The Plot

Summary

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Criminal – "The Plot" (Feb 20, 2026)

Host: Phoebe Judge
Guest: Historian Kate Clifford Larson

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the complex story of Mary Surratt, her family, and their involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Using the expertise of historian Kate Clifford Larson, the show unpacks how Surratt’s tavern and boarding house became central hubs for Confederate spies and co-conspirators, most notably John Wilkes Booth. Exploring themes of wartime espionage, shifting public sympathies, and the unprecedented execution of a woman by the U.S. government, the episode raises questions about complicity, justice, and the gendered ways we interpret history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Mary Surratt’s Background and Sympathies

[01:02–05:19]

• Mary Surratt, widow and tavern owner in Maryland, operated in a region with split loyalties during the Civil War.
• Her son, John Surratt, used his position as postmaster to act as a Confederate spy.
• Mary’s tavern and boarding house functioned as significant meeting places for Confederate supporters.
• “She was a racist and she was a confederate. She wanted slavery to continue.” – Kate Clifford Larson [04:19]

The Surratt Family & Confederate Espionage

[05:19–06:44]

• After John Surratt's role as postmaster ended, he became a full-time courier and spy, traveling between Richmond and Canada.
• Mary moved her family to Washington, D.C., strategically aiding her son’s covert operations.

John Wilkes Booth’s Entrance

[07:20–09:05]

• John Wilkes Booth, famed American actor, began frequenting the Surratt boarding house.
• “He has the fire, the dash, the touch of strangeness.” – Actress on Booth [08:20]
• Booth, though from a northern-sympathizing family, was fiercely devoted to slavery and the Confederate cause.

The Plot to Kidnap Lincoln

[09:40–14:37]

• Booth devised a plan to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and ransom him for Confederate soldiers' release.
• Joined by John Surratt Jr. and other inexperienced conspirators, the group met and planned at the Surratt house.
• The plan failed when Lincoln’s schedule changed unexpectedly:
  • "Lincoln changed his mind and didn’t go. It just infuriated the co-conspirators, but particularly John Wilkes Booth himself.” – Larson [14:37]

Shift from Kidnapping to Murder

[14:58–16:08]

• Following the plot’s failure, Booth became enraged and redirected his energy toward assassinating Lincoln, with Mary Surratt becoming further involved.

Final Preparations for Assassination

[18:35–20:54]

• Booth gathered supplies including weapons hidden at the Surratt tavern in Maryland, with Mary's assistance in logistics.
• On April 14, 1865, Booth learned Lincoln would be at Ford’s Theater and finalized plans with his co-conspirators.

The Night of the Assassination

[20:54–23:44]

• Complex conspiracy: simultaneous assassination attempts on Lincoln, VP Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State Seward, and General Grant.
• Booth fatally shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theater and escaped, suffering a broken leg as he leapt from the presidential box:
  • “He leaps from the box…crashed on the stage…Booth broke his leg, but he limps off.” – Larson [22:40]

Immediate Aftermath & Investigation

[24:01–25:06]

• Mary Surratt’s behavior at home was described as odd and nervous after the assassination.
• Her boarder, Louis Weichman, shared suspicions with police, catalyzing investigation.

The Arrest and Interrogation

[25:17–29:28]

• Police searched the Surratt house and soon after, Louis Payne (an attacker on Seward) arrived, claiming he was hired to do yard work by Mary—she denied knowing him, which police found suspicious.
  • “She very dramatically raises up her arm and her hand and says, I swear to God that I do not know who this person is. And the detectives thought that that was so bizarre, her behavior. They knew immediately that she knew who the guy was and she was lying.” – Larson [25:17]
• Mary, her daughter Anna, and Payne were arrested and Mary was described as "defiant and haughty" in police interviews.

The Military Tribunal

[31:00–33:52]

• Government justified a military tribunal due to the ongoing conflict after Lee’s surrender.
• Mary Surratt was subjected to intense negative press coverage, often gendered:
  • “She was not the center of the conspiracy, but the press made it sound like she was.” – Larson [31:51]
• Her defense was ignorance: she didn’t know Booth’s plans, expecting that her femininity and Catholic faith would shield her.

Testimonies and Defense

[33:52–36:56]

• Louis Weichman (boarder): described Mary as sweet but recounted suspicious activity and guests.
• Anna Surratt (daughter): testifies for Mary's defense, later faints in court.
• Defense insisted John Surratt Jr. was the real conspirator and decried the military court’s constitutionality.

The Verdict, Execution, and Aftermath

[36:56–40:13]

• Mary sentenced to death along with three men; Johnson refused to commute her sentence despite commissioners’ appeals.
• On July 7, 1865, Mary became the first woman executed by the U.S. government.
  • “Oddly, as soon as the hanging happened…everyone was uncomfortable with the hanging of a woman, particularly because there were photographs.” – Larson [37:58]
• Public opinion shifted post-execution, many claiming Mary’s innocence.
• President Johnson later criticized for not commuting her sentence.
• John Surratt Jr. escaped to Europe, was eventually tried (mistrial), and spent ensuing years publicly defending his mother.

The Legacy and Historical Debate

[40:38–41:20]

• Decades of debate over Mary Surratt’s complicity; supporters campaigned for her posthumous pardon (never granted).
• Larson’s assessment:
  • “There’s no way that a person can come away thinking she was not informed, that she was not a co-conspirator, that she…couldn’t have helped John Wilkes Booth.” [40:53]
• New York Times opinion after her execution: "she had paid the penalty of her crime, and the wisest thing is to let her name be as far forgotten as the magnitude of that crime will allow." [41:05]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She wanted slavery to continue.” – Kate Clifford Larson [04:19]
• “He was obsessed. He really was obsessed.” – Larson, on John Wilkes Booth [09:16]
• “My prospect is gone. My hopes are blighted.” – John Surratt Jr., after failed kidnap attempt [14:58]
• “She was very defiant and haughty, and she was trying to protect her son.” – Larson, describing Mary’s police interrogation [28:38]
• “I swear to God that I do not know who this person is.” – Mary Surratt, upon Payne’s arrest [25:17]
• “Mary never thought in a million years that she would get a death sentence.” – Larson [36:56]
• “Everyone was uncomfortable with the hanging of a woman, particularly because there were photographs available…” – Larson [37:58]
• “There’s no way that a person can come away thinking she was not informed…not a co-conspirator…” – Larson [40:53]
• “It’s such a complicated story, but I think everyone should know about Mary Surratt.” – Larson [41:20]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:02] — Introduction to Mary Surratt’s tavern & espionage
• [04:19] — Mary Surratt’s position on slavery
• [07:20] — John Wilkes Booth’s introduction to the Surratts
• [09:48] — Booth’s plot to kidnap Lincoln
• [14:37] — Failed kidnapping plan & conspirators’ frustration
• [18:35] — Booth’s shift to assassination plans
• [20:01] — Assassination conspiracy details
• [22:40] — Booth assassinates Lincoln, flees the scene
• [25:17] — Louis Payne’s arrest and Mary’s denial
• [31:00] — Military tribunal begins
• [36:56] — Mary’s shock at her death sentence
• [37:58] — Public discomfort after Mary’s execution
• [40:53] — Larson’s historical assessment of Mary’s guilt

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Tone and Reflection

The episode is characterized by Phoebe Judge’s calm, probing narration and Kate Clifford Larson’s clear-eyed, nuanced historical analysis. The tone is thoughtful, direct, and sometimes somber, focusing on the personal tragedies and complex legacies surrounding Mary Surratt's story. The show highlights not just the facts, but also the emotional and societal resonance of the first woman executed by the federal government and the way historical narratives—especially around women and wrongdoing—are formed and reexamined.

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This episode provides an in-depth exploration of the shadowy network behind Lincoln’s assassination and places Mary Surratt at the heart of debates about justice, gender, and historical memory.

Transcript

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In 1863, a widow named Mary Surratt was running a tavern in a small town in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. there was a post office in the same building. Her youngest son, John, was the postmaster. He was also a spy for the Confederate Army. How much did she know of what John was doing?

[D]

Oh, I think she knew everything.

[A]

This is historian Kate Clifford Larson.

[D]

You know, some people say, oh, she couldn't have known what he was doing, of course. He was, like, 18 years old. She knew everything he was doing, and she approved of it because she did not want the Union to win.

[A]

Mary grew up in Maryland on a tobacco farm where her family owned enslaved people. Her father died when she was 2, and after her mother ran the farm, she never remarried. Mary grew up Episcopalian, but converted to Catholicism when she was a teenager. Mary met her husband, John Sarat, in 1839. They married the next year. They had three children. Her husband drank and gambled a lot. He racked up a lot of debt, but eventually he saved up enough money to build a tavern.

[D]

So he opened this tavern, and it became very busy very quickly. They had a wheelwright that would take care of people's carriages and, you know, barns for horses. And so it was very, very successful, the bar and the inn itself. And sadly, John became the most frequent customer of the bar in the tavern.

[A]

In 1862, John Surratt died. By that point, Mary was already doing most of the work running the tavern. It was always busy and often full of Confederate supporters who knew they were safe there. A family friend said that Mary Earnestly and conscientiously defended and justified the southern cause. What was it like in Maryland at that time, during the civil War?

[D]

So Maryland stayed in the union. There was a lot of negotiating to make that happen because Maryland was a slave state. Now, southern Maryland, the part of Maryland that's closest to Washington, D.C. had the most enslaved people out of any region of Maryland at the time. So it was a mixed state. Northern Maryland north of Baltimore had very few enslaved people, more northern kind of sympathies. And then southern Maryland had very strong confederate sympathies. So the state was split, but Lincoln and his administration were able to keep it in the union. But that didn't mean that people with confederate sympathies were not trying to thwart the efforts of Lincoln and his administration.

[A]

During the war, the surrats had also owned enslaved people. One of them had allegedly burned down the surrats house and then ran away.

[D]

Several of them fled the tavern and took off. So that was very upsetting to Mary. As a white woman, she had more status than an enslaved person or a free black person. And she liked that. She was a racist and she was a confederate. She wanted slavery to continue.

[A]

In 1862, Mary's oldest son Isaac left to join the confederate army, and her younger son John started delivering messages for the confederacy. John used his position at the post office to move coded messages that were sent to him there. When he got certain letters, he would take out a hidden envelope and bring it to the person it was for. Sometimes he would hide messages between the wooden boards of his carriage, Other times in the heel of his boot. He'd sneak out to confederate boats on the Potomac river with information about where the union army was going.

[D]

The union could not patrol, you know, 24 hours a day, every mile of that river all the time. So people had a great business taking confederate sympathizers, spies, et cetera, back and forth across the Potomac and the other rivers. So it, you know, it was wartime. It was difficult to watch everybody and keep an eye on everybody.

[A]

But one day in November 1863, John was caught by federal investigators. He was fired from his job as postmaster for disloyalty. He spent a few days in jail, but was released. A new postmaster was hired who was not a confederate supporter. John decided to start carrying the secret letters himself full time. Bypassing the post office, he would travel to the confederate capital in Richmond, pick up messages, and then take them north to Canada, where the confederacy had established a base. Spies like John had coded messages and photographs in buttons, shoes, and Clothing in case they were searched. In 1864, Mary decided to move with John and her daughter anna to Washington, D.C. where they owned a townhouse. She started renting out rooms.

[D]

I think it was a strategic move on her part, and they could have borders and look like a respectable house, and she would be the woman running the boarding house. And I think it made it easier for John to go back and forth and connect with people in Washington, D.C. who were spies, who were in government. There were Confederate spies who had jobs in the government, and they were sending information to Richmond, Virginia. So I think it worked out for him very nicely that they moved into Washington, D.C. soon, the boarding house became

[A]

a meeting place for John and his friends, some of whom he had met through his work, delivering messages. One man started coming over a lot and became friends with Mary, too. His name was John Wilkes Booth. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. John Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland. He came from a family of actors. His father, Junius, and two of his brothers were also actors. John made his own stage debut when he was 17 years old. After his father died, his brother Edwin was known as the more precise actor in the family, but John was considered the more passionate one. One actress said, he has the fire, the dash, the touch of strangeness. He was called by some the handsomest man in Washington. Walt Whitman wrote of his acting, I thought of real genius. How famous is John Wilkes Booth at this point?

[D]

He is so famous, he's like the most famous actor in the country at the time. He had started acting in the early 1850s. He wasn't very notable at the time, but he really worked on his craft and he became quite skilled. And he was dashing and handsome and really that he was a public person. And so he really developed a tremendous following.

[A]

In April 1861, when the Civil War began, John Wilkes Booth was performing in Albany. He called the Confederates attacking Fort Sumter, quote, heroic.

[D]

He did not believe in equality. He thought that African Americans were supposed to be slaves. He was devoted to that concept, which is kind of odd because his family hadn't been that strongly committed. Particularly one of his brothers was more of a Northern sympathizer, a Union sympathizer. But he was obsessed. He really was obsessed.

[A]

He had promised his mother that he would not enlist in the Confederate Army. But by 1864, he wanted to do more.

[D]

John Wilkes Booth is becoming more and more furious and frustrated, and he wants the Union to lose. He wants the Confederacy to. So he starts kind of dreaming up this scheme of how they're going to get a group of people together to help him execute on this plan to kidnap Abraham Lincoln.

[A]

What did they think they were going to get out of kidnapping Lincoln?

[D]

They were going to ransom him for the freedom of all the Confederate soldiers in Northern prisons. And they thought that that would rejuvenate the failing Confederacy at the time because there were, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands Confederate prisoners. I mean, it was kind of a wacky plan, but they were devoted to it. They thought it would work. It certainly would have shocked the nation.

[A]

John Wilkes Booth's plan was to kidnap President Lincoln in Washington and smuggle him through Maryland to the Potomac River. Then he and several conspirators would put him on a boat.

[D]

They knew that Lincoln was a tall guy. They needed a few guys to help them get him into a boat and get him across to Virginia and then ransom him.

[A]

John Wilkes Booth started spending a lot of time in Southern Maryland, meeting with Confederate spies and looking for places that could be safe houses along the way to the Potomac. He learned that the Surratts Tavern was known as a safe place for Confederates. A mutual friend introduced him to John Surratt.

[D]

It was December of 1864 that John Surratt, Jr. Met John Wilkes Booth in Washington, D.C. it was around Christma. And from then on, the plan really took off rather quickly. John Wilkes Booth brought in a couple of his friends from childhood. John Surratt brought in some of his friends from childhood. The people that they brought in had no experience, really, with firearms or planning kidnappings. They didn't have much money, which now, when you think about it, is kind of ridiculous, but these are the people that they trusted and they brought in. This is how the plan started to grow.

[A]

Soon, John Wilkes Booth began arranging for people to stay at the Surratt's boarding house in Washington. As they made plans, some of them stayed for just a night and others for weeks. One of John Surratt's childhood friends who also lived at the boarding house, a man named Lewis Weichman, asked Mary who all these new people were. She told him that John was hiring them for dirty work. When asked what she meant, she said, to clean his horses. Kate Clifford Larson says that John Wilkes Booth came to the boarding house almost every day. If John Surratt wasn't home, he would sit with Mary. One of the boarders in the house said that Mary Surratt and John Wilkes Booth would talk for hours together. Mary's daughter Anna kept a photo of Booth. Her brother complained that when Booth came to visit, he would always Hear the women scampering to get ready.

[D]

It's kind of remarkable when you think about it. The most famous actor in the country is showing up at this boarding house in Washington, D.C. and, you know, it's just everybody, the boarders in the house, and not all of them were Confederate sympathizers in the house, but they just. They loved him, and they thought, this is the coolest thing, that John Wilkes Booth is coming and having dinner with us and entertaining us.

[A]

At the beginning of 1865, John Wilkes Booth started tracking President Lincoln's schedule. President Lincoln often went to see plays, especially at Ford's Theater. John Wilkes Booth had performed there many times, and he asked the owner to let him in to look around. He proposed kidnapping Lincoln the next time he went to see a show there, but two of his friends didn't like the idea. They said it could not be done without someone getting killed. On March 16, John Wilkes Booth heard from a friend that President Lincoln was going to see a show the next day at an army hospital. Booth planned to intercept Lincoln's carriage. John Surratt would take over and drive it to Maryland. Kate says, on the 17th of March, everyone met at Mary's boarding house, and John Wilkes Booth told them where to go and what to do once they had captured Lincoln.

[D]

So Booth and his co conspirators set themselves up along this road on the day that Lincoln was supposed to be there. And it turns out that at last minute, Lincoln changed his mind and didn't go. And it just infuriated the co conspirators, but particularly John Wilkes Booth himself.

[A]

When John Surratt Jr. Came home, he went to his friend Louis Wichman, who lived at the boarding house. Louis Wichman said that John was waving a gun around and told him, I will shoot anyone that comes into this room. My prospect is gone. My hopes are blighted. Fifteen minutes later, John Wilkes Booth came in looking for John Surratt. They went into another room to talk. Lewis Weichman said that's when he began to suspect that they had, quote, some hidden purpose. John Wilkes Booth stayed in Washington for one more day. He was scheduled to perform the next day at Ford's Theater. After the show, he left for New York City. But he hadn't given up on trying to help the Confederacy, which was about to lose the war.

[D]

He just was in a complete panic and so angry that he'd started planning and scheming what his next step was going to be. And that turned out to be a plan to assassinate Lincoln, and it involved getting Mary to help.

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[D]

John Wilkes Booth decided he needed spy glasses and he wanted liquor, money and food and things like that and more Weapons stored at the Surratt Tavern for the evening when he decided he was going to assassinate Lincoln.

[A]

John Surratt had gone to Canada. Before he left, he'd taken weapons and ammunition to his family's tavern in Maryland. He hid them in the walls and under the floorboards. Mary started making lots of trips to the tavern, too. Once, she asked her son's friend Lewis Weichman, who also lived at the boarding house, to take her there. She told him she was going to collect on a loan to a neighbor. But on the way, they stopped on a road just outside of town to talk to a man named John Lloyd. He had rented the tavern from Mary when she moved to Washington. Mary asked John Lloyd about the weapons hidden at the tavern and told him someone would be coming to get them soon. And then, on April 14, John Wilkes Booth went to pick up his mail at Ford's Theater, and he heard that President Lincoln would be attending a play there. That night, John Wilkes Booth met with two other men to go over their plans.

[D]

Part of the conspiracy was to kill Lincoln, his vice president, Andrew Johnson, Secretary William Henry Seward, and then General Grant. He wanted to make sure that the leadership of the Union was completely decimated.

[A]

And on that day, where was Mary Surhot?

[D]

She was busy trying to help. She went to the tavern to deliver the last items that Booth needed. Booth did come by and see her at least once during that day. And then he took off. He was busy making plans throughout the day with people at Ford's Theater who didn't know what he was planning on doing. But he was such a famous actor, and he could go in and out of the theater and do whatever he wanted and talk to whoever he wanted to because he was so fam.

[A]

That night, one of the men working with John Wilkes Booth, a man who went by the name Lewis Payne, went to Secretary of State William Henry Seward's house.

[D]

Seward was recovering from a horrific carriage accident, and he had broken his shoulder and his jaw. So he was bedridden. And Lewis Payne appeared at the door claiming that he was a D delivery person from the pharmacy with medication for the secretary and the servants there in the house. And Seward's sons were there, and they didn't want Payne to come in, but he pushed his way through. He stabbed a few people, and then he got into Seward's bedroom and started attacking him. But Seward fell off the bed, between the bed and the wall, and it was difficult for Payne to keep attacking him. And the brace. He had this large metal brace around his head and neck and shoulder to keep it all in place because he had broken so many bones that prevented the blade from the knife that Payne was using from penetrating him enough to kill him. So Payne, thinking he had killed Seward, fled the house and went to hide in a cemetery until things had calmed down.

[A]

Another man was supposed to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson. It also didn't go as planned.

[D]

That co conspirator got drunk at the bar and didn't wait around to try to kill the vice president, who was staying at a local hotel.

[A]

When John Wilkes Booth arrived at Ford's Theater, a stagehand held his horse for him.

[D]

Booth goes in the theater as the performance is going on, and he goes up to the private where Lincoln and his wife and other people are seated watching the play, and he sneaks in and starts attacking the President, shoots him in the head. And then he yells out to the audience, and he leaps from the box and jumps down to the stage. Now, he had spurs on his boot, and it caught the American flag decoration that was spread across the box. And he crashed sort of on the stage. And, you know, everyone is in shock. They're not sure what's happening. Booth broke his leg, but he limps off. He goes behind and out into the alley, and Booth jumps on his horse and races away. And inside, they realize that Lincoln has been shot and other people have been hurt.

[A]

And Lincoln was badly wounded. Doctors took him to a boarding house across the street from the theater to treat him. That night, Mary Surratt was at home. Some of the boarders noticed. She seemed nervous.

[D]

She just seems odd, and she says strange things. And finally, she tells everybody they must go back to their rooms, that she needs quiet. So they all go to bed. Now, once Lincoln has been shot, the police are out looking for any clues on who these people were that caused this. And where's John Wilkes Booth? Because people did recognize him when he jumped down on the stage. So the police actually come to her door at about 11:30 that night and ask to search the house because they had heard that Booth had visited the house and that there might be other co conspirators there. But they found nothing, so they left.

[A]

But the next day, Mary's boarder, Louis Weichman, who had begun to suspect something strange about her friendship with John Wilkes Booth, decided to go to the police.

[D]

Louis Weichman realized, oh, this is more serious. And the following morning, Saturday morning, Lincoln had just died, and he went and reported what he knew.

[A]

He told police all about the visitors to the Surratt's boarding house, including John Wilkes Booth and Lewis Payne. Two days later, the police came back

[D]

to the boarding house, and they start inquiring, you know, what was going on here. Who were these people? And she kept saying that she didn't know anything. Well, then there's a knock on the door, and it's like 11 o' clock at night. So one of the detectives opens the door, and there's Louis Payne. And he had been hiding out in the cemetery since his attack on Seward two nights before. And they said to him, who are you and what are you here for? And he tried to lie. He said that he was there to check with Mrs. Surratt because he had been hired to do some yard work for her. And so he thought he'd get an early start. And of course, the detectives are like, early start? It's like 11:30 at night. What are you doing? So they make him come in the house, and they bring Mary Seurat over into the hal and they ask her, does she know him? And she very dramatically raises up her arm and her hand and says, I swear to God that I do not know who this person is. And the detectives thought that that was so bizarre, her behavior. They knew immediately that she knew who the guy was and she was lying.

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[A]

Police took Mary Seurat, her daughter Anna, and Louis Payne to the police station for questioning. When they took Mary in for questioning, what did she say?

[D]

She was very defiant and haughty, and she was trying to protect her son. So she had no concern that she would be in trouble. So she obfuscated, and she just danced around. And that, of course, infuriated some of the police detectives, but, you know, they. They just felt the answers weren't adequate.

[A]

The police asked her about John Wilkes Booth's visits. She said he didn't discuss politics much. She said she was shocked by his attack on President Lincoln. While she was being interviewed, the police searched Lewis Payne. They found blood stains on his clothing and that he was wearing boots with the name John Wilkes Booth. Inside, the police brought a servant from Secretary of State William Seward's house to the station.

[D]

He sees Payne, and he says, that's the man. That's the man who attacked Secretary Seward. So it just started snowballing from there.

[A]

Mary Surratt was arrested and jailed at a prison at the old Capitol building that had been used for military prisoners during the Civil War. The police had arrested six people involved in John Wilkes Booth's conspiracy. They couldn't find John Surratt Jr. He was in Canada. John Wilkes Booth had been on the run since he shot Lincoln. He had stopped at Mary Surratt's tavern and picked up a bottle of whiskey, spy glasses and guns. He reportedly said, I am pretty certain that we've assassinated the president. Almost two weeks later, on April 26, he was discovered hiding in a tobacco barn in Virginia. He was quickly surrounded by federal detectives and a cavalry regiment from New York. After two hours, one of the detectives decided to light the barn on fire. Soon after, a soldier shot him. He died a few hours later. Three days later, the government announced that they were going to indict eight people for conspiracy to assassinate the president. Mary Seurat was one of them. They would be tried together by a military tribunal.

[D]

And the argument that the government made was that the war wasn't Even though Lee had surrendered, there was still fighting going on in Texas and other Western states. And so the government used that as an excuse not to have the trial become a civilian trial, that we were still at war, they said, and so it should be a military trial. Now, military trials are very different than civilian trials. The protections for the defendant are not the same. They're not quite as rigorous. And at that time, defendants still had a tough time whether it was a civilian Court or not, there were protections for civilian defendants, but in a military tribunal, it's the judges and the jury are all the same people.

[A]

The trial was held at Fort McNair in Washington. In court, Mary wore a black veil

[D]

over her face, and occasionally she would have to lift the veil so that people could identify her. And so the press really latched onto Mary as this vicious, mean, terrible, evil woman. And there was even a publication that had drawings of all the conspirators. And Mary is at the center of it. It was like an oval with the different images of the co conspirators, the men. But she was center of this drawing. And it was very surprising because she didn't plan everything. She was not the center of the conspiracy, but the press made it sound like she was.

[A]

Mary was seated away from the rest of the male defendants. She didn't say anything during the proceedings. At that time, defendants weren't allowed to testify in their own trials. Sometimes Mary had to remove her veil so that a witness could identify her. A reporter said that her expression for the several hours she was under our eyes was that of a deeply somber gentleness. She is doing her best to make a favorable impression by dress and aspect upon her judges. But one newspaper called her a tigress, and another said that there was something repulsive about her. People in the courtroom were heard saying, she looks like a devil. One woman said, I hope they'll hang her. What is Mary's defense strategy?

[D]

That she didn't know anything. She didn't know that Booth was going to assassinate the president. And Mary was kind of haughty because she expected that her Victorian womanhood and her deep Catholic faith would protect her, that there was no way people would believe that she was involved in a plot to assassinate the president.

[A]

Lewis Weichman, Mary's border and John Surratt's friend, was one of the first witnesses called to testify. He described Mary as sweet and caring and someone he was fond of. He said he didn't understand why she was friends with John Wilkes Booth. He testified that he'd seen several of the arrested conspirators at the boarding house and that he'd been with Mary when she went to the tavern in the days before the assassination. Mary's lawyers weren't able to explain what Mary was doing in the week leading up to the assassination. They also said that Mary had bad eyesight. That was why she hadn't recognized Lewis Payne, the man who had tried to kill the Secretary of State, when he showed up at the boarding house. But Mary's borders testified that Mary didn't seem to have any problems with recognizing people by the dim gas lamps in the parlor. The prosecution brought several witnesses who remembered how often John Wilkes Booth came to visit Mary and had seen Mary delivering messages and supplies for Booth. The man who ran the tavern in Maryland for Mary testified that she had asked him to get the weapons hidden in the tavern ready to be picked up. Anna Surratt was called to the stand to testify for her mother's defense. Afterward, she fainted. She attended every day of the trial after that. The newspapers reported that she had had a cheering effect on Mary. Later, Mary's health started to decline, and the court let Anna stay with Mary in her cell. During. In their closing arguments, Mary's lawyers called Mary widowed of her natural protectors and that her son John was really the one who had been involved. They also argued that the military trial was unconstitutional. Two days later, the commission decided that all eight defendants were guilty. Four were sentenced to prison and the rest were given a death sentence. Mary Surratt was one of them. Five of the commissioners from the trial wrote in their decision that they thought Mary's sentence should be commuted to life in prison because of her sex and age. She was 42. Their recommendation went to President Andrew Johnson, who had the final say in approving the sentences. On July 5, Andrew Johnson approved the execution of Mary Seurat. He said that Mary's sex did not make her any the less guilty and that she kept the nest that hatched the egg. The execution was scheduled for two days later. Do you think Mary ever thought that she would get a death sentence?

[D]

I think Mary never thought in a million years that she would get a death sentence. I think she thought she might get a couple years in prison, and that's it.

[A]

Mary's lawyer said, so sudden was the shock, so unexpected the result, we hardly knew how to proceed. They went to the White House to try to speak with President Johnson. He wouldn't see them. They brought Anna Surratt to see one of the president's military advisors to see if he would talk to the president. Later that morning, he told them he had tried, but the president would not change his mind. He said, I can do nothing. On July 7, thousands of people came to Washington for the execution. Mary was being hanged with three other men. When the executioner put the noose around Mary's neck, some people in the crowd got upset. It was the first time a woman had been executed by the federal government.

[D]

Oddly, as soon as the hanging happened, within a couple of days, the public sort of soured on the idea, and I think it's sort of like trauma from the Civil War to begin with. They were just tired of all of this, and they wanted to move on as a country and to put everything behind them. And everyone was uncomfortable with the hanging of a woman, particularly because there were photographs available, the hanging. And for the people who saw them, it was shocking.

[A]

People began to say that Louis Weichman had lied on the stand, that he was actually part of the assassination conspiracy. Two weeks after her execution, one newspaper reported, the conviction is strengthening that Mrs. Mary E. Surratt was innocent of any complicity in the murder of Mr. Lincoln. Everything in her personal character repels the idea that she could have lent her aid to the atrocious deed. President Johnson was later criticized for signing off on Mary's death sentence.

[D]

There was so much drama, I think, that the newspapers loved printing it all. And so they just kept feeding into this idea that the government had hanged this innocent woman. And the images are just so appalling that people, you know, bought into it.

[A]

Mary's son, John Surratt Jr. Had been in hiding in Canada during his mother's trial. After her execution, he went to Europe.

[D]

He goes to France and then Italy. He joins the Papal Guards. He's traveling through Europe trying to escape federal detectives that are. They're getting clues from different people that he's in England, then he's in. In Paris, he's in France and Italy, and then he goes to Egypt, and eventually he does get captured and brought back to the United States. In 1867, John Surratt Jr. Was tried

[A]

for treason, but his case ended in a mistrial. In 1868, the charges were dropped. He began touring the country, giving lectures about his mother's innocence.

[D]

And those who supported Mary, I mean, they kept campaigning for 40 years until they ended up all dying of old age, et cetera, to convince the world that she was innocent and to have her pardoned posthumously, which she never was. And some of them had the evidence, but they just would not accept that Mary as a woman was involved.

[A]

Historians have debated about what Mary Surratt did or did not do for over 100 years. Kate Clifford Larson says she's looked at the documents from the trial and at interviews from witnesses and the conspirators.

[D]

There's no way that a person can come away thinking she was not informed, that she was not a co conspirator, that she, you know, that she couldn't have helped John Wilkes Booth.

[A]

After Mary's execution, the New York Times wrote that she had paid the penalty of her crime, and the wisest thing is to let her name be as far forgotten as the magnitude of that crime will allow.

[D]

I think, you know, when it comes to the story of Lincoln and Booth, it's such a neat story. This handsome, wonderful actor loses his mind over losing to the Union and he kills Lincoln. And that's it. It's kind of a complicated story when you realize how many Confederate spies there were and how many co conspirators were there and how many people hated Abraham Lincoln, who becomes this martyr figure for all of us and then to have a woman be part of it. It's such a complicated story, but I think everyone should know about Mary Surratt.

[A]

Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sachiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for our [e-mail] Newsletter we hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program Criminal. Plus, you can listen to Criminal this is Love and Phoebe reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co creator Lauren Spore talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week, to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to patreon.com criminal more on Facebook @thisiscriminal and Instagram and TikTok criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com criminalpodcast criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great [e-mail] I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.