Type of trial - Debate

[KateH.]

Thank you both for your input. It was very helpful Laurie, you make a good point about how it would have been dangerous to attempt taking Booth alive. If he hobbled out shooting, he would have gotten the chance to hit someone before being caught. The government wanted him alive but the safety of the soldiers was also very important. It was imperative they all came back alive, especially since others elsewhere had died. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t a group of soldiers in another unit drown while searching for Booth?

[LincolnMan]

The good Dr. Wild Bill bringing the goods.

P.S. Mosby never surrendered. Isn't that right Betty? Come to think of it, you can visit some parts of the south (eh-hem Georgia) and they'll swear their ancestors never surrendered either. -- Seriously.

I visited a little museum in Andersonville about 2 years ago and was taken back by the big statue of General Wirz. One of the older men who volunteered at the museum asked me if I was Northern or Southern.

True story.

A statue to Wirz? As if to honor him?

[GARY POPOLO]

Laurie, You wrote my sentiments exactly! I also believe that a military tribunal was the only way to proceed with the trail of the conspirators. Washington as you said was under martial law so the military had control. I also believe that in no way would the conspirators have been able to get a impartial jury!

[Thomas Thorne]

I think any civil trial in Washington DC in 1865 would have resulted in a hung jury for all the conspirators. What would the northern public reaction have been if the obviously guilty Louis Powell had escaped justice? Who might have become Powell's Jack Ruby or mob of Jack Rubys?

Critics of the military commission have failed to differentiate Milligan who treasonous activities took place in the backwaters of rural Indiana far from any battlefield from the facts of the Lincoln Assassination. Modern theorists would describe it as a decapitation strike against the National Command Authority in the most heavily fortified city on earth in wartime by unlawful combatants who wore no uniform and therefore enjoyed none of the protections of the soldier.

Certainly the 19th century obsession that war should be confined to men with uniforms was preferable to the Total War doctrine of the 2 World Wars. Yet the prophecy that the "Wars of Peoples would be more terrible than the Wars of Kings" first came true when leaders like Sherman and Sheridan realized that the will of the Southern population would have to be broken as much as the will of the Confederate armies.
Tom

[Jim Garrett]

The last one was the CSS Shenandoah or the CSS Stonewall, I think. Somewhere around December 1865? It had been raiding Yankee whalers in the Pacific around the Bering Strait. Surrendered to the British? The CSS Alabama went down before the USS Kearsage off Cherbourg, France, in 1864, I think. This is all off the top of my head so I will stand to being corrected

The CSS Shenandoah did not discover until August that for all intents, the Confederacy no longer existed. From that point until it steamed into Liverpool on November 5th, it did not fly the National Colors of the Confederacy. BTW, the colors of the Shenandoah is on display in the last exhibit case in the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.

[LincolnMan]

So I'm assuming it continued sinking ships?

[L Verge]

Back to Kate's question about a group of searchers drowning while on the hunt for Booth - these were actually civilian firefighters from Alexandria, Virginia, who joined in the search. Their boat, the Black Diamond, collided with a Union steamship in the Potomac River near where Booth and Herold put into Gambo Creek in the Northern Neck of Virginia. The firefighters are buried in a tiny national cemetery in Alexandria that very few people even know exists.

Another interesting shipwreck occurred on the same day that Booth died, and its fate went largely unnoticed because the news was swept off the front pages of newspapers because of the capture of Booth and Herold. Check out the story of the Sultana, a wreck which caused the largest maritime loss of American life in our history, and most of the casualties were prisoners-of-war being returned north.

[Rsmyth]

Hey Bill, I am going to go out on a limb and say (like Spangler), Wirz got a raw deal. Sure Andersonville was hellish but so were the northern prisons.

[LincolnMan]

Really? I don't know the facts of the matter-except he was one of two Confederate war criminals executed for his crimes.

[John E.]

A statue to Wirz? As if to honor him?

Yes sir. Although, I would tend to agree that he was made a scapegoat. He too was following orders. Confederate soldiers were cut off from supplies by Union forces. I'm not sure its realistic to think that the prisoners were going to be well fed while their guards starved.

Here's an image of the Wirz monument. -- Sorry, not a statue. :

[Rob Wick]

How could the military justify using its resources to pursue the assassin if this was a police matter?

I just saw this, and as far as this part of the question is concerned, it's simple. At the time, it was legal for a civilian law enforcement official to use the military as a posse comitatus. Plus, the National Detective Police was under the command of the War Department. The reason for the formation of the First District of Columbia Cavalry, which Everton Conger had de facto command of in 1864 before he was wounded a second time, was to give Lafayette Baker a mounted force to help him with his investigations. Later it was merged with the First Maine Cavalry.

I discuss this in my article on the battle for the War Department rewards.

Best
Rob

[Gene C]

Considering the horror of the Andersonville prison, who would put up a monument to Wirtz, and for what purpose?
(Family that thought he had been wronged?)

[John E.]

Thanks Rob, I appreciate the reply.

Besides the period during the Civil War, has the military ever been used in a law enforcement capacity to your knowledge? Did the National Detective Police have the right to go to any state to apprehend criminals and under what conditions? Did their authority trump that of local state authority ? Who would answer to who? For National Detective Police to be involved, did a Federal crime have to be committed?

Fascinating stuff. If I understand correctly, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 put an end to the military being used for law enforcement. This doesn't pertain to the National Guard or Coast Guard.

[Gene C]

Do you consider the National Guard as part of the military? They frequently are used to help maintain order and law enforcement during natural disasters.
Were they used during the race riots following Martin Luther King assassination?

Whoops! Never mind. It would help if I read your complete post.
Let this serve as a warning to all of you. Don't take cold medicine, try to work, and read and answer posts to this forum - all at the same time. (You'd think they would put that warning on the package)

[LincolnMan]

Considering the horror of the Andersonville prison, who would put up a monument to Wirtz, and for what purpose?
(Family that thought he had been wronged?)

Gene: my thoughts exactly.