Posted on 07/03/2025 8:35:55 AM PDT by Red Badger
Tennis courts now mark the spot where 4 of John Wilkes Booth's comrades died 150 years ago.
The crowd watches on as Mary Surratt (left), Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt hang from the gallows at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary. Photograph by Alexander Gardner/via Library of Congress.
=======================================================================
On July 7, 1865, shortly after 1 PM, three men and one woman were lead to the gallows in the prison yard of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary, on the shores of where the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers meet. It was hot that day, reportedly a hundred degrees. Sweat surely dripped down the accused’s faces as they passed by the cheap pine coffins and shallow graves that had been dug for them.
The doomed were Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt, four of the co-conspirators in the plot to assassinate officers of the federal government. Their sentence had come after a seven-week trial that had found them guilty of “treasonable conspiracy.” While the group, along with five others that were either already dead or had been given less severe sentences, had been successful in one part of their plan—the murder of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth—they had failed at the other two. Powell attacked Secretary of State William Seward at his home, but managed only to injure him. Seward would eventually recover and purchase Alaska for the United States. Herold guided Powell to Seward’s house and, after abandoning Powell when it was clear the plan had gone astray, aided Booth in his attempts to evade authorities after his escape from Ford’s Theater. Azterodt had been assigned the task of assassinating Vice-President Johnson, but he didn’t going through with it. Instead, Azterodt got drunk and wandered the streets mumbling. He was soon arrested for suspicious behavior. During the trial, witnesses would call him a “notorious coward.”
Surratt faced a more tenuous case. Her son, John Surratt Jr., was a Confederate spy who had befriended Booth, a famed actor and Southern sympathizer. He often had Booth over to his mother’s tavern and boarding house for conversations and drinks. Soon, those conversations turned into conspiracy. It’s often been debated what and how much Mary Surratt knew about what went on in her place of business. Today, historians believe there was no way that Surratt was clueless about the plot. During the trial, the landowner who leased the property to Surratt testified about her knowledge of weapons being stored at the house. When reviewing the death sentence given to Surratt, President Johnson reportedly said, “She kept the nest that hatched the egg.”
The four were forced to climb the hastily built gallows that they had heard being tested the night before from their prison cells. A crowd of nearly thousand had come with their exclusive tickets to see this execution. Nooses were placed around the accused’s necks and hoods placed over their heads. Ever since the sentences had been handed down a week ago, Surratt’s lawyers and her daughter Anna had been fighting and pleading for her death sentence to be changed. In fact, many in attendance thought that Surratt would be saved from the gallows at the last minute. It was not to be.
After last rites and shortly after 1:30 PM, the trap door was opened and all four fell. It was reported that Atzerodt yelled at this very last moment, “May we meet in another world.” Within minutes, they were all dead. The bodies continued to hang and swing for another 25 minutes before they were cut down.
Today, Fort McNair sits on the land where the Old Arsenal Penitentiary once was. Tennis courts occupy the exact location of the Lincoln co-conspirators’ hanging.
I know where they were hanged: by the neck.
If unlawful attempts to remove a sitting president should be met with hanging, then what about Clapper, Brennan, and many others?
I think you are confusing removal with outright murder. If a person murders another person then should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
So many leftist candidates available for the same treatment - so little time.
Possibly but we will never know for sure because of the botched prosecution.
The defendants were not allowed to meet with defense attorneys until three days before trial, the emotional gamit of trying to tie yellow fever deaths to a supposed Confederate plot to distribute tainted clothing, the government's failure to introduce Booth's diary, the use of a military tribunal instead of civilian courts, and the prohibition on allowing defendants the right to testify on their own behalf.
The trial reminds me of the kangaroo courts that were cooked up to get Trump.
The waving of the bloody shirt would not peak until the radicals controlling the government adopted the ill-compounded and hastily written homosexual marriage amendment in 1868.
Didn’t they bury them there by the gallows?
“none had their necks broken, all strangled to death.”
Their drop was only about 4 to 4-1/2 feet not enough to snap their neck.
Here is a page of Albert Pierrepoint’s records which records the drop length of some of his executions.
https://specialauctionservices.blob.core.windows.net/stock/3598-6.jpg?v=63817581085790
Yes. Initially.
BRAVE AI:
Lincoln Conspirators Buried
Fort Lesley McNair (formerly Arsenal Penitentiary), Washington, D.C.: The four executed conspirators — Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt — were initially buried in pine boxes next to the gallows at the Arsenal Penitentiary following their execution in 1865. Their bodies, along with that of John Wilkes Booth, were later reburied in a warehouse on the grounds. In 1869, the remains were released to their families.
Mount Olivet Cemetery, Washington, D.C.: Mary Surratt’s body was eventually buried here after her daughter successfully petitioned for the return of her mother’s remains several years after the execution.
Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, MD: John Wilkes Booth’s body was returned to Washington for an autopsy after being buried briefly in the Arsenal Penitentiary. However, Green Mount Cemetery is noted as the burial place of other conspirators, including Booth and Michael O’Laughlen, as well as Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was pardoned and died later.
I'm her alibi. She was hanging out with me in 1997.
Love it
Eating Chinese food?
She was walkin’ through the streets of Soho in the rain
She was lookin’ for the place called Lee Ho Fooks
For to get a big dish of beef chow mein
I saw her drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s
And her hair was perfect.....
Oh wow so it must have been intentional, they wanted them to suffer by strangulation slowly.
That Pierrepoint record is wild. He had 2 guys drop 8’8” almost 9 feet? That’s crazy, it must have ripped their heads off.
https://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/burnett/historicalmarker.htm
Music Video Biography of “The General”
https://youtu.be/0XoT2gKRnss
When I first found the general’s grave, it was high on a hill overlooking his harness horse farm, where he raced the horses he bred at the Goshen Raceway. Huge monument with carvings, steps and a great central area that once held a brass plaque, since stolen. So this man, who wanted to be remembered, was forgotten in a grave that was being taken over by the forest. All that was left was the word Burnett carved into the granite.
I cut back the branches and cleaned up the front area and steps. That was when I became determined to bring back his memory. His country house was sold after his death, first to a health spa and then to a rock musician who rode his motorcycle in the tunnel that connected the main house to the indoor swimming pool. Got to tour it. His city house in NYC has since been replaced by high rises.
His first wife was the daughter of the Judge under whom he studied law. His second wife, my great grandmother, was the daughter of a banker and railroad cashier, for whom he worked as a lawyer, and granddaughter of one of the richest men in western NY, whose 2nd railroad was merged with others to form the NY Central. His third wife was one of the social 400’s in NYC and he shows up in all the social events.
Lots of private practice and arguing before the Supreme Court. Appointed to 2 terms as District Attorney of the So District of NY (NYC).
He started the Ohio Society of NY and wrote a book about the organization. I’d imagine I was one of the few that wanted to read it, as I was an organization person, too, and started a number of groups over the years. Always surprising what passes down unknowingly.
Wrong.
s/
Laz abides...
On this same spot, I’d like to see the Clintons, Obama, Pelosi and Adam Shitts and Comey all swing. If there’s room, let’s throw in Cheney and the rest of the J6 committee.
Restraining arms and legs is very different from covering faces.
Did you think the condemned would chew the rope ?
The reason for covering faces is the sensibilities of the other people.
Watching a faceless bag wiggle and go slack is easier than seeing the the panic,horror,and facial contortions as a person dies by strangulation, unable to resist.
Death by firing squad would have been more humane.
Hoods spared the necessity of looking in the face of the person you are executing (killing).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
