Customer Reviews

The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln

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More specifically, was Mary Surratt guilty of helping plot the murder of Lincoln? Author Kate Clifford Larson is so convinced of Mary's complicity, she calls her Booth's accomplice. The evidence against her is circumstantial but compelling.

Even today, there is a reluctance to attribute guilt to Mary Surratt. She was widely viewed as loving, kind, and regular in church attendance. Weichmann testified to her exemplary character. Fellow inmate Virginia Lomax cited examples of her kindheartedness to others in prison. Even Mary's ex-slave, Rachel Semus (p. 187), testified Mrs. Suratt always treated her fairly and she thus never had reason to complain. [As a descendant of slaves, I certainly don't grant Mrs. Surratt a pass. Unfortunately however, even our most revered figures - Washington and Jefferson - engaged in this detestable commerce. Second, at a time when incivility and sometimes cruelty to slaves were not uncommon, Mary was utterly blameless. Compare with "kindly" Dr. Mudd who shot a slave for insubordination (Edward Steers, "His Name is Still Mudd"). Compare with Lewis Paine who was arrested after stomping a black maid for talking back.]

Mary Surratt's saintly image frustrates attempts to see her as complicit in Lincoln's demise. But, says author Larson, she lied when she denied knowing Paine. She lied when she denied knowing David Herold who had visited frequently at her tavern. And why the many visits by Booth to her H Street boarding house, the two sometimes disappearing for clandestine conversations lasting an hour and longer? Why could she not find that exculpatory letter from her son, purportedly received the very day detectives demanded it?

Why the April 11 hushed tones with Lloyd about having "shooting irons" ready soon? If the guns were for no sordid purpose, say hunting, why the intrigue? And on the April 14 trip to the country, supposedly to transact urgent business, why did she not actually seek out Mr. Nothey who only lived 3 miles from the tavern? She could have sent Nothey's letter via a 3-cent stamp, avoiding a $6 horse and buggy rental and a 5-hour round trip, especially, Larson notes, since she allowed Nothey another 10 days to respond (p. 85). Urgent indeed.

The prosecution stated this was all subterfuge for the real reason for the trip: to prepare for Booth's visit that night.

Why did Mary call Booth an instrument of the Almighty sent to punish the proud and licentious people of Washington?

Author Kate Larson cites two incriminating meetings between Mary and Richard Smoot. Initially regarding him with suspicion, Mary brightened considerably when he revealed he owned the boat requisitioned to kidnap Lincoln. And when Smoot returned the day of the assassination demanding payment, Mary whispered the boat would be needed that very night.

Atzerodt's Lost Confession compromises Mary more than just a little, but less widely known is Larson's assertion that both Herold and Atzerodt implicated Mary the night before their execution (p. 208). Paine steadfastly asserted Mary's innocence, but according to Larson, his statements were made in part to appease an hysterical Anna who harangued him at length to clear her mother.

In isolation, alternative explanations can be made for all of Mary's actions but taken together, her behavior seems far, far more consistent with guilt than not. My opinion: the evidence abundantly supports Mary's knowledge of and active participation in Booth's original plan to abduct Lincoln. However, evidence of her endorsement or even knowledge of Lincoln's assassination plot fails to convince beyond a reasonable doubt. Unfortunately for Mary, reasonable doubt was not a legal stndard in 1865. Like the author states, Mary knowingly gave aid, comfort, advice, encouragement, and concealment to the conspirators and thus she was guilty of aiding and abetting -- and subject to the harsh consequences.

This volume was difficult to put down and at the end, one wished to read more. Larson provides details not commonly found elsewhere. We learn just who Mary's H Street boarders were and why they came to live there. We meet Mr. Holahan and learn his seedy occupation. We are taken to a time when friends and associates were addressed "Mr." and "Miss," a courtesy even extended to Miss Apollonia Dean, aged 9, and all the other boarders. We also find that Mr. Holahan's wife was related to Mary's friend and neighbor, William Kirby ("Is that you, Mr. Kirby?" asked Mary when detectives came to search the house). We discover exactly when the Holahans moved out, and the dollar amounts of Weichmann's monthly rent and Lloyd's yearly lease on the tavern.

Finally, we discover that two weeks prior to the assassination, two others moved into the boarding house, namely, black servant Susan Ann Mahoney Jackson and her fiancée. Miss Jackson's statements to authorities helped spell the end for Mary.

Ms. Larson has provided an eminently readable, fascinating, and unbiased review of Mary Surratt's role in the Lincoln conspiracy.

Having read previously MANHUNT (and other books by James Swanson) and AMERICAN BRUTUS, I felt this book fell short a bit. Nonetheless, as the first book I've read primarily devoted to Mary Jenkins Surratt and her alledged participation in the Lincoln Assassination, I found this book flawed but compeling reading.
This book could easily be split into two parts.....before the assassination and after the assasination. Mrs. Surratt's participation up until the point of the assassination appears potentially damaging at the very least. Based on the testimony of people such as Louis Weichmann (her boarder), Mrs. Surratt appears to be complicite in a plot to kidnap Lincoln and hold him hostage. She offered her home to Booth and the conspirators over and over again as the initial plot was hatched. She took trips into Southern Maryland to convey information and secure supplies necessary to affect the kidnapping plot. She appeared to aid her son John on numerous occasions. John was a known confederate spy and operative. Mrs. Surratt herself was loyal to the cause of the south. The fact that she was involved at least on a superficial level in the plot to kidnap Lincoln was fairly obvious. However, things get a little fuzzy once the game plan evolved into an assassination plot. While evidence suggests she may have well been involved, it probably isn't as completely convincing because things evolved so quickly from a kidnapping plot to a assassination.
After the assassination, the conspirators were rounded up rather quickly. A speedy trial was held and within a matter of a couple months a verdict was handed down on the evidence that was presented. The veracity of the evidence has long been viewed as questionable as some information was withheld and testimony may have been altered. In detail, that is covered in this book. Four of the conspirators were given a death sentence, and the others who appeared to be involved peripherally(as opposed to direct involvement)were given prison sentences to be served in the Dry Tortugas.
As Mrs. Surratt was a woman and her link to the assasination plot appeared less certain/convincing, there was a near certainty that she would not be sentenced to death. After the death sentence was handed down, her attorneys requested leniency on her behalf and felt that President Johnson would surely grant the request. The president never interceded and Mrs. Surratt was hung as scheduled. Later it was claimed that the request never reached the president. Another one of histories mysteries, I suppose. So much conflicting evidence on that issue alone muddies the truth.
Why did I like this book? Mrs. Surratt was brought to the forefront because she was the subject of the book. There was a lot of information about her upbringing, marriage, loyalty to the southern cause, financial circumstances, the prevailing attitudes of the time regarding women and inheritance. I also found the information regarding the spy system in place aiding the south's interests fascinating. There were a lot of small elements that the author explained in detail that brought the Surratt family and their times to life for me. Much of the basic information pertaining to the subsequent trial and conviction would have been more interesting if that aspect hadn't been covered already in the other books I've read. It was old territory for me, but necessary for most readers of this book.
The things I didn't like in this book? I thought the author took some unnecessary liberties in the manner she portrayed Mrs. Surratt and some of the key players. While John Wilkes Booth was obviously an important link in this conspiracy. Mrs. Surratt as well as her daughter were portrayed as being blindly infatuated with him and Mrs. Surratt was portrayed as borderline glamorous. In reality, she was an ordinary middle-aged widow handling the responsibility of her home and family. There was an implication that Mrs. Surratt did not get along with her mother or brothers and had nothing to do with them, but nothing to really support that assertion conclusively was provided. Boarder Louis Weichmann was very religious and wanted to advance his theological studies (presumably as a catholic priest) yet he was seen as the spurned would-be suitor of Anna Surratt. That seemed inconsistent based on the information provided consistently about Weichmann. There were a lot on inconsistencies that made no logical sense to me except to fill the pages of a book.
I've been to Mrs. Surratt's grave. The author claims it is at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Baltimore. It is at Mt. Olivet Cemetery on Bladensburg Rd NE in Washington DC. Minute elements such as these made me wonder if errors like this are few or many.
Other reviewers pointed to other errors such as whether Mrs. Surratt was born from a prominent catholic family or was she an episcopalian convert to catholicism. From what I was able to find, the conversion story is true based upon a genealogical study of her family performed by the Surratt Museum staff. This information is not sourced in the book nor is the information obtained about the Surratt/Neale family and her husband's illegitimate son or her husband supposedly being a catholic from the same genealogical study. Additionally, Mrs. Surratt's mother is buried at St. Ignatius Cemetery in Oxon Hill MD which is a catholic cemetery and seemingly contradicts the assertion that her mother was an Episcopalian! Goofy stuff I know, but considering all the information out there regarding the Surratts even minor things are going to raise flags.
This is a decent book and I found it interesting as it was from the perspective of Mrs. Surratt involvement. However, it seems irresponsible if I don't point out that if you end up reading this book you should also read the Swanson books as well as AMERICAN BRUTUS. I feel that they all enhance one another and helps present a fuller picture. If you have an interest in civil war history or Lincoln, I highly recommend this book and the others mentioned. It is an exciting and complex story devoid of a happy ending.

At last, we have a judicious and thoroughly unbiased account of Mary Surratt's involvement in the assassination of Lincoln. Professor Larson goes to great lengths to give Mary the benefit of the doubt. Court records and trial transcripts are gone over with a fine tooth comb proving what many have surmised for years: Mary was a willing co-conspirator who allowed all of the conspirators, including Booth, to use her boarding house and tavern at Surrattsville, as a meeting place for planning the death of Lincoln. There are new tidbits of information concerning Mary's inept lawyers, if you can call what they did, practicing law. Yet, even with their obvious stupidity, what was revealed by the witnesses, indicate that Mary was not the pious, innocent boarding house keeper she pretended. Even the Catholic clergy brought in as character witnesses, couldn't vouch for much; many didn't even know her that well.

The evidence exists that President Johnson did receive information regarding a stay of execution for Mary, but with all the evidence, it is obvious that he had no choice but to let the matter proceed.

It is only in the afterglow of the hangings, that public furor over the execution of the first woman by the federal government, increased to a rising crescendo, egged on by Southern sympathizers.

Highly recommended, I would only suggest that the author, in a revised edition, include an extensive bibliography that would better assist those who are new to this area of Civil War study.

This is a compellingly written book that brings together data from a wide variety of primary and secondary sources to paint a vivid, well-realized portrait of Mary Surratt.

That said, the other reviewers who have complained about historical, factual, and typographical errors have quite a bit of justification. I was disappointed by the sloppiness of the book.

But Kate Clifford Larson's prose style is engaging, and although not an authoritative text by any means, this was a fascinating read.

A book of this nature must have a bibliography. This is a college professor? The author is obviously unfamiliar with the Maryland area where most of Mary's story takes place. She has Mary buried in Baltimore, not Washington. Mary's mother(although not practicing while her husband was alive) and Grandmother were Catholics. (Mary's Mother was buried at St Ignatious Catholic Church)Her Grandmother Winifred Lanham came from a large well known Catholic family. But these are mistakes made when you just copy other peoples work. Mary's cousins and aunts and uncles the well know Bryans (E Pliny Bryans famous Confederate spy's family)are buried in St Marys Catholic Church in Piscataway. So, why is it so astounding she decided at 12 to be a Catholic? All of her well to do relatives were Catholics. The author is unfamilar with Catholicism, Mary called for a priest before her execution, not because she didnt want to see her family, but because as a devout Catholic, she wanted to receive Last Rites one of the seven sacraments. It didnt matter she didnt know the priest.
Mary was "fair, fat and forty" by all eyewitnesses, not the sleek temptress the author put on the cover. A misrepresentation of Surratts' physique serves the authors purpose when she hints at a flirtation with JWB.
Oxen Run (marys former Mill)is by the present day Naylor Road and Suitland Parkway in SE Washington DC., NOT OXON HILL in suburban Maryland where the new National Harbor Center is located. The auther is not familiar with the common civil war era practice of collecting CDVs. Annas collection was not note worthy.
The authors presentation of an hysterical Mary contradicts all eyewitness versions, it was Anna who was beyond hysterical.Marys illness in prison was not intestional as the author states , but female , and its horrific nature was descibed in detail by male prisoners in neighboring cells.

The author ignores one of the most astounding facts of this whole event. The number of persons involved in Marys execution who later committed suicide...why did they?
If you havent read American Brutus and you are interested in this subject- start with American Brutus first-not this one that seems to have been researched on wikipedia. I recommend:

[...]

Lincoln's assassins were a group of fanatical Southerners lead by the charismatic John Wilkes Booth. The plan was to behead the United States Government by murdering its' the most important leaders. The group seems to have put no thought into what this would mean for either the nation or the defeated South. In reality, murdering Lincoln was about the worst thing that could have happened. Without his political leadership, Congress and the President fought over Reconstruction and Impeachment damaging all parties.
Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd are the two conspirators that have generated second thoughts. Mrs. Surratt is the first woman executed by the United States Government. Dr. Mudd was imprisoned and later released for setting Booth's broken leg. For almost 100 years, they have been viewed as suffering from guilt by association. Two people caught up in the post assassination frenzy, railroaded by military courts under control of Washington. Vengeance not justice was the popular perception of their fate.
In the last ten or fifteen years, a different view developed. Surratt and Mudd are seen as members of Booth's team with a long history of active support for the Confederacy. A number of books "prove" this thesis showing them to be active members of the CSA secret service in Maryland throughout the war. This book is the latest entry into this group and like the other books requires the reader to accept the argument with few questions.
The problem is that people engaged in a dangerous secretive activity do not make records. The US Government found some information but never came close to the level of "a smoking gun". This book, assumes "a smoking gun" using as sources previous modern books on this subject. Additionally, the Surratt's owning slaves is part of the evidence against them. The author seems unfamiliar with some aspect of the times. She makes much of the press referring to Surratt as an Amazon, while she was only five feet four inches tall. Since the average man was little over five feet six inches tall at this time, it is not a truthful statement on the author's part. I am troubled by placement of footnotes and the lack of a bibliography. Some statements are not footnoted that I felt should be and other statements the footnote was of marginal benefit. Lack of a bibliography is disturbing. Authors need to decide to drop footnotes and bibliographies or include both. Partial footnotes are not a substitute for both.
While expressing doubts about the history content of this book, I agree with the author's conclusions. This is a very very good read! It is enjoyable and provides an excellent look at the current thinking on Lincoln's assassination.

Excellent narrative about Mary Suratt and her family, with her participation and what happened at the trial and right after her hanging. Some interesting facts I found about her: 1. She was thrown into a difficult situation of having to fend for herself after her seperation from an abusive drunken husband( he died of alcohol abuse).She would be forced to take over her husband's debts and run a boarding house and act a post-mistress of Surratsville outside of Washington City.2. Her oldest child John Suratt was a Confederate courier and agent for rebel activities which drew Mary into the rebel-sympathisizer and pro-Confederate circle. 3.A boarder at her inn,Louis Weichman, was a military clerk at the Washington War Dep't.-was allowed to deliver messages and run errands for Booth's gang of conspirators. Weichman, a loyal Union man, grew more suspicious about the dealings of these people-ultimately became an important whistle blower about the gang but the plot was not put together until after Lincoln had been shot.4. Details of the trial= Washington's women gossiping and saying aloud " I hope they hang her!" and Mary's crying 18 yr. old daughter were very moving.5. Narration is very good from a strong voiced woman that portrays mens voices very sternly (Laurel Merlington, an actress). I highly recommend this as easy listening and very educational.

Mary Surratt is a little-known but fascinating woman in American history. Even though we recognize that her defense of slavery and the Southern cause was wrong, I am glad to see that Kate Clifford Larson allows Mary Surratt to be an active player instead of a duped and/or innocent bystander, as many other authors have done. Thoroughly researched yet quite readable for any who enjoy reading about women in American history.

Nancy Werking Poling
author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a WomanHad Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman
and Out of the Pumpkin ShellOut of the Pumpkin Shell (Spinsters Ink)

In the Assassin's Acomplice, the author recounts the possible involvement of Mary Surratt in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The author admits that when she began researching this book, she assumed as many others did that Mary was innocent and that Surratt's hanging was a miscarriage of justice.

Mary Surratt was a Confederate sympathizer during the Civil War. She moved her family from what is now Clinton, MD to Washington where they lived in a home her deceased husband had bought years earlier. She turned the house into a boardinghouse that became the meeting place for many of the consipators involved first in a plot to kidnap President Lincoln and finally the assassination.

The author does an excellent job of recounting the events in the months prior to the assassination of Lincoln up through to the execution of not only Mary but three other co-conspirators; Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States government. The author touches on what Mary might have known about both the kidnapping and assassination plots, and the author herself admits that by the time she completed her research for the book, she was convinced of Mary's guilt as a conspirator and that Mary had full knowledge of what Booth planned.

I don't think we will ever know what Mary Surratt knew or didn't know about the plots against Lincoln and other members of the government, and while I was left feeling Mary must have known something, I thought the full extent of her guilt was not fully exposed. The author made it clear that Mary did little to help herself during her trial and that her defense team was so incompetent in defending her that they actually helped bolster the prosecution's case against their client.

After winning a book from Bound to be Read http://www.boundtobereadbooks.com/ trivia contest, The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln by Kate Clifford Larson, I learned about a hidden story in our nation's history.

Reminiscing of a detective story where a retracing of what happen shapes the story, this page turner looks into a macabre story of our nation's history the hanging of the first woman, Mary Surratt.

As part of the sesquicentennial celebration of the start of the Civil War, this story has been made into a movie directed by Robert Redford, The Conspirator (http://www.conspiratorthemovie.com/ ).

Mary Surratt a Confederate sympathizer ran a boarding house in Washington DC. Her son John Surratt, Jr. befriended John Wilkes Booth, President Abraham Lincoln's eventual assassin. Booth was a well known actor and would meet with individuals in secret at the boarding house.

The original plan was to kidnap Lincoln and hold him for ransom in hopes of releasing confederates held in prison. However with the war ending and an overzealous Booth, Lincoln was killed.

This led a nation seeking vengeance to go on a hunt for anyone remotely associated with the assassination plot. Marry Surratt was caught up in the commotion. The book does point out that yes she was the keeper of the nest that hatched the assassination plot, however historians debate whether her she was given a fair trial.

Surratt was tried by a military tribunal and she was convicted and sentence to hang for her crimes. President Johnson over ruled a last minute habeas corpus plea and showed no mercy in commuting her sentence.

A fascinating read, The Assassin's Accomplice: Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln by Kate Clifford Larson is an intriguing look into a forgotten consequence of the Civil War.

The movie The Conspirator has an all star cast and with splendid cinematography captures the mood of this divisive period in our nation's history.