THE
TRIAL OF THE ASSASSINS
APPEARANCE OF
THE CONSPIRATORS - THE CHARGES AGAINST THEM
The court is held at the old penitentiary in Washington, in an
upper room, with two windows at the east and two at the north. These windows are
ironed with flat bars. Along the wall, on the west side, on raised seats were
the prisoners, Dr. Mudd, David C. (sic) Harrold, Lewis Payne, Edward (sic) Spangler of
Ford's Theatre, Michael O'Laughlin (sic), Atzerodt, and Samuel Arnold. Sitting
outside the paling was Mrs. Surratt, leaning on a small green baize table. Beyond
Mrs. Surratt, on the other side of the table, near the northern windows, sit the counsel
for the accused, who are as follows - Mr. Thomas Ewing, son of the Ohio ex-Senator,
Attorney Stone, Mr. Walter S. Cox, the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, and Messrs. Aiken and
Clampett. Dr. Mudd looked calm, collected, and attentive, leaning on a table as if
to relieve his wrists from the weight of the handcuffs that incumbered them. Arnold
was restless, raising his hands to his hair with a nervous twitching, and constantly
varying the direction of his looks - now glancing from face to face, then bowing his head
upon his hands, which he supported on his knees. His handcuffs were somewhat
peculiar, not being connected, as usual, with a chain, but by a bar about eight inches in
length. Payne, dressed in a gray woolen shirt and dark pants, seemed more intent in
trying to obtain a full view of the sunny landscape through the barred windows than of
confining his attention to the details of the proceedings. As he looked, a strange
listless dreaminess pervaded his face. His dark hair, irregularly parted, hung
over his face and often clouded his dark blue eyes. His thick and
somewhat protruding lips were as if glued together. His legs were crossed, and his
ironed hands rested upon his knees. O'Laughlin was keenly observant of every move
made in the court.l He leaned back with his head against the wall, fully exposing
his broad but not high forehead crowned with a full bushy head of black hair. He has
dark eyes and a pale bloodless complexion and wears a heavy mustache and wide imperial
[goatee], both very black. On his knees he rested his manacles, which like those of
Arnold, were connected with an eight-inch iron bar. Atzerodt is a man of some five
feet six inches in height, and had it not been for his manacles might have been taken for
a mere spectator. He possesses a style of face most common in Southern
Germany. His hair and beard are of a reddish, sandy color. His eyes are
light. One police-officer sat beside each prisoner. Mrs. Surratt is a
stout, buxom widow, fitting Falstaff's ideal - "fair, fat and forty" - thought
it is ascertained she is far beyond that period of life, having nearly reached her grand
climacteric. She was dressed in black, and looked a little flushed; but we failed to
notice that "cold, cruel gleam in her gray eyes" which some of the gentleman of
the press have attributed to them. The charges against the conspirators accuses them
of conspiring together with one John H. Surratt, John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis,
George N. Sanders, Beverly tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay,
George Harper, George Young and others unknown to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, Andrew
Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, President, Vice-President and Lieutenant-General of the
United States. The specifications accuse Harrold (sic) of aiding Booth to murder the
president; Payne (sic) of an assault on William H. Seward, Secretary of State, F. W.
Seward, A. H. Seward, E. W. Hansel and G. F. Robinson, with an intent to murder; Atzerodt
with an intent to kill Andrew Johnson; Michael O'Laughlin (sic) with an intent to murder
Ulysses S. Grant; and Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, Samuel A. Mudd and Edward (sic)
Spangler with aiding and assisting the conspirators in their designs....
Source: Trial of the
Assassins and
Conspirators for the Murder of
Abraham Lincoln
Barclay and Company,
Philadelphia, PA 1865
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