Chapter 76: Booth and His Cohorts Pay the Price

After leaving Ford’s Theater, Booth and conspirator David Harold reach Mary Surratt’s tavern by midnight to pick up sidearms. From there they head to the Maryland home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who sets Booth’s broken leg before they take to the nearby woods, staying there from April 16 to April 21.

They then cross the Potomac into Virginia, arriving at a farm owned by Richard Garrett and hiding in his barn on April 24. Two days later, soldiers from the 16^th N.Y. Cavalry trap them and set the structure on fire. Private Boston Corbett achieves fame by shooting Booth, the bullet entering his neck, severing his spinal cord, and causing two hours of intense agony before he dies. His final words are recorded as “tell my mother I die for my country.”

Secretary of War Stanton rejects a civil trial for the conspirators in favor of a military tribunal, asserting that the crime is an act of war. A nine man panel is named, headed by General David Hunter, with the venue at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington. The proceedings run from May 8 to June 30, 1865.

Eight defendants are in the docket: David Herold, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, Mary Surratt, Dr. Samuel Mudd, Ned Spangler (who held Booth’s horse at the theater), and two old friends of Booth, Samuel Arnold and Michael O’Laughlen, both of whom refused to take part in the plot. Mary Surratt’s son John escapes to Canada before the trial begins and is never sentenced.

The rules call for “conviction” if found guilty by 5 of the 9 judges, and “death” if a 6^th justice agrees.

Under orders from Scranton, all prisoners, except for Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd, are forced to wear canvas hoods covering their entire heads, and several of the men are kept in ball and chains.

Lawyers for both sides call a total of 371 witness – excluding the defendants who are not allowed to testify on their own behalf. When the verdicts are reached, Powell, Atzerodt, Herold and Mary Surratt are sentenced to death; Dr. Mudd, Arnold and McLaughlen to hard labor for life in prison; and Spangler to six years confinement. Five of the nine judges recommend that Mary Surratt’s sentence be reduced to life in prison, but President Andrew Johnson rejects the plea.

On July 7, the four death sentences are carried out on gallows in the prison courtyard – with Mary Surratt becoming the first woman ever executed in the United States. Two years later, McLaughlen dies of yellow fever in jail, and then in 1869, Johnson decides to commute the sentences of Mudd, Spengler and Arnold.