Existing comment:
July 7, 1865:
On July 5 President Johnson approved the sentences handed down by the military commission. Frantic efforts were made to prevent Mary Surratt from becoming the first woman executed by the federal government. Her daughter went to the White House to beg for mercy, but the president would not see her. Despite this and other pleas, President Johnson signed the death warrant.
1:26pm:
It was just after one o'clock in the afternoon of July 7, when the prisoners were led out into the courtyard of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary. Their graves had been dug a few feet from the gallows. Hundreds of spectators looked on as the trap was sprung at 1:26pm. The bodies were cut down, placed in pine boxes, and buried.
The Deed is Done:
Outside the prison walls, a crowd celebrated the executions with lemonade and cake. Soon the gallows were broken up and fragments distributed as souvenirs. Three-and-a-half years later the remains of the conspirators were exhumed from the prison yard and released to their families for reburial.
George Atzerodt's remains now rest in St. Paul's Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland; Mary Surratt's in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Washington, DC; David Herold's in Congressional Cemetery, Washington DC; and Lewis Powell's in Geneva Cemetery, Florida. |