Before being executed, the co-conspirator who attacked Seward claimed she was innocent (a debate that still continues to this day). Surratt never stopped defending her innocence. Before she was hanged, she is reported to have asked the guard near her not to let her fall. Dressed in black, she led the procession of prisoners to their death. It was a move that shocked the country.ĭespite last-minute attempts to gain clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison, Mary Surratt was executed by hanging on July 7 of that year. Not only was she convicted, she was sentenced to death, along with the other alleged co-conspirators, on June 30, 1865. (The house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is now a sushi restaurant and karaoke spot).Īt her trial, Surratt was defended by several priests and friends the New York Times called “constant and faithful.” But their testimony and her own protestations of innocence were not enough.
#TAVERN KEEPER WOMAN SERIES#
The death of her husband, who was heavily in debt, led to a series of financial catastrophes for Surratt, which eventually prompted her to move to Washington, D.C. By the time her openly secessionist husband died in 1862, her home was being used as a safe house for Confederate spies. In 1851, her family farm burned to the ground, allegedly set ablaze by an escaped slave. As a child on a tobacco farm and, later, a farmer’s wife, Surratt’s loyalties skewed Southern and pro-slave: her family owned seven slaves. After all, she was from Maryland, a state that straddled North-South loyalties. Surratt stands at the border of Civil War conflict.
Among them was Mary Surratt, who was the first woman to be executed by the federal government-but whose story remains a mystery to this day. It’s been 150 years since the first conspirators who killed Abraham Lincoln were executed.
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