Mary Surratt's Accomplice

April 14, 1865 was one of the most shocking days in American history. Only 5 days after the end of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, our then President was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln was watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. when Booth managed to get in Lincoln’s private box and fired a single-shot to the back of Lincoln’s head. When talking about Lincoln’s assassination you always hear Booth being mentioned, but what people don’t usually know is that there was a female participant. Mary Surratt, a Confederate sympathizer, was the only female participant in the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Her and Booth, along with other conspirators which included her son John Surratt, met in her boardinghouse to plan Lincoln’s assassination. Kate Clifford Larson’s book, The Assassin’s Accomplice, tells the riveting story of the scheme to assassinate Abraham Lincoln through the eyes of Mary Surratt and her life story. Larson holds two degrees from Simmons College, an MBA from Northeastern University, and a doctorate in history from the University of New Hampshire. She part time teaches history at

Simmons College. Sh has been both a consultant and interpretive specialist for many museums and public history initiatives. She is also the author of three well recognized biographies, Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, The Assassin’s Accomplice, and Rosemary The Hidden Kennedy Daughter. Personally, The Assassin’s Accomplice, looked very interesting because it tells Mary Surratt’s story and how she became the first women ever to be executed by the federal government of the United States. It catches one’s attention because it doesn't revolve around John Wilkes Booth.
Larson starts of The Assassin’s Accomplice by stating her opinion. She believed that Mary Surratt was innocent, but after all the research that she did she believes that Surratt was not only guilty, but she was far more involved in the plot to kill Lincoln than many historians have given her credit for.
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins, daughter of Archibald and Elizabeth Anne Jenkins, was born in 1823. She grew up along side with her two siblings and mother, due to her father passing away when she was just two years old. Mary was sixteen years old when she met John Harrison Surratt, who she married in August 1840. John was an alcoholic and abusive husband, so Mary received little support and basically raised her three children on her own. After Lincoln’s inauguration speech and the attack at Ft. Sumter, Mary and her husband, like many others, found themselves swearing allegiance to the Union but secretly supporting the Confederacy. After her husband’s unexpected death, Mary was on her own. By this time her son, Isaac, had just joined the Confederate army. Mary had to face large debts that were left by her husband and raise her other son, John Jr, and daughter, Anna, all on her own. Even though Mary’s family lived really close to her, they offered little assistance to her.Through new mortgages and consolidation of debt, Mary was able to keep both her home and the Washington boardinghouse. Due to Mary not being able to live easily on a day to day basis, John and Anna had to give up plans for further education and employment in order to stay in town and support her mother. John then took over his dad’s job as a postmaster. One week after his father’s death John had swear a loyalty oath to the Union. Since John kept his father’s postmaster position, the Surratt family was able to maintain many of the illicit connections that John Sr. had made in service to the Confederacy. A little bit over a year after John took over his dad’s position, federal authorities grew suspicious of John. Lieutenant Lafayette Baker relieved John of his postal position for “disloyalty.” Since his position as a federal postmaster was able to exempt him from the draft, he would now have to pay for a substitute to take his place or get another federal job to avoid mandatory service. Mary started looking into leasing their tavern and moving her family to their townhouse in H Street in Washington, which John Sr. had purchased before his death. Moving to Washington offered John better employment opportunities, and if he was able to secure a federal job, he would be exempted from the Union draft one again.
It was in Washington where John met John Wilkes Booth. A country physician introduced Booth to John as a new acquaintance who was interested in purchasing his farm that was closed to the Surratt's’ tavern. What John didn't know was that the physician’s farm was actually not on sale. The real reason why the physician and Booth were together was to meet with John. That December, Booth kept pretending to look for property to purchase while he was reinforcing and fortifying relationships among local rebels and securing support to follow his kidnapping plans. During this time Mary is successfully running the boardhouse which is mainly full of conservative spies. As time passed, John and Booth’s friendship grew, eventually leading John to happily sign into Booth’s plot to kidnap President Lincoln, and Mary was aware of it. John and Booth managed to gather a group of young men to join them in Booth’s scheme. Mary provided them with her boardinghouse, where private conversations could be kept and Confederate sympathizers would be nourished and embraced. Mary was attracted to Booth’s charisma and his commitment to avenging Southern defeat. Thanks to John, Booth’s recruitment of accomplices continued to grow. One day one of John’s friend heard Mary say that something was going to happen to Lincoln which would prevent him from taking his seat. Many speculate that Mary knew of Booth’s plan to kidnap Lincoln.
John remained loyal to Booth, but he may have been unaware of Booth’s final decision to assassinate Lincoln. John had to travel North to Montreal after an unexpected secret mission, causing him to have less contact with Booth. The day of the assassination Mary had traveled back to her tavern and delivered a package from Booth which had supplies that were going to be needed for his escape out of Maryland. At this point both Mary and John were unaware of Booth’s plan to assassinate Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre. At around three o’clock in the morning the boardinghouse had some unexpected visitors. Detectives had appeared at the boardinghouse in the search for both Booth and John. They broke the news to the people at the boardinghouse that President Lincoln had been assassinated by Booth and that John had assassinated the Secretary of State. The detectives then proceeded to interrogate Mary. They asked her questions regarding when was the last time that she saw John Booth and her son. She mentioned that she had just seen Booth that previous day and that she had not seen her son for two weeks, but that she suspected that he was in Canada since he had received a letter with orders to go on a secret mission. After not getting the information that they were looking for they left.
Later on, Mary was brought for examination. At the start of her examination, Mary looked confident and prepared. She admitted that Booth was a regular visitor at her boardhouse and that she was not surprised that her son and him had become good friends. She also admitted that she was shocked by Booth’s attack as anyone. She moderated her pro-confederate views stating that she believed that the South acted too hastily. The answers that Mary provided made her a prime suspect under arrest for complicity in Lincoln’s assassination. Even though she was partially successful at arguing her innocence, her arrogance and obstinacy only made her look more suspicious. During this time, soldiers were searching for Booth. It was Sergeant Boston Corbit who spotted him and shot him in fear of him escaping. By seven in the morning, Booth was dead. On May 8, Mary Surratt’s trial was set to begin. Mary and the other defendants pleaded not guilty. Mary’s legal representation was not exactly a lawyer, so it was a huge mess of inexperience. After testimony and testimony, both Mary and her son John were more deeply involved in Booth’s plan. Mary’s lawyers were not being successful in trying to prove Mary’s innocence. They were also having trouble finding friends and acquaintances that knew Mary well and would testify on her defense. Mary was not able to attend the last few days of the trail due to health conditions. The case ended on June 28. It was declared that four out of the eight conspirators would be executed. Mary being one of those four making her the first women to be ever executed by the United States government. When Mary found out the verdict she was devastated.
When the day of the execution came the hangman paused before Mary. He had never executed a women and was reluctant to proceed. Before being executed Mary said that she wished to say something. Mary told the crown that she was innocent, but that God’s holy would be done. On July 7, 1865 at 1:22 P.M. Mary Elizabeth Surratt was hanged for conspiring to murder President Abraham Lincoln.
Overall, The Assassin’s Accomplice is a great book.

It gives you Mary’s background information growing up. Her background information helps you understand better why she was part of Booth’s scheme. It was really enjoyable reading about how Mary ran her boardinghouse. She basically nurtured the people that would stay. She was not only the head of the boardinghouse, she was a friend to them. John and Booth’s friendship was enjoyable to read to an extent. Up until after the assassination, she is not mentioned a lot. It is mostly focused on Booth and her son, John. The author focused more on their friendship other than what was going on with Mary before the assassination. It would have been better if the author had focused a little more on Mary during that part of the book since the book is about

her.
The book had a lot of knowledge to offer. It is a well detailed book; the author talks about Mary’s life before the assassination, Booth and John’s friendship, and Mary’s life after the assassination. In between the author also mentions other conspirators that were involved in Booth’s final plan to actually kill Lincoln and not kidnap him. There was a lot of things that the book mentions that I did not know. It was interesting learning Mary’s background which lead her to be involved in Booth’s scheme. It was also interesting learning that Mary was the first women to be ever executed by the federal government and all the controversy that it brought. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in Lincoln’s assassination from a different perspective, meaning that it does not only mention Booth. In general, I would recommend this book to anyone. The Assassin’s Accomplice, is a well detailed book that gives you the story of Lincoln’s assassination from a whole different perspective.