The Lincoln Assassination  Conspirators Hanged

Memoirs of a Lincoln Conspirator

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First Woman Hanged by the Federal Government

The Lincoln Conspirators Hanged…

After weeks of listening to the testimony of hundreds of “witnesses,” the military commission’s came to a consensus and the orders were carried out. On July 7, 1865, four conspirators – Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt – were hanged by the neck at Federal Penitentiary at Washington Arsenal in Washington D.C.  The remaining conspirators: Dr. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, Michael O’Laughlen, and Edmund Spangler received other sentences or were later freed when President Andrew Johnson pardoned them.  John Surratt, the son of Mary Surratt who had become a fugitive and first went to Canada then to Europe then Africa was later captured and tried, but got set free on a technicality.

The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators:

Their Confinement and Execution,

as Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft

 

Lincoln Conspirators

Mary Surratt	George Atzerodt
David Herold	Lewis Powell

 Gallows Constructed in the Courtyard

While the trial was being held preparations were made for the outcome with gallows built in the courtyard of the penitentiary to carry out the sentence of the military commission. The actual assassin, John Wilkes Booth, already dead, was buried temporarily within the penitentiary grounds.

 

 

 

The Lincoln conspirators hanged at the gallows…

The Lincoln conspirators were hanged at the gallows…

 

 

When they were dead, Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt’s bodies were then placed in coffins and buried temporarily in shallow graves near the gallows.  Within days the gallows were removed and later the entire penitentiary was also dismantled save for one part of the building that stands until today,  Grant Hall, where the trial took place. After the rest of the buildings came down,  the bricks were then used for the walls (and other projects within the fort) that now surround Fort Lesley J. McNair.

Mary Surratt:

The Life of the Alleged Lincoln Conspirator

Who Became the First Woman Executed by the U.S. Government

John Surratt’s Flight for Freedom

Considered to be the last of the conspirators, John Surratt, Mary’s son fled the United States then onto Canada and to Europe.  He thus avoided the fate of the other conspirators, who were hanged. He served briefly as a Pontifical (“Papal”) Zouave but was recognized and arrested. He escaped to Egypt but was eventually arrested and extradited. By the time of his trial, the statute of limitations had expired on most of the potential charges which meant that he was never convicted of anything.

The Last Lincoln Conspirator:

John Surratt’s Flight from the Gallows