A Lawyer/Soldier Called To Serve

Colonel Burnett, Mood of the Time, Deathbed

What Was Known

Investigation, Assassination, Seward's Attack, Other Attempts

The Investigation

First Steps, Military Court

The Conspiracy

Planning, 14 April 1865, The Escape

The Search Tightens

Cornered, Garrett's Barn

The Trial and Its Aftermath

The Sentences, Habeas Corpus, Gen. Hancock, Mrs Surratt,
An Inhuman Crime?, Pres. Johnson and Gen. Holt, Military or Civil

Lincoln

A Man for the Ages, Lincoln Links, Lincoln Books, Newspaper Accounts
Assassination Microfilm

Brig.Gen. Henry L. Burnett

The Investigation
FIRST STEPS
As I have said before, while it was rumored and generally believed, that J. Wilkes Booth was the assassin, for some days this rested only upon the statements of some of the persons at the theatre that they believed it was Booth; they thought they recognized him as he ran across the stage, but could not be certain about it.

The first evidence which conclusively established his identity in the minds of those investigating the facts, was obtained about the 21st or 22nd of April. It was known that the assassin had injured himself when he jumped from the President's box, that he limped as he ran across the stage, and it was subsequently ascertained that he had broken one bone of his left leg.

He was traced to Dr. Mudd's house near Bryantown, Maryland, and there, on the 21st, was secured the boot which Dr. Mudd had out from his leg, when he set the bone. On the inside of the boot was the number of the boot, the name of the maker, and the words "J. Wilkes." As soon as the boot was received at the War Department, I had ex-Marshall Murray put aboard a special engine and sent to New York to look up the maker and ascertain for whom the boot was made. That night a telegram was received from him saying the boot was made for J. Wilkes Booth.

Microfilm: Who Examined Mudd?

This settled the identity of the assassin in our minds beyond all doubt, and was the basis on which we proceeded in our investigations as to who were the aiders and abettors of the assassin and who were his co-conspirators.

The investigation of the facts was prosecuted under the personal direction of the Secretary of War with earnest diligence, until the day the Court was ordered to convene, May 8th. A more indefatigable tireless worker it has never been my fortune to encounter either in military or civil life, than Secretary Stanton. Many nights I worked with him until the morning dawn began to steal in at the windows, and many nights I left the department at midnight or in the small hours of the morning completely worn out, and left him still there working.

Early in my work I had a personal experience with Secretary Stanton which illustrates some of his characteristics. Almost immediately after the commencing my investigation, I learned that a Mr. Weichman and a Mr. Hollahan, who had been boarders with Mrs. Suratt, had been sent by the Secretary to Canada to find John H. Surratt, whom the Secretary believed to have been one of the conspirators, and if possible to bring him back to Washington. A few days after learning this fact, two men appeared at my office in the War Department, and announced themselves as Weichman and Hollahan. I wrote their names on a card and went to the Secretary, announced their arrival and asked for instructions.

He was busy and very briefly said, "Take their statements and have them report from day to day." This I wrote on the card and returned to my office. I then had their statements taken down stenographically and instructed them to report from day to day.

That evening, I should think about 12 o'clock, a messenger appeared at my room at Willard's Hotel, a Mr. Olcott, a Special Agent then at work on this investigation, and said to me, "The Secretary wants you, and the devil is to pay." I said, "What is it?" He answered, "I don't know, but he is in a terrible temper."

When I appeared before him, he was walking up and down his office apparently in a great state of excitement, and burst out with, "I hear that Weichman and Hollahan were in your office today, and that you let them go." I said, "Yes, Mr. Secretary, but.." I got no further when he broke in with, "You had no business to let these men go. They are some of the conspirators, and you have them here at this office by 8 o'clock tomorrow morning, or I will deal with you." I again commenced, "But Mr. Secretary..." (intending to add that it was by his instruction) but he interrupted by saying, "Not a word, sir, you have those men here by tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock."

I saw there was no use to attempt any controversy with him or explain, so turned back and went into my office, a good deal dismayed and disheartened. I sat down at my desk, thinking what I should do. I then recalled one of the military maxims, that where a grave and important duty is imposed by a superior, the power is always equal to the duty, and immediately wrote out an order to General Augur, who was then in command of the District at Washington, to at once detail a regiment to command and guard all the usual modes of ingress and egress to Washington, to examine every person who department therefrom during the night or in the morning until further orders, and to carefully inspect each person departing in order to find and bring to the War Department the next morning by 8 o'clock the two men Weichman and Hollahan, giving as near as I could a careful description of their persons. I further ordered him to detail two Companies to report at once to me at the war Department for duty, and signed the same by order of the Secretary of War.

When these Companies arrived, I divided them into squads of ten each, in command of either a commissioned or non-commissioned officer, and commence at the Georgetown Bridge to ring up and examine all the occupants in each house on each street leading to the Capitol, except of course, the residences of foreign diplomats and cabinet ministers, taking charge myself of one squad and one street. I directed them to report tome at Willards at 7 o'clock in the morning. At 7 o'clock all my squads reported to me and reported an utter failure.

I then started up to the War Department as disheartened and discouraged a man as you could have found in the City of Washington to report to the Secretary and take my medicine. Just as I was passing along diagonally in front of the Presidential Mansion, and nearly opposite General Augur's Headquarters, I nearly ran into a man, and looking up discovered it was Weichman. I was almost overcome with conflicting emotions, threw my arms about him for a moment and then linked my arm in his, and said "Come with me." He was considerably surprised at my agitation, but made no objection, and we walked up towards the War Department.

I inquired where he had slept the night before, and where Hollahan was. He said that as he had formerly been employed as a clerk in the Quartermaster General's Office, some of the Clerks had tendered bunks to himself and Hollahan for the night and they had both slept there. (It had never entered my head the night before to examine the military offices of the Government.)

As soon as I reached my room, I sent an orderly over to the Quartermaster Department, and he returned almost immediately with Hollahan.

Putting them both in my room and putting a sentinel at the door so that they should not vanish, I took the card that I had taken with me in my interview the day before with Mr. Stanton, and went into his room. It was then just about 8 o'clock. As I came in, Mr. Stanton who was then seated at his desk, looked up and said, "Well have you those men?" I said, "Yes, Mr. Secretary, they are in my office." His whole manner and countenance changed from that of a grim sort of ill-nature to that of a pleased smile.

I was then a good deal aroused and indignant, and I turned upon him and said, "And now, Mr. Stanton, I am through with service under you and I beg here and now to tender my resignation to take effect immediately. You would have condemned and disgraced me without a hearing for obeying your own order, and I am damned if I will serve further under any such man. here is the card I brought into you yesterday on which the names of these two witnesses were written, whose names I gave distinctly to you, and on it I wrote the order you gave me, namely, to take their statements, let them go, and have them report from day to day. Here it is, and this order I implicitly obeyed, now I am through with you and with the service."

He got up from his desk, came over to where I was standing, placed one hand on my should and said, "General, I ask your pardon. I was wrong, but remember the great strain I am under in trying to save the country. In seeking to achieve the best and the public rights, sometimes individual right goes down. I am doing the best I can with all the power with which God has endowed me to save our country. Forget this matter and go back and go on with your work and help me in the great work I am trying to do."

Thus ended the matter so far as I was concerned, and I went on with my work.

THE MILITARY COURT
Prior to the first of May the President, Andrew Johnson, officially called upon the Attorney General James Speed for an opinion as to whether or not the persons implicated in the murder of the President and the attempted assassination of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and in an alleged conspiracy to assassinate other officers of the Government, and their aiders and abettors, were lawfully triable before a military commission in Washington, and the Attorney General having given his opinion in response thereto that the said parties were so lawfully triable, on the 1st day of May, the President ordered the Adjutant-General to detail nine competent military officers to serve as such commission.

On the 6th of May, the Adjutant-General issued an order appointing a military commission to meet at Washington on the 8th of May for the trial of Herold, Atzerodt, Payne, O'Laughlin, Spangler, Arnold, Mrs. Surratt, Dr. Mudd, and such persons as might be brought before it implicated in the murder of the late President Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and in an alleged conspiracy to assassinate other officers of the Federal Government at Washington City, and their aiders and abettors.

The detail of the Court was as follows: Major-General David Hunter, Major-General Lewis Wallace, Brevet Major-General Augustus V. Kautz, Brigadier-General Albion P. Howe, Brigadier-General Albert S. Foster, Brigadier-General T.M. Harris, Brevet Brigadier-General James A. Ekin, Colonel C.H. Tompkins, Lieutenant-Colonel David T. Clendenin.

It is not my purpose to review the history and scope of the conspiracy as developed by the proof submitted to the Court. It is sufficient for the purpose of this paper to say that nine brave soldiers and intelligent and conscientious officers, after two months of careful and laborious investigation, did find and decide that the accused, together with Surratt, Booth, Jefferson, Davis, and his rebel agents and confederates then in Canada, namely, George N. Saunders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper and George Young were guilty of conspiring to kill and murder President Lincoln, Vice-President Johnson, Secretary Seward and General Grant.

It should be remembered also in this connection that during all the two months of this investigation by the commission, each of the accused was represented by one or more able counsel, among whom were the Hon. Beverly Johnson, of Maryland; General Thomas Ewing, then of Washington, Frederick A. Aiken, W.E. Foster, Walter S. Cox, and Frederick Stone, and that the whole power of the Government was put at the service of the accused, and used unreservedly by their counsel to bring from any part of the United States any witnesses they might desire.

Some of the counsel for the accused seemed to be as much convinced as the court of the guilty participation of the rebel authorities at Richmond and their confederates in Canada, in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. Cox said in his argument "the assassination of the President and other heads of Government may have been discussed in the south, as a measure of ultimate resort to retrieve the fortunes of the Confederacy, when at their lowest ebb: the rebel agents in Canada may have individually signified their approval of the measure in the abstract, long since; but I undertake to maintain upon the evidence that there was never any final determination, on the part of any person or persons, with whom any of these accused can possibly be connected, actually to attempt the life of the President or other functionary until a few days -- about a week -- before the murder."

Again he says, speaking of Booth, "The theory of the prosecution is that Booth who is acknowledged to have been the head and front and soul of the conspiracy, if there was one, was only the hireling tool of these rebel emissaries. I think he was probably something more, but it will not vary the result. "I think he was probably actuated, not only by the sordid hope of gain, but by a misguided, perverted ambition. Of strong will and passions, and high nervous organization, accustomed to play parts and those of a tragic character, he had contracted perverted and artificial views of life and duty, and had aspired to be the Brutus in real life that he had been or seen on the boards. "He well knew, however, that the act that he contemplated would be execrated all the world over, except possibly among those whom he intended to serve. Therefore, whether pecuniary reward or false glory was his object, he could hope for neither until he was secure of their approbation. Whatever his principle of action, he was wholly without motive for so desperate an undertaking until he supposed he had the approval of the rebel authorities. when does the evidence show this was given?"

Mr. Cox then proceeds to review the testimony, or a portion of it, given upon this point, and adds, "Thus, in the end there is seen to be a substantial accord between all the three witnesses, on the important question when the formal sanction of the Richmond authorities was received in Canada, and when consequently for the first time they were in a condition to give their formal and official approval to the proposed assassination."

Let me here say personally after this quotation from the argument of counsel for the accused themselves, that my own judgment upon the testimony was at the time that while the proposed enterprise of assassinating the President and Vice-President, members of the Cabinet and General Grant had been brought to the attention of the Richmond authorities and to Jefferson Davis, there was no conclusive evidence to show that Davis sanctioned or approved this undertaking. The proof, I think, also shows that it was brought to his attention and that he did not condemn or undertake to suppress the movement.

That the Confederate agents in Canada did actually take part in fomenting and forwarding the conspiracy, I think was conclusively established.

As early as November 1864, Booth was considering wild schemes either of forcible abduction of the President or assassination and was busy, from that time down to the day of the assassination, in trying to enlist others in the devilish enterprise.
CONTINUE

A Lawyer/Soldier Called To Serve

Colonel Burnett, Mood of the Time, Deathbed

What Was Known

Investigation, Assassination, Seward's Attack, Other Attempts

The Investigation

First Steps, Military Court

The Conspiracy

Planning, 14 April 1865, The Escape

The Search Tightens

Cornered, Garrett's Barn

The Trial and Its Aftermath

The Sentences, Habeas Corpus, Gen. Hancock, Mrs Surratt,
An Inhuman Crime?, Pres. Johnson and Gen. Holt, Military or Civil

Lincoln

A Man for the Ages, Lincoln Links, Lincoln Books, Newspaper Accounts
Assassination Microfilm

Brig.Gen. Henry L. Burnett