Mary Surratt: Accomplice or Innocent Bystander Mary Surratt was a woman of many firsts. She was the first woman to ever be executed by the United States federal government. Her crime was suspected involvement in the first United States President assassination. This is better known as President Lincoln’s assassination by John Wilkes Booth. But how much did she really know about the scheme? Was she an accomplice to Booth, like many others including her son, or was she an innocent bystander who accidently got involved with assassins? Many people have heard of the John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s shooter, but few have heard of the people behind the scenes of the assassination. Some of the people suspected to be involved included Lewis …show more content…
When the civil war had ended and the south had been defeated she wept openly. “She “loved the south too much,” one of her accusers claimed; her optimism for a southern victory, along with the professional and political aspirations of her rebel son John, had evaporated. Her dreams were replaced with despair, and now, perhaps, desperation” (Larson 14). Mary Surratt was a very patriotic woman, however she was patriotic for the wrong side of the war. If she was involved in the assassination, then she would be acting out of love for her country. She was worried for her son John, who had been carrying secret messages for the south. She did not know what would happen to him now that the war was over. It is possible that worry could have driven her to help John Wilkes Booth. “A likeminded confederate sympathizer, Booth had much in common with the Surratts” (Larson 15). Booth often stayed at the Surratt’s house. He got along with them very well, He and John got involved in secret confederate business, and Mary must have known something of their plans. She may have been worried at first, but Booth must have calmed her fears. “She considered him fine company for her son, from the “best society” she would later remark” (Surratt 15). She trusted him and he grew closer to their …show more content…
“During and after her trial if you supporters imagined she was an innocent victim in John Wilkes Booth’s lethal plot, and that her age and gender should have saved her from the gallows” (Larson XLVII). But she was killed, justly or unjustly, for her involvement.
“The government’s case against Mary Surratt was weak and largely circumstantial, but for some reason they made every effort not only to convict her of complicity in the assassination of Lincoln, but to make sure she received the death penalty.” They had bribed judges and tortured witnesses and defendants. They had hidden evidence and tried to emotionally influence the courts. It was not a fair trial Some people were very happy that she was executed. “On the day of her hanging, Mary Surratt was the most reviled woman in America. But public opinion shifted again and again from the time of her arrest through the century and a half following the execution” (Larson XII). People started to regret the case. “Americans have a strong tendency to whitewash history. It is more pleasant for us to believe and easier to teach our children that all our great leaders have been virtuous, that all our causes have been noble, and that all our courts have been just” (Scruggs). Americans want to sugar coat it. But the truth is this case was unjust. Whether or not her crime was worthy of death, the trial was