was Redford's interpretation -- certainly NOT Kate's! That's Hollywood for you.... All said and done, this movie did a lot to generate interest in the assassination and Lincoln which was certainly not a bad thing at all.....

[HerbS]

This book is well written by a Historical Expert!

[LincolnMan]

I have the book on Audio CD-and has listened to it three times. Each listen has been brought new insights into her story! The book is, indeed, a "must" for all Lincoln assassination students.

[L Verge]

As director of the Surratt House Museum and a person who understands completely why the federal government had to take the stance it did relative to Mary Surratt, I agree completely with all of the above assessments of Kate's work.

Let me clarify one thing, however, The Conspirator movie was not based on her book. Kate was an adviser to the film, as was another forum member, Dr. Tom Turner. The script for the movie was in the works for nearly twenty years by Mr. James Solomon, the screenwriter. Mr. Solomon did work with our museum as did Kate, and I developed a friendship with both -- PS have known Tom Turner even years longer because of his work on Beware The People Weeping.

I have to add a personal comment: I grew up in a family that knew Mary Surratt, and they were not as sympathetic to the lady as books of my teenage research years were. Our family was shocked that they hung a woman, but they also knew of her anti-Lincoln sentiments. My family story is that my great-grandfather offered his sympathies to her younger brother upon the execution. James Archibald Jenkins supposedly replied, "I don't need sympathies. She deserved what she got; she knew exactly what she was getting into."

As a young person with an interest in the assassination, the more sympathy for the lady that I read about, the more I thought my family story was fabricated. However, when I had access to higher resources and under the mentoring of James O. Hall, John C. Brennan, and Msgr. Keesler and others, I started seeing the other side of Mary Surratt. Maybe my family had told the truth.

When I began as a volunteer at Surratt House, we had to overcome the hometown history that portrayed her as an innocent victim. Luckily, there were several of us trained in history who insisted that both sides of the story needed to be told and the visitors encouraged to make up their own minds. We have maintained that same stance for forty years.

Frankly, when Kate's book came out with a clear stance that there were a number of things (some circumstantial) working against Mrs. Surratt, it served as an affirmation for me that there are always two sides to every story in history. I still have a hard time accepting that she knew the true intentions of Booth on April 14, but I do understand the laws of conspiracy.

[LincolnMan]

Laurie: thanks for your posting. I especially enjoyed your family historical information.

[Ashley Norman]

Very well said Laurie, and thank you for the information. I think she was guilty of a few things and knew what she was getting into as well. I also think thatthe people wanted her to be guilty of killing Lincoln.

Now with that being said i believe she was guilty of having these men in her home and knowing what they were planning and knew they wanted to kidnap the president. She failed to tell anyone about this information. that she is guilty of. Also John Booth was a very charming man and I can see or understand how she could have been infatuated with him.

So all in all she was Guilty and not guilty I think she was't totally innocent and probaly deserved prison time. I'm not sure if she needed to be hanged for it but all in all she was hung and did deserve prison time for what she did know.

The book sheds light on her side of the story and I agree Laurie that there are two sides to every story.

I aslo think that the reason she turned her head th other way was becasue she tried to protect her son which only amplified her guitly of not stopping any plot against the president. We all know she knew these things and did nothing. that was her fault she shouldn't have stayed quiet. But thats me. she lost her husband and it seems that she went in to protection mode of her children and wanted to keep them safe at all costs and it cost her her life. not very well thought about but i can see both as I said she was both gulity and innocent.

What does everyone think of her Lawyer Frederick Aiken. It was interesting that he started the news paper after everyone sort of shunned him so to speak. i need to research him more.

Laurie, thank you again for adding family history in with your reply it makes the information more valuable and I appreciate and love history more when it cames from people we know or knew. Thank you for sharing that.

[L Verge]

Ashley,

Contact me at my work e-mail, laurie.verge@pgparks.com, with a mailing address or e-mail. One of our forum members, Christine, did an outstanding job of researching Frederick Aiken when she heard about James McAvoy being signed to play the role in The Conspirator. No one had ever tackled the amount of research that Christine was able to provide. She shared it with our museum's newsletter, and I have copies I can send you.

[Ashley Norman]

That would be wonderful I will email now.
Thank you. I sent the email to your email you listed.

Where is your muesum located.

[Thomas Thorne]

My greatest regret about the archival compilation "The Evidence" is the almost total lack of inter office memos between Federal officials concerning the guilt and innocence of the various parties. I suppose most of this can be traced to the fact they worked in such close proximity that any deliberations were conducted orally. It is a pity that nobody kept minutes or left an account of the proceedings.

It must have been a profound shock to them to come to the belief that a woman was a principal player in the assassination of the President of the United States.

In reading Mary Surratt's answers to her interrogators, her extraordinarily defensive responses must have struck officials as too clever by half. Her most interesting answer IMO was her response to the following:

Q-What are your political sentiments?

A-I don't pretend to express my feelings at all: I have often said that I thought that the South acted too hastily; that is about the amount of my feeling, and I say so again.

The second "sentence" could well be truthful. The fault line between the 7 gulf states that formed the Confederacy in Feb 1861 and the 4 other states that seceded after Ft Sumter was the insistence of the latter that secession required an overt act of aggression by the Lincoln administration. The call by Lincoln for 75,000 militia to suppress the Rebellion after Ft Sumter met this requirement and Virginia,North Carolina,Tennessee, and Arkansas soon followed their southern brethren with ordinances of secession.

Mary Surratt's unwillingness to express any political opinion in the first "sentence",her attempt to separate herself from South Carolina fire eaters in "sentence" two and her claim that she held no opinion on any other aspect of the Civil War must have made War Department readers shake their heads.
Tom