When Booth made his escape, it is testified by Colonel Stewart, who pursued him across the stage and out through the same door, that as he approached it some one slammed it shut. Ritterspaugh, who was standing behind the scenes when Booth fired the pistol and fled, saw Booth run down the passage toward the back door, and pursued him; but Booth drew his knife upon him and passed out, slamming the door afterhim. Ritterspaugh opened it and went through, leaving itopenbehind him, leaving Spangler inside, and in a position from which he readily could have reached the door. Ritterspaugh also states that very quickly after he had passed through this door he was followed by a large man, the first who followed him, and who was, doubtless, Colonel Stewart. Stewart is very positive that he saw this door slammed; that he himself was constrained to open it, and had some difficulty in opening it. He also testifies that as he approached the door a man stood near enough to have thrown it to with his hand, and this man, the witness believes, was the prisoner Spangler. Ritterspaugh has sworn that he left the door open behind him when he went out, and that he was first followed by the large man, Colonel Stewart. Who slammed that door behind Ritterspaugh? It was not Ritterspaugh; it could not have been Booth, for Ritterspaugh swears that Booth was mounting his horse at the time; and Stewart swears that Booth was upon his horse when he came out. That it was Spangler who slammed the door after Ritterspaugh may not only be inferred from Stewart's testimony, but it is made very clear by his own conduct afterwards upon the return of Ritterspaugh to the stage. The door being then open, and Ritterspaugh being asked which way Booth went, had answered. Ritterspaugh says: "Then I came back on the stage, where I had left Edward Spangler; he hit me on the face with his hand and said, 'Don't say which way he went.' I asked him what he meant by slapping me in the mouth? He said, 'For God's sake, shut up.'"
The testimony of Withers is adroitly handled to throw doubt upon these facts. It cannot avail, for Withers says he was knocked in the scene by Booth, and when he "come to" he got a side view of him. A man knocked down and senseless, on "coming to" might mistake anybody by a side view for Booth.
An attempt has been made by the defense to discredit this testimony of Ritterspaugh, by showing his contradictory statements to Gifford, Garlan, and Lamb, neither of whom do in fact contradict him, but substantially sustain him. None but a guilty man would have met the witness with a blow for stating which way the assassin had gone. A like confession of guilt was made by Spangler when the witness Miles, the same evening, and directly after the assassination, came to the back door, where Spangler was standing with others, and asked Spangler who it was that held the horse, to which Spangler replied: "Hush; don't say anything about it." He confessed his guilt again when he denied to Mary Anderson the fact, proved here beyond all question, that Booth had called him when he came to that door with his horse, using the emphatic words, "No, he did not; he did not call me." The rope comes to bear witness against him, as did the rope which Atzerodt and Herold and John H. Surratt had carried to Surrattsville and deposed there with the carbines.
It is only surprising that the ingenious counsel did not attempt to explain the deposit of the rope at Surrattsville by the same method that he adopted in explanation of the deposit of this rope, some sixty feet long, found in the carpet-sack of Spangler, unaccounted for save by some evidence which tends to show that he may have carried it away from the theatre.
It is not needful to take time in the recapitulation of the evidence, which shows conclusively that David E. Herold was one of these conspirators. His continued association with Booth, with Atzerodt, his visits to Mrs. Surratt's, his attendance at the theatre with Payne, Surratt, and Atzerodt, his connection with Atzerodt on the evening of the murder, riding with him on the street in the direction of and near to the theatre at the hour appointed for the work of assassination, and his final flight and arrest,show that he, in common with all the other parties on trial, and all the parties named upon your record not upon trial, and combined and confederated to kill and murder in the interests of the rebellion, as charged and specified against them.
That this conspiracy was entered into by all these parties, both present and absent, is thus proved by the acts, meetings, declarations, and correspondence of all the parties, beyond any doubt whatever. True it is circumstantial evidence, but the court will remember the rule before recited, that circumstances cannot lie; that they are held sufficient in every court where justice is judicially administered to establish the fact of a conspiracy. I shall take no further notice of the remark made by the learned counsel who opens for the defense, and which has been followed by several of his associates, that under the Constitution it requires two witnesses to prove the overt act of high treason, than to say, this is not a charge of high treason, but of a treasonable conspiracy, in aid of a rebellion, with intent to kill and murder the executive officer of the United States, and commander of its armies, and of the murder of the President in pursuance of that conspiracy, and with the intent laid, etc. Neither by the Constitution, nor by the rules of the common law, is any fact connected with this allegation required to be established by the testimony of more than one witness. I might say, however, that every substantive averment against each of the parties named upon this record has been established by the testimony of more than one witness.
That the several accused did enter into this conspiracy with John Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt to murder the officers of this government named upon the record, in pursuance of the wishes of their employers and instigators in Richmond and Canada, and with intent thereby to aid the existing rebellion and subvert the Constitution and laws of the United States, as alleged, is no longer an open question.
The intent as laid was expressly declared by Sanders in the meeting of the conspirators at Montreal in February last, by Booth in Virginia and New York, and by Thompson to Conover and Montgomery; but if there were no testimony directly upon this point, the law would presume the intent, for the reason that such was the natural and necessary tendency and manifest design of the act itself.
The learned gentleman (Mr. Johnson) says the government has survived the assassination of the President, and thereby would have you infer that this conspiracy was not entered into and attempted to be executed with the intent laid. With as much show of reason it might be said that because the government of the United States has survived this unmatched rebellion, it therefore results that the rebel conspirators waged war upon the government with no purpose or intent thereby to subvert it. By the law we have seen that, without any direct evidence of previous combination and agreement between these parties, the conspiracy might be established by evidence of the acts of the prisoners, or of any others with whom they co-operated, concurring in the execution of the common design.—Roscoe, 416.
Was there co-operation between the several accused in the execution of this conspiracy? That there was is as clearly established by the testimony as is the fact that Abraham Lincoln was killed and murdered by John Wilkes Booth. The evidence shows that all of the accused, save Mudd and Arnold, were in Washington on the 14th of April, the day of the assassination, together with John Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt; that on that day Booth had a secret interview with the prisoner, Mary E. Surratt; that immediately thereafter she went to Surrattsville to perform her part of the preparation necessary to the successful execution of the conspiracy, and did make that preparation; that John H. Surratt had arrived here from Canada, notifying the partiesthat the price to be paid for this great crime had been provided for, at least in part, by the deposit receipts of April 6th for $180,000, procured by Thompson of the Ontario Bank, Montreal, Canada; that he was also prepared to keep watch, or strike a blow, and ready for the contemplated flight; that Atzerodt, on the afternoon of that day, was seeking to obtain a horse, the better to secure his own safety by flight, after he should have performed the task which he had voluntarily undertaken by contract in the conspiracy—the murder of Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of the United States; that he did procure a horse for that purpose at Naylor's, and was seen about nine o'clock in the evening to ride to the Kirkwood House, where the Vice-President then was, dismount and enter. At a previous hour Booth was in the Kirkwood House, and left his card, now in evidence, doubtless intended to be sent to the room of the Vice-President, and which was in these words: "Don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth." Atzerodt, when he made application at Brooks's in the afternoon for the horse, said to Wiechmann, who was there, he was going to ride in the country, and that "he was going to get a horse and send for Payne." He did get a horse for Payne, as well as for himself; for it is proven that on the 12th he was seen in Washington riding the horse which had been procured by Booth, in company with Mudd, last November, from Gardner. A similar horse was tied before the door of Mr. Seward on the night of the murder, was captured after the flight of Payne, who was seen to ride away, and which horse is now identified as the Gardner horse. Booth also procured a horse on the same day, took it to his stable in the rear of the theatre, where he had an interview with Spangler, and where he concealed it. Herold, too, obtained a horse in the afternoon, and was seen between nine and ten o'clock riding with Atzerodt down the Avenue from the Treasury, then up Fourteenth and down F Street, passing close by Ford's Theatre.
O'Laughlin had come to Washington the day before, had sought out his victim (General Grant) at the house of the Secretary of War, that he might be able with certainty to identify him, and at the very hour when these preparations were going on was lying in wait at Rullman's on the Avenue, keeping watch, and declaring, as he did, at about ten o'clockP.M., when told that the fatal blow had been struck by Booth, "I don't believe Booth did it." During the day, and the night before, he had been visiting Booth, and doubtless encouraging him, and at that very hour was in position, at a convenient distance, to aid and protect him in his flight, as well as to execute his own part of the conspiracy by inflicting death upon General Grant, who, happily, was not at the theatre nor in the city, having left the city that day. Who doubts that Booth, having ascertained in the course of the day that General Grant would not be present at the theatre, O'Laughlin, who was to murder General Grant, instead of entering the box with Booth, was detailed to lie in wait, and watch and support him.
His declarations of his reasons for changing his lodgings here and in Baltimore, after the murder, so ably and so ingeniously presented in the argument of his learned counsel (Mr. Cox), avail nothing before the blasting fact that he did change his lodgings, and declared "he knew nothing of the affair whatever." O'Laughlin, who lurked here, conspiring daily with Booth and Arnold for six weeks to do this murder, declares "he knew nothing of the affair." O'Laughlin, who said he was "in the oil business," which Booth and Surratt and Payne and Arnold have all declared meant this conspiracy, says he "knew nothing of the affair." O'Laughlin, to whom Booth sent the despatches of the 13th and 27th of March—O'Laughlin, who is named in Arnold's letter as one of the conspirators, and who searched for General Grant on Thursdaynight, laid in wait for him on Friday, was defeated by that Providence "which shapes our ends," and laid in wait to aid Booth and Payne, declares "he knows nothing of the matter." Such a denial is as false and inexcusable as Peter's denial of our Lord.
Mrs. Surratt had arrived at home, from the completion of her part in the plot, about half past eight o'clock in the evening. A few moments afterwards she was called to the parlor and there had a private interview with some one unseen, but whose retreating footsteps were heard by the witness Wiechmann. This was doubtless the secret and last visit of John H. Surratt to his mother, who had instigated and encouraged him to strike this traitorous and murderous blow against his country.
While all these preparations were going on, Mudd was awaiting the execution of the plot, ready to faithfully perform his part in securing the safe escape of the murderers. Arnold was at his post at Fortress Monroe, awaiting the meeting referred to in his letter of March 27th, wherein he says they were not "to meet for a month or so," which month had more than expired on the day of the murder, for his letter and the testimony disclose that this month of suspension began to run from about the first week in March. He stood ready with the arms which Booth had furnished him to aid the escape of the murderers bythat route, and secure their communication with their employers. He had given the assurance in that letter to Booth, that although the government "suspicioned them," and the undertaking was "becoming complicated," yet "a time more propitious would arrive" for the consummation of this conspiracy in which he "was one" with Booth, and when he would "be better prepared to again be with him."
Such were the preparations. The horses were in readiness for the flight; the ropes were procured, doubtless for the purpose of tying the horses at whatever point they might be constrained to delay and to secure their boats to their moorings in making their way across the Potomac. The five murderous camp knives, the two carbines, the eight revolvers, the derringer, in court and identified, all were ready for the work of death. The part that each had played has already been in part stated in this argument, and needs no repetition.
Booth proceeded to the theatre about nine o'clock in the evening, at the same time that Atzerodt and Payne and Herold were riding the streets, while Surratt, having parted with his mother at the brief interview in her parlor, from which his retreating steps were heard, was walking the Avenue, booted and spurred, and doubtless consulting with O'Laughlin. When Booth reached the rear of the theatre, he called Spangler to him (whose denial of that fact, when charged with it, as proven by three witnesses is very significant) and received from Spangler his pledge to help him all he could, when with Booth he entered the theatre by the stage-door, doubtless to see that the way was clear from the box to the rear door of the theatre, and look upon their victim, whose exact position they could study from the stage. After this view, Booth passes to the street in front of the theatre, where, on the pavement with other conspirators yet unknown, among them one described as a low-browed villain, he awaits the appointed moment. Booth himself, impatient, enters the vestibule of the theatre from the front and asks the time. He is referred to the clock, and returns. Presently, as the hour of ten o'clock approached, one of his guilty associates called the time; they wait; again, as the moments elapsed, this conspirator upon watch called the time; again, as the appointed hour draws nigh, he calls the time; and finally, when the fatal moment arrives, he repeats in a louder tone, "Ten minutes past ten o'clock!" Ten minutes past ten o'clock! The hour has come when the red right hand of these murderous conspirators should strike, and the dreadful deed of assassination be done.
Booth, at the appointed moment, entered the theatre, ascended to the dress-circle, passed to the right, paused a moment, looking down, doubtless to see if Spangler was at his post, and approached the outer door of the close passage leading to the box occupied by the President, pressed it open, passed in, and closed the passage door behind him. Spangler's bar was in its place, and was readily adjusted by Booth in the mortise, and pressed against the inner side of the door, so that he was secure from interruption from without. He passes on to the next door, immediately behind the President, and there stopping, looks through the aperture in the door into the President's box, and deliberately observes the precise position of his victim, seated in the chair which had been prepared by the conspirators as the altar for the sacrifice, looking calmly and quietly down upon the glad and grateful people whom by his fidelity he had saved from the peril which had threatened the destruction of their government, and all they held dear this side of the grave, and whom he had come upon invitation to greet with his presence, with the words still lingering upon his lips which he had uttered with uncovered head and uplifted hand before God and his country, when on the 4th of last March he took again the oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, declaring that he entered upon the duties of his great office "with malice toward none—with charity for all." In a moment more, strengthened by the knowledge that his co-conspirators were all at their posts, seven at least of them present in the city, two of them, Mudd and Arnold, at their appointed places, watching for his coming, this hired assassin moves stealthily through the door, the fastenings of which had been removed to facilitate his entrance, fires upon his victim, and the martyr spirit of Abraham Lincoln ascends to God.
"Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothingCan touch him further."
"Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothingCan touch him further."
At the same hour, when these accused and their co-conspirators in Richmond and Canada, by the hand of John Wilkes Booth, inflicted this mortal wound which deprived the republic of its defender, and filled this land from ocean to ocean with a strange, great sorrow, Payne, a very demon in human form, with the words of falsehood upon his lips, that he was the bearer of a message from the physician of the venerable Secretary of State, sweeps by his servant, encounters his son, who protests that the assassin shall not disturb his father, prostrate on a bed of sickness, and receives for answer the assassin's blow from the revolver in his hand, repeated again and again, rushes into the room, is encountered by Major Seward, inflicts wound after wound upon him with his murderous knife, is encountered by Hansell and Robinson, each of whom he also wounds, springs upon the defenseless and feeble Secretary of State, stabs first on one side of his throat, then on the other, again in the face, and is only prevented from literally hacking out his life by the persistence and courage of the attendant Robinson. He turns to flee, and, his giant arm and murderous hand for a moment paralyzed by the consciousness of guilt, he drops his weapons of death, one in the house, the other at the door, where they were taken up, and are here now to bear witness against him. He attempts escape on the horse which Booth and Mudd had procured of Gardner, with what success has already been stated.
Atzerodt, near midnight, returns to the stable of Naylor the horse which he had procured for this work of murder, having been interrupted in the execution of the part assigned him at the Kirkwood House by the timely coming of citizens to the defense ofthe Vice-President, and creeps into the Pennsylvania House at two o'clock in the morning with another of the conspirators, yet unknown. There he remained until about five o'clock, when he left, found his way to Georgetown, pawned one of his revolvers, now in court, and fled northward into Maryland.
He is traced to Montgomery County, to the house of Mr. Metz, on the Sunday succeeding the murder, where, as is proved by the testimony of three witnesses, he said that if the man that was to follow General Granthadfollowed him, it was likely that Grant was shot. To one of these witnesses (Mr. Layman) he said he did not think Grant had been killed; or if he had been killed he was killed by a man who got on the cars at the same time that Grant did; thus disclosing most clearly that one of his co-conspirators was assigned the task of killing and murdering General Grant, and that Atzerodt knew that General Grant had left the city of Washington, a fact which is not disputed, on the Friday evening of the murder, by the evening train. Thus this intended victim of the conspiracy escaped, for that night, the knives and revolvers of Atzerodt and O'Laughlin and Payne and Herold and Booth and John H. Surratt and, perchance, Harper and Caldwell, and twenty others, who were then here lying in wait for his life.
In the mean time Booth and Herold, taking the route before agreed upon, make directly after the assassination for the Anacostia bridge. Booth crosses first, gives his name, passes the guard, and is speedily followed by Herold. They make their way directly to Surrattsville, where Herold calls to Lloyd, "Bring out those things," showing that there had been communication between them and Mrs. Surratt after her return. Both the carbines being in readiness, according to Mary E. Surratt's directions, both were brought out. They took but one. Booth declined to carry the other, saying that his limb was broken. They then declared that they had murdered the President and the Secretary of State. They then make their way directly to the house of the prisoner Mudd, assured of safety and security. They arrived early in the morning before day, and no man knows at what hour they left. Herold rode towards Bryantown with Mudd about three o'clock that afternoon, in the vicinity of which place he parted with him, remaining in the swamp, and was afterwards seen returning the same afternoon in the direction of Mudd's house, about which time, a little before sundown, Mudd returned from Bryantown towards his home. This village at the time Mudd was in it was thronged with soldiers in pursuit of the murderers of the President, and although great care has been taken by the defense to deny that any one said in the presence of Dr. Mudd, either there or elsewhere on that day, who had committed this crime, yet it is in evidence by two witnesses, whose truthfulness no man questions, that upon Mudd's return to his own house that afternoon, he stated that Booth was the murderer of the President, and Boyle the murderer of Secretary Seward, but took care to make the further remark that Booth had brothers, and he did not know which of them had done the act. When did Dr. Mudd learn that Booth had brothers? And what is still more pertinent to this inquiry, from whom did he learn that either John Wilkes Booth or any of his brothers had murdered the President? It is clear that Booth remained in his house until some time in the afternoon of Saturday; that Herold left the house alone, as one of the witnesses states, being seen to pass the window; that he alone of these two assassins was in the company of Dr. Mudd on his way to Bryantown. It does not appear when Herold returned to Mudd's house. It is a confession of Dr. Mudd himself, proven by one of the witnesses, that Booth left his house on crutches and went in the direction of the swamp. How long he remained there, and what became of the horses which Booth and Herold rode to his house and which were put into his stable,are facts nowhere disclosed by the evidence. The owners testify that they have never seen the horses since. The accused give no explanation of the matter, and when Herold and Booth were captured they had not these horses in their possession. How comes it that, on Mudd's return from Bryantown, on the evening of Saturday, in his conversation with Mr. Hardy and Mr. Farrell, the witnesses before referred to, he gave the name of Booth as the murderer of the President, and that of Boyle as the murderer of Secretary Seward and his son, and carefully avoided intimating to either that Booth had come to his house early that day and had remained there until the afternoon; that he left him in his house and had furnished him a razor with which Booth attempted to disguise himself by shaving off his moustache? How comes it, also, that, upon being asked by those two witnesses whether the Booth who killed the President was the one who had been there last fall, he answered that he did not know whether it was that man or one of his brothers, but he understood he had some brothers, and added, that if it was the Booth who was there last fall,he knew that one, but concealed the fact that this man had been at his house on that day and was then at his house, and had attempted in his presence to disguise his person? He was sorry, very sorry, that the thing had occurred, but not so sorry as to be willing to give any evidence to these two neighbors, who were manifestly honest and upright men, that the murderer had been harbored in his house all day, and was probably at that moment, as his own subsequent confession shows, lying concealed in his house or near by, subject to his call. This is the man who undertakes to show by his own declaration, offered in evidence against my protest, of what he said afterwards, on Sunday afternoon, the 16th, to his kinsman, Dr. George D. Mudd, to whom he then stated that the assassination of the President was a most damnable act—a conclusion in which most men will agree with him, and to establish which his testimony was not needed. But it is to be remarked that this accused did not intimate that the man whom he knew the evening before was the murderer had found refuge in his house, had disguised his person, and sought concealment in the swamp upon the crutches which he had provided for him. Why did he conceal this fact from his kinsman? After the church services were over, however, in another conversation on their way home, he did tell Dr. George Mudd that two suspicious persons had been at his house, who had come there a little before daybreak on Saturday morning; that one of them had a broken leg, which he bandaged; that they got something to eat at his house; that they seemed to be laboring under more excitement than probably would result from the injury; that they said they came from Bryantown, and inquired the way to Parson Wilmer's; that while at his house one of them called for a razor and shaved himself. The witness says, "I do not remember whether he said that this party shaved off his whiskers or his moustache, but he altered somewhat, or probably materially, his features." Finally, the prisoner, Dr. Mudd, told this witness that he, in company with the younger of the two men, went down the road towards Bryantown in search of a vehicle to take the wounded man away from his house. How comes it that he concealed in this conversation the fact proved, that he went with Herold towards Bryantown and left Herold outside of the town? How comes it that in this second conversation, on Sunday, insisted upon here with such pertinacity as evidence for the defense, but which had never been called for by the prosecution, he concealed from his kinsman the fact which he had disclosed the day before to Hardy and Farrell, that it was Booth who assassinated the President, and the fact which is now disclosed by his other confessions given in evidence for the prosecution, that it was Booth whom he had sheltered, concealed in his house, and aided to his hiding place inthe swamp? He volunteers as evidence his further statement, however, to this witness, that on Sunday evening he requested the witness to state to the military authorities that two suspicious persons had been at his house, and see if anything could be made of it. He did not tell the witness what became of Herold, and where he parted with him on the way to Bryantown. How comes it that when he was in Bryantown on the Saturday evening before, when he knew that Booth was then at his house, and that Booth was the murderer of the President, he did not himself state it to the military authorities then in that village, as he well knew? It is difficult to see what kindled his suspicions on Sunday, if none were in his mind on Saturday, when he was in possession of the fact that Booth had murdered the President and was then secreting and disguising himself in the prisoner's own house.
His conversation with Gardner on the same Sunday at the church is also introduced here to relieve him from the overwhelming evidences of his guilt. He communicates nothing to Gardner of the fact that Booth had been in his house; nothing of the fact that he knew the day before that Booth had murdered the President; nothing of the fact that Booth had disguised or attempted to disguise himself; nothing of the fact that he had gone with Booth's associate, Herold, in search of a vehicle, the more speedily to expedite their flight; nothing of the fact that Booth had found concealment in the woods and swamp near his house upon the crutches which he had furnished him. He contents himself with merely stating "that we ought to raise immediately a home guard to hunt up all suspicious persons passing through our section of country and arrest them, for there were two suspicious persons at my house yesterday morning."
It would have looked more like aiding justice and arresting felons if he had put in execution his project of a home guard on Saturday, and made it effective by the arrest of the man then in his house who had lodged with him last fall, with whom he had gone to purchase one of the very horses employed in this flight after the assassination, whom he had visited last winter in Washington, and to whom he had pointed out the veryrouteby which he had escaped by way of his house, whom he had again visited on the 3d of last March, preparatory to the commission of this great crime, and who he knew, when he sheltered and concealed him in the woods on Saturday, was not merely a suspicious person, but was, in fact, the murderer and assassin of Abraham Lincoln. While I deem it my duty to say here, as I said before, when these declarations uttered by the accused on Sunday, the 16th, to Gardner and George D. Mudd, were attempted to be offered on the part of the accused, that they are in no sense evidence, and by the law were wholly inadmissible, yet I state it as my conviction that, being upon the record upon motion of the accused himself, so far as these declarations to Gardner and George D. Mudd go, they are additional indications of the guilt of the accused in this, that they are manifestly suppressions of the truth and suggestions of falsehood and deception; they are but the utterances and confessions of guilt.
To Lieutenant Lovett, Joshua Lloyd, and Simon Gavican, who, in pursuit of the murderer, visited his house on the 18th of April, the Tuesday after the murder, he denied positively, upon inquiry, that two men had passed his house, or had come to his house on the morning after the assassination. Two of these witnesses swear positively to his having made the denial, and the other says he hesitated to answer the question he put to him; all of them agree that he afterwards admitted that two men had been there, one of whom had a broken limb, which he had set; and when asked by this witness who that man was, he said he did not know—that the man was a stranger to him, and that the two had been there but a short time. Lloyd asked him if he hadever seen any of the parties—Booth, Herold, and Surratt,—and he said he had never seen them; while it is positively proved that he was acquainted with John H. Surratt, who had been in his house; that he knew Booth, and had introduced Booth to Surratt last winter. Afterwards, on Friday, the 21st, he admitted to Lloyd that he had been introduced to Booth last fall, and that this man who came to his house on Saturday, the 15th, remained there from about four o'clock in the morning until about four in the afternoon; that one of them left his house on horseback, and the other walking. In the first conversation he denied ever having seen these men.
Colonel Wells also testifies that, in his conversation with Dr. Mudd on Friday the 21st, the prisoner said that he had gone to Bryantown, or near Bryantown, to see some friends on Saturday, and that as he came back to his own house he saw the person he afterwards supposed to be Herold passing to the left of his house toward the barn, but that he did not see the other person at all after he left him in his own house about one o'clock. If this statement be true, how did Dr. Mudd see the same person leave his house on crutches? He further stated to this witness that he returned to his own house about four o'clock in the afternoon; that he did not know this wounded man; said he could not recognize him from the photograph which is of record here, but admitted that he had met Booth some time in November, when he had some conversation with himabout landsand horses; that Booth had remained with him that night in November, and on the next day had purchased a horse. He said he had not again seen Booth from the time of the introduction in November up to his arrival at his house on the Saturday morning after the assassination. Is not this a confession that he did see John Wilkes Booth on that morning at his house and knew it was Booth? If he did not know him, how came he to make this statement to the witness: that "he had not seen BoothafterNovemberpriorto his arrival there on the Saturday morning"?
He had said before to the same witness he did not know the wounded man. He said further to Colonel Wells, that when he went upstairs after their arrival he noticed that the person hesupposedto be Booth had shaved off his moustache. Is it not inferable from this declaration that hethensupposed him to be Booth? Yet he declared the same afternoon, and while Booth was in his own house, that Booth was the murderer of the President. One of the most remarkable statements made to this witness by the prisoner was that he heard for the first time on Sunday morning, or late in the evening of Saturday, that the President had been murdered! From whom did he hear it? The witness (Colonel Wells) volunteers his "impression" that Dr. Mudd had said he had heard it after the persons had left his house. If the "impression" of the witness thus volunteered is to be taken as evidence—and the counsel for the accused, judging from their manner, seem to think it ought to be—let this question be answered: how could Dr. Mudd have made that impression upon anybody truthfully, when it is proved by Farrell and Hardy that on his return from Bryantown, on Saturday afternoon, he not only stated that the President, Mr. Seward, and his son had been assassinated, but that Boyle had assassinated Mr. Seward, and Booth had assassinated the President? Add to this the fact that he said to this witness that he left his own house at one o'clock and when he returned the men were gone, yet it is in evidence, by his own declarations, that Booth left his house at four o'clock on crutches, and he must have been there to have seen it or he could not have known the fact.
Mr. Williams testifies that he was at Mudd's house on Tuesday, the 18th of April, when he said that strangers hadnotbeen that way, and also declared that he heard,for the first time, of the assassination of the President on Sunday morning at church.Afterwards, on Friday, the 21st, Mr. Williams asked him concerning the men who had been at his house, one of whom had a broken limb, and he confessed they had been there. Upon being asked if they were Booth and Herold, he said they were not—that he knew Booth. I think it is fair to conclude that he did know Booth when we consider the testimony of Wiechmann, of Norton, of Evans, and all the testimony just referred to, wherein he declares, himself, that he not only knew him, but that he had lodged with him, and that he had himself gone with him when he purchased his horse from Gardner last fall, for the very purpose of aiding the flight of himself or some of his confederates.
All these circumstances taken together, which, as we have seen upon high authority, are stronger as evidences of guilt than even direct testimony, leave no further room for argument and no rational doubt that Doctor Samuel A. Mudd was as certainly in this conspiracy as were Booth and Herold, whom he sheltered and entertained; receiving them under cover of darkness on the morning after the assassination, concealing them throughout that day from the hand of offended justice, and aiding them, by every endeavor, to pursue their way successfully to their co-conspirator, Arnold, at Fortress Monroe, and in which direction they fled until overtaken and Booth was slain.
We next find Herold and his confederate Booth, after their departure from the house of Mudd, across the Potomac in the neighborhood of Port Conway, on Monday, the 24th of April, conveyed in a wagon. There Herold, in order to obtain the aid of Captain Jett, Ruggles, and Bainbridge, of the confederate army, said to Jett, "We are the assassinators of the President"; that this was his brother with him, who, with himself, belonged to A. P. Hill's corps; that his brother had been wounded at Petersburg; that their names were Boyd. He requested Jett and his rebel companions to take them out of the lines. After this Booth joined these parties, was placed on Ruggles's horse, and crossed the Rappahannock River. They then proceeded to the house of Garrett, in the neighborhood of Port Royal, and nearly midway between Washington City and Fortress Monroe, where they were to have joined Arnold. Before these rebel guides and guards parted with them, Herold confessed they were traveling under assumed names—that his own name was Herold, and that the name of the wounded man was John Wilkes Booth, "who had killed the President." The rebels left Booth at Garrett's, where Herold revisited him from time to time, until they were captured. At two o'clock on Wednesday morning, the 26th, a party of United States officers and soldiers surrounded Garrett's barn where Booth and Herold lay concealed, and demanded their surrender. Booth cursed Herold, calling him a coward, and bade him go, when Herold came out and surrendered himself, was taken into custody, and is now brought into court. The barn was then set on fire, when Booth sprang to his feet, amid the flames that were kindling about him, carbine in hand, and approached the door, seeking, by the flashing light of the fire, to find some new victim for his murderous hand, when he was shot, as he deserved to be, by Sergeant Corbett, in order to save his comrades from wounds or death by the hands of this desperate assassin. Upon his person was found the following bill ofexchange:—
"No. 1492. The Ontario Bank, Montreal Branch. Exchange for £61 12s.10d.Montreal, 27th October, 1864. Sixty days after sight of this first of exchange, second and third of the same tenor and date, pay to the order of J. Wilkes Booth £61 12s.10d.sterling, value received, and charge to the account of this office. H. Stanus, manager. To Messrs. Glynn, Mills & Co., London."
"No. 1492. The Ontario Bank, Montreal Branch. Exchange for £61 12s.10d.Montreal, 27th October, 1864. Sixty days after sight of this first of exchange, second and third of the same tenor and date, pay to the order of J. Wilkes Booth £61 12s.10d.sterling, value received, and charge to the account of this office. H. Stanus, manager. To Messrs. Glynn, Mills & Co., London."
Thus fell, by the hands of one of the defenders of the republic, this hired assassin,who, for a price, murdered Abraham Lincoln, bearing upon his person, as this bill of exchange testifies, additional evidence of the fact that he had undertaken, in aid of the rebellion, this work of assassination by the hands of himself and his confederates, for such sum as the accredited agents of Jefferson Davis might pay him or them, out of the funds of the Confederacy, which, as is in evidence, they had in "any amount" in Canada for the purpose of rewarding conspirators, spies, poisoners, and assassins, who might take service under their false commissions, and do the work of the incendiary and the murderer upon the lawful representatives of the American people, to whom had been entrusted the care of the republic, the maintenance of the Constitution, and the execution of the laws.
The court will remember that it is in the testimony of Merritt and Montgomery and Conover that Thompson and Sanders and Clay and Cleary made their boasts that they had money in Canada for this very purpose. Nor is it to be overlooked or forgotten that the officers of the Ontario Bank at Montreal testify that during the current year of this conspiracy and assassination Jacob Thompson had on deposit in that bank the sum of six hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars, and that these deposits to the credit of Jacob Thompson accrued from the negotiation of bills of exchange drawn by the Secretary of the Treasury of the so-called Confederate States on Frazier, Trenholm, & Co., of Liverpool, who were known to be the financial agents of the Confederate States. With an undrawn deposit in this bank of four hundred and fifty-five dollars, which has remained to his credit since October last, and with an unpaid bill of exchange drawn by the same bank upon London, in his possession and found upon his person, Booth ends his guilty career in this work of conspiracy and blood in April, 1865, as he began it in October, 1864, in combination with Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson, George N. Sanders, Clement C. Clay, William C. Cleary, Beverly Tucker, and other co-conspirators, making use of the money of the rebel confederation to aid in the execution and in the flight, bearing at the moment of his death upon his person their money, part of the price which they paid for his great crime, to aid him in its consummation and secure him afterwards from arrest and the just penalty which by the law of God and the law of man is denounced against treasonable conspiracy and murder.
By all the testimony in the case it is, in my judgment, made as clear as any transaction can be shown by human testimony, that John Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt and the several accused, David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel A. Mudd, did, with intent to aid the existing rebellion and to subvert the Constitution and laws of the United States, in the month of October last and thereafter, combine, confederate, and conspire with Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, to kill and murder, within the military department of Washington, and within the intrenched fortifications and military lines thereof, Abraham Lincoln, then President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy thereof; Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the United States; William H. Seward, Secretary of State; and Ulysses S. Grant, lieutenant general in command of the armies of the United States; and that Jefferson Davis, the chief of this rebellion, was the instigator and procurer, through his accredited agents in Canada, of this treasonable conspiracy.
It is also submitted to the court, that it is clearly established by the testimony that John Wilkes Booth, in pursuance of this conspiracy, so entered into by him and the accused, did, on the night of the 14th of April, 1865, within the military departmentof Washington, and the intrenched fortifications and military lines thereof, and with the intent laid, inflict a mortal wound upon Abraham Lincoln, then President and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United States, whereof he died; that in pursuance of the same conspiracy and within the said department and intrenched lines, Lewis Payne assaulted, with intent to kill and murder, William H. Seward, then Secretary of State of the United States; that George A. Atzerodt, in pursuance of the same conspiracy, and within the said department, laid in wait, with intent to kill and murder Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of the United States; that Michael O'Laughlin, within said department, and in pursuance of said conspiracy, laid in wait to kill and murder Ulysses S. Grant, then in command of the armies of the United States; and that Mary E. Surratt, David E. Herold, Samuel Arnold, Samuel A. Mudd, and Edward Spangler did encourage, aid, and abet the commission of said several acts in the prosecution of said conspiracy.
If this treasonable conspiracy has not been wholly executed; if the several executive officers of the United States and the commander of its armies, to kill and murder whom the said several accused thus confederated and conspired, have not each and all fallen by the hands of these conspirators, thereby leaving the people of the United States without a President or Vice-President; without a Secretary of State, who alone is clothed with authority by the law to call an election to fill the vacancy, should any arise, in the offices of President and Vice-President; and without a lawful commander of the armies of the republic, it is only because the conspirators were deterred by the vigilance and fidelity of the executive officers, whose lives were mercifully protected on that night of murder by the care of the Infinite Being who has thus far saved the republic and crowned its arms with victory.
If this conspiracy was thus entered into by the accused; if John Wilkes Booth did kill and murder Abraham Lincoln in pursuance thereof; if Lewis Payne did, in pursuance of said conspiracy, assault with intent to kill and murder William H. Seward, as stated, and if the several parties accused did commit the several acts alleged against them in the prosecution of said conspiracy, then it is the law that all the parties to that conspiracy, whether present at the time of its execution or not, whether on trial before this court or not, are alike guilty of the several acts done by each in the execution of the common design. What these conspirators did in the execution of this conspiracy by the hand of one of their co-conspirators they did themselves; his act, done in the prosecution of the common design, was the act of all the parties to the treasonable combination, because done in execution and furtherance of their guilty and treasonable agreement.
As we have seen, this is the rule, whether all the conspirators are indicted or not; whether they are all on trial or not. "It is not material what the nature of the indictment is, provided the offense involve a conspiracy. Upon indictment for murder, for instance, if it appear that others, together with the prisoner, conspired to perpetrate the crime, the act of one done in pursuance of that intention would be evidence against the rest." (1 Whar. 706.) To the same effect are the words of Chief Justice Marshall, before cited, that whoever leagued in a general conspiracy, performed any part, howeverMINUTE, or howeverREMOTE, from the scene ofaction, are guilty as principals. In this treasonable conspiracy to aid the existing armed rebellion by murdering the executive officers of the United States and the commander of its armies, all the parties to it must be held as principals, and the act of one in the prosecution of the common design the act of all.
I leave the decision of this dread issue with the court, to which alone it belongs. It is for you to say, upon your oaths, whether the accused are guilty.
I am not conscious that in this argument I have made any erroneous statement of the evidence, or drawn any erroneous conclusions; yet I pray the court, out of tender regard and jealous care for the rights of the accused, to see that no error of mine, if any there be, shall work them harm. The past services of the members of this honorable court give assurance that, without fear, favor, or affection, they will discharge with fidelity the duty enjoined upon them by their oaths. Whatever else may befall, I trust in God that in this, as in every other American court, the rights of the whole people will be respected, and that the republic in this, its supreme hour of trial, will be true to itself and just to all—ready to protect the rights of the humblest, to redress every wrong, to avenge every crime, to vindicate the majesty of law, and to maintain inviolate the Constitution, whether assailed secretly or openly, by hosts armed with gold, or armed with steel.