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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Abraham Lincoln’s assassination: This woman was the first to be executed by US federal government

On July 07, 1865, four people were hanged including Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed by the federal government in the United States capital for her role in the assassination of 16th US President Abraham Lincoln

Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt was the first woman in US history to get executed. She went to the gallows after she was convicted of treason, and Lincoln conspirator.

At the tender age of 17, Mary got hitched to John Harrison Surratt – a landowner. Following a fire at their place, that wrecked their residence completely, Surrat had fallen into serious debt, and the outbreak of the American Civil War completed his ruin, he later died in 1862.

Two years after the death of her husband, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she started a boardinghouse. Among her son’s pro-Southern friends who met at her boardinghouse was John Wilkes Booth, who also conspired with John Surratt and others to kidnap Lincoln. When the alliance fell, Booth instead assassinated Lincoln on April 14, 1865, and succumbed resisting his capture.

On the night of Lincoln’s assassination, Mary’s boardinghouse was visited by members of another police force, as Lincoln was being attacked across town. It was Surratt’s association with Booth that ultimately led to her conviction, though some historians expressed reservations on her alleged involvement and whether it really warranted so harsh a sentence.

Booth, on the day of Lincoln’s assassination, asked Surratt to deliver a package, which was later discovered to contain firearms. Surratt later ran into John Lloyd – a former Washington cop. When authorities first interrogated Lloyd about their encounter, he did not reveal anything significant and denied that Booth and David Herold had visited his tavern.

Later, he confessed that Mary told him to have whiskey and weapons ready for Booth and Herold. Louis Weichmann, who delivered the package with Surratt, was released after he testified against her.

However, he later alleged the government pressurizes him to testify. Furthermore, Lewis Powell, a conspirator who got also hanged with Surratt, proclaimed her innocence to his executioner minutes before his execution.

Mary denied conspiracy charges, despite testimony from her tavern keeper that she had told him to keep weapons at the ready on the day of the assassination. She was held in the Old Capital Prison along with many other suspected co-conspirators.

Interestingly, Mary was tried by a military tribunal instead of a civil court. At her trial, several priests and friends tried defending her but their testimony and her own protestations of innocence were not enough to save her.

Officials were expected at the 17th of US President Andrew Johnson to pardon Surratt as the country never hanged a woman. Later, the execution was delayed till afternoon, and troops were stationed on every block between the White House and Fort McNair, the execution site, to relay the expected pardon it never happened.

She was hanged, along with the other alleged co-conspirators, a move which is reportedly shocking for the US at it never happened before. She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery has since been portrayed in a number of movies.

A news outlet quoted sources said, “Before she was hanged, she is reported to have asked the guard near her not to let her fall.”

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