WAS THE WAR DEPARTMENT PLANNING
MORE ARRESTS AND CONSPIRACY TRIALS?
by Steven G. Miller
The trial of the Lincoln Conspirators began on May 10, 1865, less than 30 days after the death of the president, with the arraignment of eight associates of John Wilkes Booth. Ironically, this would have been Booth’s 27th birthday. The court proceedings began two days later. In less than two months the eight had been found guilty and adjudged: four (Mrs. Mary Surratt, Louis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt) had been hanged and the other four (Dr. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, Michael O’Laughlen and Ned Spangler) had been dispatched to prison.
The speed of the legal proceedings is astonishing when weighed by today’s standards. In a mere 90 days, the War Department investigated the murder, tendered a king’s ransom of reward offers, arrested the guilty parties, gathered and processed a mass of evidence, prepared a complex legal proceedings and wrapped up the trial. The high level of stagecraft and statecraft of this is truly to be admired, whether you agree with the quality of the legal case against the conspirators or the political drive behind it.
The most visible relics from this legal proceedings (aside from the grisly photos of the hanging of the four conspirators on July 7, 1865) is the broadside offering $100,000 reward for the capture of Booth, Herold and John Surratt. Originals of these posters are highly collectable today and sell for a hefty sum today. $50,000 is not an unknown purchase price for one.
I’ve recently become aware of an 1865 newspaper article allegedly discussing plans to offer rewards for some of the former Confederate officials as accomplices in the assassination. Here’s the story:
“Advertised and Photographed,” McKEAN MINER (Smithport, PA), May 16, 1865. “A Washington special to the Philadelphia Inquirer says: “Col. L. C. Baker has had photographs of Davis, Tucker, Clay, Sanders, Cleary and Thompson, with full descriptions of their stature, hair, eyes & c., prepared in large hand-bills, stating the price set upon the hands of each one, and their crime, of being accessories to the assassination. These hand-bills, similar to the rewards offered for horse thieves, will be posted through Canada and Europe, so that these criminals, should they be allowed to escape via Halifax, will be tracked wherever they go and marked forever. There is no sequestered spot for them. No rest for them in this world.”
It’s highly unlikely that any of these broadsides were actually printed, but wouldn’t one of them worth a fortune to the lucky person who would turn one up?