remains to be seen where is the guilty knowl- Mrs. Offutt; that, while at Surrattsville, she edge of the contemplated assassination; and made no inquiry for, or allusion to, Mr. Lloyd, this brings us to the inquiry whether these and was ready to return to Washington when facts are not explainable so as to exclude guilt. Lloyd drove up to the house. Does not this From one of the most respected of legal au-open wide the door for the admission of the plea thorities the following is taken: "Whenever, of "reasonable doubt?" Had she really been therefore, the evidence leaves it indifferent engaged in assisting in the great crime, which which of several hypotheses is true, or merely makes an epoch in our country's history, her establishes some finite probability in favor of only object and most anxious wish would have one hypothesis rather than another, such evi- been to see Lloyd. It was no ruse to transact dence can not amount to proof. The maxim of important business there to cover up what the the law is that it is better that ninety-nine of- uncharitable would call the real business. Calfenders should escape than that one innocent vert's letter was received by her on the foreman should be condemned." Starkie on Evidence. noon of the 14th, and long before she saw The acts of Mrs. Surratt must have been ac- Booth that day, or even before Booth knew that companied with a criminal intent in order to the President would be at the theater that make them criminal. If any one supposes night, Mrs. Surratt had disclosed her intention that such intent existed, the supposition comes to go to Surrattsville, and had she been one alone from inference. If disloyal acts and moment earlier in her start, she would not have constant disloyal practices; if overt and open seen Booth at all. All these things furnish action against the Government on her part had powerful presumptions in favor of the theory been shown down to the day of the murder of that, if she delivered the message at all, it was the President, it would do something toward done innocently. establishing the inference of criminal intent. On the other hand, just the reverse is shown. The remarks here of the learned and honorable Judge Advocate are peculiarly appropriate to this branch of the discussion, and, with his authority, we waive all others:

In regard to the non-recognition of Payne, the third fact adduced by the prosecution against Mrs. Surratt, we incline to the opinion that, to all minds not fore-judging, the testimony of Miss A. E. Surratt, and various friends and servants of Mrs. Surratt, relative to phys"If the Court please, I will make a single ical causes, might fully explain and account remark. I think the testimony in this case has for such ocular remissness and failure. In proved, what I believe history sufficiently at- times and on occasions of casual meeting of tests, how kindred to each other are the crimes intimate acquaintances on the street, and of of treason against a nation and the assassina- common need for domestic uses, the eyesight tion of its Chief Magistrate. I think of those of Mrs. Surratt had proved treacherous and crimes, the one seems to be, if not the neces- failing. How much more liable to fail her was sary consequence, certainly a logical sequence her imperfect vision on an occasion of excitefrom the other. The murder of the President ment and anxiety, like the night of her arrest of the United States, as alleged and shown, and the disturbance of her household by miliwas pre-eminently a political assassination. tary officers, and when the person with whom Disloyalty to the Government was its sole, its she was confronted was transfigured by a disonly inspiration. When, therefore, we shall guise which varied from the one in which she show, on the part of the accused, acts of in- had previously met him, with all the wide diftense disloyalty, bearing arms in the field ference between a Baptist parson and an earthagainst that Government, we show, with him, soiled,_uncouthly_dressed digger of gutters? the presence of an animus toward the Govern- Anna E. Surratt, Emma Offutt, Eliza Holahan, ment which relieves this accusation of much, Honora Fitzpatrick, Anna Ward, and a servant, if not all, of its improbability. And this attest all to the visual incapacity of Mrs. Surcourse of proof is constantly resorted to in ratt, and the annoyance she experienced therecriminal courts. I do not regard it as in the from, in passing friends without recognition in slightest degree a departure from the usages the daytime, and from inability to sew or read of the profession in the administration of pub-even on a dark day, as well as at night. The lie justice. The purpose is to show that the priests of her church, and gentlemen who have prisoner, in his mind and course of life, was been friendly and neighborhood acquaintances prepared for the commission of this crime; that of Mrs. Surratt for many years, bear witness the tendencies of his life, as evidenced by open and overt acts, lead and point to this crime, if not as a necessary, certainly as a most probable result, and it is with that view, and that only, that the testimony is offered."

to her untarnished name and discreet and Christian character, and absence of all imputation of disloyalty, to her character for patriotism. Friends and servants attest to her voluntary and gratuitous beneficence to our soldiers Is there anything in Mrs. Surratt's mind and stationed near her; and, "in charges for high course of life to show that she was prepared treason, it is pertinent to inquire into the hufor the commission of this crime? The busi- manity of the prisoner toward those representness transacted by Mrs. Surratt at Surrattsville, ing the Government" is the maxim of the law; on the 14th, clearly discloses her only purpose and, in addition, we invite your attention to in making the visit. Calvert's letters, the the singular fact that of the two officers who package of papers relating to the estate, the bore testimony in this matter, one asserts that business with Nothe, would be sufficiently clear the hall, wherein Payne sat, was illuminated to most minds, when added to the fact that the by a full head of gas; the other that the gasother unknown package had been handed to light was purposely dimmed. The uncertainty of

the witness, who gave testimony relative to the coat of Payne, may also be recalled to your notice. Should not this valuable testimony of loyal and moral character shield a woman from ready belief, on the part of judges who judge her worthiness in every way, that within the few, few moments in which Booth detained Mrs. Surratt from her carriage, already waiting, when he approached and entered the house, she became so converted to diabolical evil as to hail with ready assistance his terrible plot, which must have been framed (if it were complete in his intent at that hour, half-past two o'clock), since the hour of eleven that day?

the influences of purity and the reminiscences of innocence, where RELIGION watched, and the CHURCH WAS MINISTER and TEACHER.

Who were circumstantial evidence strong and conclusive, such as only time and the slow weaving fates could elucidate and deny-who will believe, when the mists of uncertainty which cloud the present shall have dissolved, that a woman born and bred in respectability and competence-a Christian mother, and a citizen who never offended the laws of civil propriety; whose unfailing attention to the most sacred duties of life has won for her the name of "a proper Christian matron;" whose If any part of Lloyd's statements is true, heart was ever warmed by charity; whose and Mrs. Surratt did verily bear to his or Mrs. door un barred to the poor, and whose Penates Offutt's hands the field-glass, enveloped in had never cause to veil their faces;-who will paper, by the evidence itself, we may believe believe that she could so suddenly and so she knew not the nature of the contents of the fully have learned the intricate arts of package; and, had she known, what evil could sin? A daughter of the South, her life asseshe, or any other, have attached to a commis- ciations confirming her natal predilections, her sion of so common a nature? No evidence of individual preferences inclined, without logie individual or personal intimacy with Booth has or question, to the Southern people, but with no been adduced against Mrs. Surratt; no long consciousness nor intent of disloyalty to ter and apparently confidential interviews; no indications of a private comprehension mutual between them; only the natural, and not frequent, custom on the part of Booth-as any other associate of her son might and doubtless did do of inquiring through the mother, whom he would request to see, of the son who, he A strong but guileless-hearted woman, her would learn, was absent from home. No one maternal solicitude would have been the first has been found who could declare any appear- denouncer, even abrupt betrayer, of a plotted ance of the nursing or mysteriously discussing crime in which one companion of her son could of anything like conspiracy within the walls have been implicated, had cognizance of such of Mrs. Surratt's house. Even if the son of reached her. Her days would have been agMrs. Surratt, from the significancies of asso-onized and her nights sleepless, till she might ciations, is to be classed with the conspirators, have exposed and counteracted that spirit of if such body existed, it is monstrous to suppose defiant hate which watched its moment of vanthat the son would weave a net of circumstan- tage to wreak an immortal wrong-till she cial evidences around the dwelling of his widowed mother, were he never so reckless and sin-determined; and that they (the mother and the son) joined hands in such dreadful pact, is more monstrous still to be thought.

Government, and causing no exclusion from her friendship and active favors of the people of the loyal North, nor repugnance in the dis tribution among our Union soldiery of all needed comforts within her command, and on all occasions.

might have sought the intercession and abso lution of the Church, her refuge, in behalf of those she loved. The brains, which were bold, and crafty, and couchant enough to dare the world's opprobrium in the conception of a A mother and son associate in crime! and scheme which held as naught the lives of men such a crime as this half of the civilized world in highest places, never imparted it to the innever saw matched, in all its dreadful bearings! telligence, nor sought the aid nor sympathy of Our judgments can have hardly recovered their any living woman, who had not, like Lady unprejudiced poise since the shock of the late Macbeth, "unsexed herself"-not though she horrors, if we can contemplate with credulity were wise and discreet as Maria Theress or such a picture, conjured by the unjust spirits the Castilian Isabella. This woman knew it of indiscriminate accusation and revenge. A not. This woman, who, on the morning precrime which, in its public magnitude, added to ceding that blackest day in our country's its private misery, would have driven even the annals, knelt in the performance of her Atis-haunted heart of a Medici, a Borgia, or a most sincere and sacred duty at the CODMadame Bocarme to wild confession before its fessional, and received the mystic rite of accomplishment, and daunted even that soul, of the Eucharist, knew it not. Not only would all the recorded world the most eager for nov- she have rejected it with horror, but such elty in license, and most unshrinking in sin-proposition, presented by the guest who had the indurated soul of Christina of Sweden; sat at her hearth as the friend and convive ou such a crime as profoundest plotters within her son, upon whose arm and integrity her padded walls would scarcely dare whisper; widowed womanhood relied for solace and pro the words forming the expression of which, tection, would have roused her maternal wits t spoken aloud in the upper air, would convert some sure cunning which would have contra all listening boughs to aspens, and all glad vened the crime and sheltered her son from th sounds of nature to shuddering wails. And evil influences and miserable results of suct this made known, even surmised, to a woman! | companionship.

a mater familias, the good genius, the "placens The mothers of Charles the IX and of Ner uxor" of a home where children had gathered all could harbor, underneath their terrible smile

schemes for the violent and unshriven deaths, and the maintenance of her own and children's or the moral vitiation and decadence which status in society and her church. would painfully and gradually remove lives sprung from their own, were they obstacles to their demoniac ambition. But they wrought their awful romances of crime in lands where the sun of supreme civilization, through a gorgeous evening of Sy beritish luxury, was sinking, with red tents of revolution, into the night of anarchy and national caducity. In our own young nation, strong in its morality, energy, freedom, and simplicity, assassination can never be indigenous. Even among the desperadoes and imported lazzaroni of our largest cities, it is comparatively an infrequent cause of fear.

Remember your wives, mothers, sisters and gentle friends, whose graces, purity and careful affection ornament and cherish and strengthen your lives. Not widely different from their natures and spheres have been the nature and sphere of the woman who sits in the prisoner's dock to-day, mourning with the heart of Alcestis her children and her lot; by whose desolated hearthstone a solitary daughter wastes her uncomforted life away in tears and prayers and vigils for the dawn of hope; and this wretchedness and unpitied despair have closed like a shadow around one of earth's common pictures of domestic peace and social comfort, by the one sole cause-suspicion fastened and fed upon the facts of acquaintance and mere fortuitous intercourse with that man in whose name so many miseries gather, the assassinator of the President.

Since the days when Christian tuition first elevated womanhood to her present free, refined and refining position, man's power and honoring regard have been the palladium of her sex.

The daughters of women to whom, in their yet preserved abodes, the noble mothers who adorned the days of our early independence are vividly remembered realities and not haunting shades-the descendants of earnest seekers for liberty, civil and religious, of rare races, grown great in heroic endurance, in purity which comes of trial borne, and in hope born of conscious right, whom the wheels of Fortune sent hither to transmit such virtuesthe descendants of these have no heart, no ear for the diabolisms born in hot-beds of tyranny and intolerance. No descendant of these, no woman of this temperate land could have seen, much less joined, her son, descending the sanguinary and irrepassable paths of treason and murder, to ignominious death, or an expatriated and attainted life, worse than the punishing as fruition-hastening showers, for those you wheel and bloody pool of the poets' hell.

In our country, where reason and moderation so easily quench the fires of insane hate, and where La Vendetta" is so easily overcome by the sublime grace of forgiveness, no woman could have been found so desperate as to sacrifice all spiritual, temporal, and social good, self, offspring, fame, honor, and all the desiderata of life, and time, and immortality, to the commission, or even countenance, of such a deed of horror as we have been compelled to contemplate the two past months.

In a Christian land, where all records and results of the world's intellectual, civil and moral advancement mold the human heart and mind to highest impulses, the theory of old Helvetius is more probable than desirable.

Let no stain of injustice, eager for a sacrifice to revenge, rest upon the reputation of the men of our country and time.

This woman, who, widowed of her natural protectors; who, in helplessness and painfully severe imprisonment, in sickness and in grief ineffable, sues for justice and mercy from your hands, may leave a legacy of blessings, sweet

love and care for, in return for the happiness of fame and home restored, though life be abbreviated and darkened through this world by the miseries of this unmerited and woeful trial. But long and chilling is the shade which just retribution, slow creeping on with its "pede claudo," casts around the fate of him whose heart is merciless to his fellows bowed low in misfortune and exigence.

Let all the fair womanhood of our land hail you with a pæon of joy that you have restored to her sex, in all its ranks, the ægis of impregnable legal justice which circumvallates and sanctifies the threshhold of home and the privacy of home life against the rude irruptions of arbitrary and perhaps malice-born suspicion, with its fearful attendants of arrest and incarceration, which in this case have been sufficient to induce sickness of soul and body.

The natures of all born in equal station are not so widely varied as to present extremes of vice and goodness, but by the effects of rarest Let not this first State tribunal in our counand severest experience. Beautiful fairies and try's history, which involves a woman's name, terrible gnomes do not stand by each infant's be blazoned before the world with the harsh cradle, sowing the nascent mind with tenderest tints of intolerance, which permits injustice. graces or vilest errors. The slow attrition of But as the benignant heart and kindly judging vicious associations and law-defying indul- mind of the world-lamented victim of a crime gences, or the sudden impetus of some terribly which wound, in its ramifications of woe, around multiplied and social disaster, must have worn so many fates, would himself have counseled away the susceptibility of conscience and self you, let the heralds of PEACE and CHARITY, with respect, or dashed the mind from the hight of their wool-bound staves, follow the fasces and these down to the deeps of despair and reckless- axes of JUDGMENT and LAW, and without the ness, before one of ordinary life could take coun- sacrifice of any innocent Iphigenia, let the ship sel with violence and crime. In no such man- of State lanch with dignity of unstained sails ner was the life of our client marked. It was into the unruffled sea of UNION and PROSPERITY.

the parallel of nearly all the competent masses; surrounded by the scenes of her earliest recollections, independent in her condition, she was Batisfied with the mundus of her daily pursuits,

By

MARY E. SURRATT.

FREDERICK A. AIKEN, of Counsel.
REVERDY JOHNSON,

JOHN W. CLAMPITT, Associate Counsel

ARGUMENT

IN

DEFENSE OF GEORGE A. ATZERODT.
.

May it please the Court:

BY

W. E. DOSTER, ESQ.

along D street, and turned up Tenth street. The testimony of Thomas L. Gardner, that the same dark bay one-eyed horse found near Camp Barry, was sold by his uncle, George Gardner to Wilkes Booth. Testimony of John L. Toffey, that the same horse was found at twelve and s half A. M., Saturday, the 15th of April, nes: Camp Barry, about three-quarters of a mile east of the Capitol. The testimony of Wash ington Briscoe, that on the evening of the 14th between twelve and half-past twelve, the pris oner got into the cars near the Navy Yard, and asked him three times to let him sleep in the store; that he was refused, and said he was going to the Kimmell House. The testimony of Greenawalt, again, that he came to the Kimmell House at two P. M., and in company with a man by the name of Thomas, and hesitated to register his name, and went away in the morn ing, about five, without paying his bill. Testi mony of Lieutenant Keim, that he slept in the same room with Atzerodt that night at the Kimmell House, and when Keim spoke of the assassination, he said "it was an awful affair, and that on the Sunday before he saw a knife in his possession-"a large bowie-knife in a sheath "-and that Atzerodt remarked, "If one fails, I want the other." Testimony of Wm. Clendenin, that he found a knife similar to the one seen by Keim, in F street, between Eighth and Ninth streets, opposite the Patent Office, six o'clock of the morning after the assassins tion. Testimony of Robert Jones and John Lee that Atzerodt took a room at the Kirkwood House, No. 126, and that in it, on the morning of the 15th, were found a coat containing loaded pistol and a bowie-knife, and a hand kerchief marked with the name of J. Wilkes Booth. Testimony of Provost Marshal McPhai that Atzerodt confessed he threw his knit away near the Herndon House; that he pawned his pistol at Caldwell's store, at Georgetow and borrowed ten dollars, and that the coa and arms at the Kirkwood House belonged Herold. Testimony of Sergeant Gemmill, us he arrested Atzerodt near Germantown, 1 that he denied having left Washington re cently, or having had anything to do with th

The prisoner, George A. Atzerodt, is charged with the following specification: "And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, and its traitorous and murderous designs, the said George A. Atzerodt did, on the night of the 14th of April, A. D. 1865, and about the same hour of the night aforesaid, within the military department and military lines aforesaid, lie in wait for Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of the United States aforesaid, with the intent, unlawfully and maliciously, to kill and murder him, the said Andrew Johnson." In support of this specification the prosecution has submitted the following testimony: The testimony of Weichmann and Miss Surratt, that he was frequently seen in company with Booth at the house of Mrs. Surratt. The testimony of Greenawalt, that Atzerodt had interviews with Booth at the Kimmell House, and that the prisoner once said, the 1st of April, "Greenawalt, I am pretty near broke, though I have friends enough to give me as much money as will keep me all my life. I am going away one of these days, but I will return with as much money as will keep me all my lifetime." The testimony of Marcus P. Norton, that he overheard him in conversation with Booth, in which it was said, about the evening of the 3d of March, that, "If the matter succeeded as well with Johnson as it did with old Buchanan, the party would be terribly sold;" and, also, that "The character of the witnesses would be such that nothing could be proved by them." The testimony of Col. Nevins, that he was asked by the prisoner, between four and five of the afternoon of the 12th of April, at the Kirkwood House, to point out Mr. Johnson while at dinner. The testimony of John Fletcher, that on or about April 3d, the prisoner owned a horse and saddle, which he afterward said was sold in Montgomery county, and which was afterward found near Camp Barry Hospital, on the night of the 14th of April. The testimony of Fletcher, also, that on the evening of the 14th, the prisoner got a dark bay mare at Naylor's (which he had brought there in the morning), rode her away at half-past six, brought her back at eight, re-assassination. Testimony of Hezekiah Me turned again at ten, ordered his mare, took a drink; said, "If this thing happens to-night, you will hear of a present; and of the mare, "She is good on a retreat; "that he then rode to the Kirkwood House, came out again, went

that on the Sunday following the assassinatio Atzerodt said at his house, "If the man s followed Gen. Grant that was to have followe him, he would have been killed." To negativ this specification the defense has submitted

following testimony: The testimony of Som- Hawkins, to show that, on the 3d of March he erset Leaman, that the prisoner said at the was at Port Tobacco. Testimony of Judge Olin house of Mr. Metz, when asked whether Gen. and Henry Burden, that they do not believe Grant was killed, "No, I do not suppose he Marcus P. Norton on oath. was. If he was killed, he would have been Now, the prisoner submits that the testimony killed probably by a man that got on the same adduced by the prosecution fails utterly to suptrain of cars that he did," and that he never used port the specification, but corroborates his own the language imputed to him by Mr. Metz; statement in every particular. First, the spethat he was confused, but that the daughter of cification charges him with "lying in wait" for Mr. Metz, to whom he was paying his ad- Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President of the dresses, was showing him the cold shoulder on United States, "within the military departthat day. The same confirmed by James E. ment and military lines aforesaid." The eviLeaman. The testimony of James Keleher, pro- dence on this point of "lying in wait" is altoprietor of a livery stable, corner of Eighth gether circumstantial. Colonel Nevins says he and E streets, that Atzerodt hired a dark bay inquired for President Johnson on the aftermare from his stable at half-past two o'clock noon of the 12th, between four and five. This on the afternoon of the 14th, wrote his name decrepit gentleman, sixty years of age, acin a large hand, did not hesitate to put down knowledges that he never saw the prisoner afhis name, willingly gave references, told him ter that until the day he gave his testimony, he lived in Port Tobacco, and was a coachma- about six weeks afterward, although he saw him ker by trade, and gave the names of John Cook but for a minute at the time of the conversaand Stanley Higgins as references. Testimony tion, and describes him as looking exactly as he of Samuel Smith, that the bay mare was re- did then. Now, all the other witnesses say that turned about eleven o'clock on the evening of Atzerodt is much thinner; all of them, even the 14th, very much in the same condition as his most intimate friends, have had difficulty in when she went out: no foam on her. Samuel recognizing him, and yet this peremptory old McAllister, that the prisoner rode up to the gentleman, with failing eyesight, says he looks Kimmell House about ten o'clock on the even-just the same, although he saw him but for a ing of the 14th, and called to the black boy to moment, and then not again for six weeks. hold his mare. Samuel McAllister further re- The testimony of this witness, besides the natcognizes the knife found opposite the Herndon ural anxiety of a Government officer to serve House, and the new revolver pawned at Cald- his Government, and of an old one to retrench well's, as having been in the possession of Atze- his waning importance, is incredible on the rodt, but does not recognize the coat found at face of it; but if it were not, it is absolutely the Kirkwood House, in Atzerodt's room, nor contradicted, beyond a doubt, by the witnesses any of its contents. Provost Marshal McPhail's for the defense. Matthew Pope, a livery-stable testimony, to show the coat and arms belonged keeper, near the Navy Yard, says a man came to Herold. The testimony of Mrs. Naylor, to to his stable and tried to sell him a horse on show that the handkerchief in the pocket of the the noon of the same day in April. He can not coat in Atzerodt's room was marked with the recognize the prisoner, neither can he give the name of Herold's sister. The testimony of date, only he knows that he left his umbrella, Hartman Richter, that the prisoner came to his and that he went off with John Barr, and was house in Montgomery county, Maryland, made there between four and five. John Barr, being no effort to escape, worked in the garden, and called, very well remembers that the person went about among the neighbors. Testimony who left his umbrella, and who rode off from of Somerset Leaman, that he is of respectable Pope's stable, was Atzerodt, who went home family, and visited the most respectable fami- with him to supper; and he knows it was the lies in Montgomery county. Of Samuel Mc-day that he made two spring blocks for SanAllister, again, that he was generally consid-derson & Miller, and he sees by reference to ered a coward. Of Washington Briscoe, that his book that it was the 12th of April. he was a noted coward. Of Lewis C. Haw- The testimony of Col. Nevins must, therefore, kins, that he is a notorious coward. Of fall to the ground; and while it is conceded Henry Brawner, that he is a well-known cow-that some one out of the multitude at the Kirkard. Testimony of Governor Farwell, that he wood may have asked the Colonel this common came to the President's room, at the Kirkwood, question, it is certain that this man was not immediately after the assassination; could have Atzerodt, for at the given hour and day he was seen anybody lying in wait, but saw no one; a mile from the house. The second point remained there half an hour, but no one at brought in support of this specification is the tempted to enter by violence. Testimony of declaration of Marcus P. Norton, a lawyer, from William A. Browning, private secretary to Mr. Troy, New York, to the effect that he saw AtzeJohnson, that the Vice-President was in his rodt in company with Booth, he thinks, on the room from five for the balance of the evening. evening of the 3d of March, at the National, Testimony of Matthew J. Pope, that Atzerodt and heard it said that, "If the matter succeeded was, on the 12th, about noon, at his stable, try- as well with Johnson as it did with old Buing to sell a horse, and remained there until he chanan, the party would be terribly sold;" also went off with John Barr. Testimony of John the words, "The character of the witnesses Barr, that he met Atzerodt on that day; knows would be such that nothing could be proved by it was on the 12th, because the same day, by them." Now, the prisoner says that this testihis memorandum, he made two spring blocks. mony is a deliberate falsehood. To prove that Testimony of Henry Brawner and Lewis C. on the 2d and 3d days of March he was not in