The Judges of the Secret Court (29 page)

The plea could not very well be torn up. In small matters Stanton practised an exact legality. But there were other ways of dealing with it.

Johnson wanted no trouble. That was clear from his behaviour, for he seemed unwilling to go out of the White House until the trial was over with, and saw few visitors. The clemency plea would have to be presented to him, of course. But that did not mean that he had to see it.

One had merely to slip the plea inside the end of the record, out of order, and begin the death warrant immediately after the last signature on the report of the proceedings of the Commission. Instead of continuing the death warrant from top to bottom on the obverse, begin it from bottom to top, so that, having to turn the papers over to see where to add his signature, Johnson would be even less likely to riffle through the endless pages of the report, and so find the plea. Holt had not thought of such a device. Stanton had. That was why he was still Secretary of War.

Holt delivered the papers to the White House. When they came back, there was Johnson's signature all right, on the reverse of the last page. As for the clemency plea, that could now be taken out and buried in the official files.

The execution was scheduled for the 7th of July, between noon and two in the afternoon. As an added precaution, Stanton suggested that the Commission need not read the verdict to the accused until the afternoon of the 6th.

There was a leak, somewhere, to the press. Damn the press. The Defence Counsel sat in their offices. No one expected the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, least of all themselves. But the sentence was certainly long delayed. At noon Aiken heard newsboys crying in the street, and opened the window. Both he and Clampitt leaned out. Reverdy Johnson, needless to say, was not with them. He was off somewhere denouncing President Johnson one moment, and intriguing, successfully it turned out, to be appointed by him Minister to England the next.

“Execution of Mrs. Surratt,” shouted the newsboys. “Execution of Mrs. Surratt.”

The two men did not bother to go down for a paper. There was too much to be done in too short a time. Yet they hardly knew how to proceed. The law is not adjusted to haste, and yet it was now five o'clock in the afternoon.

They tried to reach the President, without success. Then they wired Reverdy Johnson. Johnson wired back telling them to get a writ of habeas corpus. His answer was delayed until midnight. None the less, they called on Judge Wylie at two in the morning. After telling them he would probably land in the Old Capitol before the day was out if he did so, he issued them a writ, which they left off at the United States Marshal's office at four, with instructions that it be served on Hancock, the Governor of the Prison. At ten, President Johnson informed Hancock that since the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended by Lincoln, and had not been restored, he hereby especially condemned the writ. The execution was to proceed.

Annie Surratt went to the White House. All she wanted was three days' stay of execution, so that her mother might prepare for death. It was useless. The President would see no one.

Even Wood tried to intervene. He went to the White House, and, being turned away from the portico, tried the rear entrance instead. He found Lafayette Baker waiting for him there, on Stanton's orders. Of all people, said Stanton, Wood specifically was to be prevented from seeing the President. That took care of Wood.

But then Stanton found that he had Father Walter to deal with.

When the prisoners' religious advisers asked for a stay of execution, so that the condemned might prepare for death, the Commission answered that the prisoners had had the whole period of the trial to prepare for death. And so they had. But death was not the same as being confronted with a death sentence.

At noon on the 6th of July the Military Commission appeared at the prison. They made a spot of colour in that grey gloom. Methodically they moved from cell to cell. Stopping before the door of Mrs. Surratt's, they informed her, drily, that she was guilty of the specification. She was to hang. She was not, however, guilty of harbouring Arnold and O'Laughlin.

She burst into tears. Before the doctors calmed her with valerian, she had time to request that she be allowed to see Annie and her spiritual adviser, Father Walter. She had asked for him before, though without success, but surely now he would be allowed to come. She was a Catholic. They had no right to condemn her to die unshriven.

The Commission made note of her request, and then moved on to the other cells.

Herold was to die.

Atzerodt was to die.

Payne was to die.

It was what Payne wanted, but even he was shaken by the haste with which he was to be shuffled off. He sent for Captain Rath. He wanted to attest to Mrs. Surratt's innocence again. The woman must not be hanged. That was all he cared about any more.

The Commission stopped before Spangler's cell. He was virtually exonerated. Someone had testified to having seen two men conspiring in front of Ford's Theatre, the one Booth, the other a man with a moustache who resembled Spangler. But Spangler had never worn a moustache. Not even the prosecution could prove that he had. So he was innocent. He would not hang. He had only to serve at hard labour for six years.

Dr. Mudd received hard labour for life. So did Arnold and O'Laughlin. The Commission had shown its clemency in the case of Spangler. That was enough.

It was not enough, however, for Stanton. Johnson had foolishly assigned the men to Albany Penitentiary, in New York State, where anyone might speak to them, and who was to know what they might say? New York State had been disloyal during the war. Its Governor had defied Stanton himself. Let them therefore be transferred to the Dry Tortugas.

He forced Johnson to sign the transfer. Perhaps they would catch the yellow fever there, and so die. The Dry Tortugas were notorious. They were dry only in the sense that they were not under water, and Fort Jackson was the toughest, and least healthy of all the Federal prisons. A red brick fort, surrounded by a moat, it sat in the bright shark infested sea off Florida, unvisited and ominous. No one had ever escaped from there. No news came from there. If a prisoner tried to escape, the sharks would get him, even if the guards did not.

Mudd quailed when he heard the news. As he told his jailers, he was a gentleman. He could not survive in such a place.

Stanton heartily hoped he would not. Meanwhile there was this meddlesome fool, Walter, to be dealt with. Mrs. Surratt had sent for him. He was a priest. He would have to be bottled.

Stanton bottled him. A Protestant himself, he was at least the equal to a Catholic priest.

Mrs. Surratt did not know Father Walter, except by repute. She had first sent for him on the 23rd of April, before the trial had begun. He had not been allowed to attend her then. He did not intend to be prevented from seeing her now.

He was an absurd looking person. He had a flat white face, an enormous nose, wore his hair long, and beamed at the world from behind chunky spectacles. He looked more like Hans Christian Andersen than a real person. But though people often found him tedious, no one had ever called him dishonest. He was not a political priest. He was not a famous orator. In fact, he could scarcely deliver a sermon at all. But he did believe in his vocation. He scarcely knew who Mrs. Surratt was, but since she had called for his help, he would not let her go to the scaffold unshriven. As soon as he had received her request, he asked the War Department for a pass, so he might visit her. A messenger brought him one. He told the messenger he believed her innocent, and prepared to go to the prison.

He did not get there. An hour later Hardie, one of Stanton's men, called on him to say that the pass was invalid unless countersigned by Stanton.

Father Walter did not understand.

Hardie explained. Walter must promise to say no more about Mrs. Surratt's innocence. Only then might he receive the necessary pass.

Walter was indignant. What right had the Government to deny Mrs. Surratt the rights of her religion? He told Hardie he would say what he believed to be true.

Hardie looked embarrassed. He said that as yet there were no charges lodged against Walter at the War Department.

Walter lost his temper. He said he would proclaim the woman's innocence, and the War Department could hang him if it thought proper. Hardie turned to leave. There was an overweaning cringe about the man Walter did not care for, but he could not allow him to leave. Scruples or no, it was his duty to give the woman what comfort he could. He said he would agree to the conditions.

Even so, he was not allowed into the prison until the morning of Mrs. Surratt's execution. In the meantime, one of Stanton's men was sent to Bishop Spaulding of Baltimore, to urge that silence be enjoined upon Walter. Spaulding had to agree. He also believed Mrs. Surratt to be innocent, but like Walter, he did not see why, on that account, she should be denied extreme unction and the solace of confession. He wrote to Walter, as Stanton directed, but he refused to make his advice an order. He made the condition a suggestion and a request, nothing more.

Stanton did not care about that. He had bottled Walter. Walter did not care either. It was his duty to save the woman's soul, and that he had succeeded in doing. As for damning the Government, that could wait.

The morning of the execution indicated a hot, windless, and suffocating day. It was scarcely dawn, the prisoners were not to be killed until one, and yet the crowd was already assembling outside the prison walls, and, for those privileged actually to gain admittance to the spectacle, inside. After all, in the history of the country so far this was to be a unique event.

Payne was still trying to exonerate Mrs. Surratt. He had sent his statement to General Hartranft, the Provost Marshal in charge of the execution, who believed him, soothed him, but could do nothing.

Herold was surrounded by his sisters. He had wept ever since his sentence had been read to him. Now his sisters wept. In their best dresses, black, and with long trailing skirts, they clustered around him, all seven of them. Rath, the executioner, found the sight an affecting one. They wept, but they did not seem to have much to say. What was there to say?

Atzerodt and Payne had no visitors.

Atzerodt's conduct was disgusting. Since he did not believe in God, he had no one to appeal to, so prayer meant nothing to him. He could only kneel, as though at a block, and shriek, “Oh, oh, oh.” It was a demeaning sight.

Payne was, as usual, stolid.

As for Mrs. Surratt, she was three-fourths dead, and drugged with valerian. She asked a Mr. Brophy, a friend of the family who had managed to get in to see her, to try, at some future time, when the passions of the war were cooled, to clear her name. He promised to do so.

The interview with Annie was worse. What can one say, when one will never be able to speak again? Once Annie had gone, Mrs. Surratt wrote a note to Mrs. Holahan to ask that good woman to stay with Annie during the execution. Poor Annie, what would she do now?

Then she sent for Father Walter. It was time for her confession. She had been moved down to a condemned cell. Father Walter found her on a pallet on the floor. He heard her confession, and found her innocent as a babe unborn, or so he said. Later he was to put the matter even more strongly: there was not enough evidence against her to hang a cat.

But you do not need evidence to hang a cat.

Atzerodt asked to know if there was no hope.

At eleven twenty-five Rath filled a bag with shot to test the efficacy of the drops. He did not like what he was doing. He was so sure Mrs. Surratt would get a last minute reprieve, that he had tied only five knots in her noose, instead of the customary six. And yet the reprieve did not come.

It was noon. The crowd was restless. It did not like to be kept waiting for its death.

A chair was placed outside Mrs. Surratt's cell, on which she sat. Neither was it kind to keep the prisoners waiting for theirs.

At fifteen minutes after one the procession formed. Mrs. Surratt, in black, walked between her priests. The last time she had seen this yard was when she had walked in it with Annie. It had been deserted then. Now its red brick wall was lined with Union soldiers, their fatigue caps at jaunty angles. She could not see their faces, but their bodies were lean and negligent. Three men on the left end of the wall sat with their legs over the parapet. As she entered the yard they scrambled to their feet. Except for a trivial accident of birth, John might have stood among them.

The yard was rank with grass. Summer had turned it yellow. Against the wall one or two ladders lay on their sides. A guard of soldiers faced the scaffold. The scaffold itself was raw yellow pine, oozing at the pores. More than anything else, it resembled a hall settle with the cane back removed, so one might see the ropes.

To the left stood an annex to the main prison, green shuttered, but with some of its windows open to the scaffold.

The spectators huddled under that, some in black frock coats and some in white, with white dusters and white caps on their heads. A few carried bumbershoots, because of the heat. The bumbershoots were made of black silk. These were privileged people, or at the least, members of the press, and impatient with her for being late.

She was herself privileged. Being a woman, she too had her umbrella.

The walk to the scaffold was brief. As she approached, the soldiers gave way. Atzerodt and Herold went snivelling ahead of her. Apparently the prison doctor had omitted to give them a sedative. Overhead the sky was taut enough to crack or splinter. In colour it was a porcellaneous blue. Payne also went ahead of her. That giant did not walk. He processed. From time to time he would halt to look around at the spectators. He was a proud man, and pride steadies the nerves. He seemed calm. It was a shame that, except for his guards, he should have to walk alone.

Though half the spectators had come here for thrills, that did not mean that they were willing to watch. They fidgeted. The condemned reached the bottom of the scaffold and began to mount. The thick boards of the platform were unplaned and unevenly laid, and rattled beneath their feet. There were two chairs to the left, and two to the right. You could see the join of the drop, where its boards did not quite match those of the flooring. From above, the spectators looked trivial, anxious, and silly. It was not how she would have chosen to see the last of the world. She looked at the blank, uncurtained windows of the prison and scarcely noticed them.