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Okla-homey
7/7/2006, 05:36 AM
July 7, 1865 Mary Surratt becomes the first woman to be executed in the United States

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Mary Surratt

141 years ago today, Mary Surratt is executed for her alleged role as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln's assassination, although ample evidence of her innocence exists. She was hanged less than two months after the tragic April 14, 1865 killing of The Great Emancipator by a grieving nation bent on vengeance on all who allegedly played a role in the crime.

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John Wilkes Booth. First in a long line of successful and popular Democrat actors with wacky political views that continues to this day.

Surratt, who owned a tavern in Surrattsville (now Clinton), Maryland, had to convert her row house in Washington, D.C., into a boardinghouse as a result of financial difficulties. Located a few blocks from Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was murdered, this house served as the place where a group of Confederate supporters, including John Wilkes Booth, conspired to assassinate the president. It was Surratt's association with Booth that ultimately led to her conviction.

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Mary Surratt on the gallows (far left) just prior to her hanging. She is being shaded by a parasol as the hangman put the noose around her neck. She stands on the gallows among her alleged conspirators

On the day of the assassination, Booth asked Surratt to deliver a package, which was later discovered to contain firearms, to her old tavern in Maryland. On her way home, Surratt ran into John Lloyd, the former Washington chief of police who currently leased the tavern.

When authorities first questioned Lloyd about their encounter, he did not mention anything significant and denied that Booth and David Herold had visited his tavern. Yet when questioned later, he claimed that Surratt had told him to have whiskey and weapons ready for Booth and Herold, who would be stopping by that night.

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Booth's route of flight after his dirty deed. It ended in a barn burned down around him. A soldier named Boston Corbett shot Booth and the ball struck his spine paralyzing him. He bled to death just minutes later.

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Sgt Boston Corbett, Co. L, 16th NY Cavalry put a .44 caliber bullet into Booth as he hid in the burning barn.

Louis Weichman, one of the alleged conspirators who delivered the package with Surratt, was released after he testified against her. He later claimed that the government had forced him to testify, and that it plagued his conscience for the rest of his life. Furthermore, Lewis Powell, a conspirator who was hanged with Surratt, proclaimed her innocence to his executioner minutes before his death.

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Mrs Surrat swings just after the trap is dropped. The hangman tied a rope around her skirts so they wouldn't immodestly pop up exposing her pantaloons as she fell.

Many expected President Andrew Johnson to pardon Surratt because the U.S. government had never hanged a woman. The execution was delayed until the afternoon, and soldiers were stationed on every block between the White House and Fort McNair, the execution site, to relay the expected pardon. But the order never came.

Ever since her death, numerous sightings of Mary Surratt's ghost and other strange occurrences have been reported around Fort McNair. A hooded figure in black, bound at the hands and feet as Surratt had been at the time of her execution, has allegedly been seen moving about. Several children of soldiers have reported a "lady in black" who plays with them.

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Surratt is buried in Washington. This is the latest of several gravestones, earlier ones having been repeatedly vandalized.

Since Mary Surratt's execution, many convicted criminals have been sentenced to death, despite questionable guilt. A study of U.S. courts released in June 2000 found that 68 percent of capital cases reviewed between 1973 and 1995 were overturned due to "serious, reversible error" in the judicial process.

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12
7/7/2006, 07:32 AM
Very interesting. This morning, I realized I had never learned of what happened with Booth following the Lincoln assassination. And even though her probable innocence makes her execution a travisty, it was kind of them to tie Mary's dress down.

However, I notice that they tied the legs of the men as well. Was that to keep their last meals contained?

Okla-homey
7/7/2006, 07:33 AM
Very interesting. This morning, I realized I had never learned of what happened with Booth following the Lincoln assassination. And even though her probable innocence makes her execution a travisty, it was kind of them to tie her dress down.

However, I notice that they tied the legs of the men as well. Was that to keep their last meals contained?

Keeps 'em from flailing their legs when the trap is sprung.

Frozen Sooner
7/7/2006, 10:27 AM
(Ahem)

She was only the first woman executed in the US if you don't consider the colonial period. Bostonians loved stringing women up on the big elm tree on Boston Common. For good times, read up on the Boston Curse (not the one dealing with Babe Ruth.)

XingTheRubicon
7/7/2006, 12:14 PM
That might be why the term execution was used and not lynching.

Cack
7/7/2006, 12:24 PM
wow good read ... i like these "Good Morning ... this day in history" postings ... i'll have to keep up on these

Okla-homey
7/7/2006, 01:13 PM
wow good read ... i like these "Good Morning ... this day in history" postings ... i'll have to keep up on these

When you're not drunk in Five Points.;)

BTW, I once blasted Boomer Sooner at max volume on the house PA at Delaney's. They cut me some slack because I was a recently returned war veteran and stuff.

Cack
7/7/2006, 02:39 PM
haha how do you know about 5 pts ... and yeah if you speak those words in the south you can pretty much get away with anything ... i actually live in Greenville 1 1/2 hours from Columbia (5 pts) but have visited a time or two (or more) ;)

Okla-homey
7/7/2006, 02:59 PM
haha how do you know about 5 pts ... and yeah if you speak those words in the south you can pretty much get away with anything ... i actually live in Greenville 1 1/2 hours from Columbia (5 pts) but have visited a time or two (or more) ;)

My niece is a Carolina grad and her dad (my b-i-l) is a football scholarship donor. It usually succs to be him during football season, but he never misses a home game.

PhilTLL
7/7/2006, 05:06 PM
That might be why the term execution was used and not lynching.

"One is a killing and the other is a killing."