John Surratt
John Surratt (
April 13,
1844 -
April 21,
1916), son of
Mary Surratt, was accused of plotting to kidnap U.S. president
Abraham Lincoln.
John Harrison Surratt, Jr. was born on
April 13,
1844, to John Surratt, Sr. and Mary Jenkins in what is today Congress Heights. His christening was in 1844 at St. Peter's Church, Washington, D.C.[
1] In 1861, John Surratt was enrolled at
St. Charles College. When his father suddenly died in 1862, John Jr. became the postmaster for Surrattsville.He was described as being five foot nine inches tall.
Surratt had been a
Confederate messenger carrying dispatches of Union troop movements across the
Potomac River to
Montreal,
Canada.
Samuel Mudd introduced Surratt to
John Wilkes Booth on
23 December 1864 and Surratt agreed to help Booth kidnap US president
Abraham Lincoln. On
17 March 1865 Surratt and Booth, along with others in their scheme, awaited the carriage of Lincoln as he left the
Campbell General Hospital traveling back to
Washington, D.C. Their plans were foiled when Lincoln changed his mind and stayed in Washington to meet with the 140th Indiana Regiment and to present to the governor of Indiana a captured Confederate flag. The speech took place in Booth's own hotel, the National. Booth's plan was to capture Lincoln, take him to
Richmond, Virginia, and trade him for thousands of captured Confederate soldiers. On the night of
14 April 1865, Surratt was in Elmira, New York.
After the failed kidnapping plot, Surratt fled the U.S. and arrived in Montreal, Canada on
17 April 1865. He traveled east to St. Liboire where Catholic priest, Father Charles Boucher, provided him sanctuary. Surratt stayed hidden there throughout the arrest, trial and hanging of his mother
Mary Surratt. After the trials, Surratt decided to travel to Europe. With the help of Confederate agents Beverly Tucker and Edwin Lee, Surratt booked passage under an alias and landed at Liverpool, England in September 1865.
In September 1865 he traveled from St. Liboire to Montreal, to Quebec, then to Liverpool. He served for a brief time in the Ninth Company of the Pontifical Zouaves in Vatican City under the name John Watson. An old friend of Surratt's, Henri Beaumont de Sainte-Marie, recognized Surratt and notified Vatican officials and Rufus King, U.S. minister in Rome. On
7 November 1866, Surratt was arrested and sent to the Velletri prison. He escaped and lived for a while with the Garibaldians who gave him safe passage. Surratt then traveled to the Kingdom of Italy posing as a Canadian citizen named Walters. He booked passage to Alexandria, Egypt and was arrested there by American officials on
23 November 1866 and extradited. He was sent home on a U.S. Navy warship, Swatara, and put on trial.
Surratt was tried in a civilian court of the District of Columbia, instead of a military one as his mother had been. Judge David Cartter presided over the trial. Surratt's attorney, Joseph H. Bradley, admitted Surratt's part in kidnapping the president, but not murder.After two months of trial, Surratt was ultimately released after a mistrial (eight voted innocent, four voted guilty) and the statutes of limitations had run out on lesser charges the government attempted to retry him on. He was released on twenty-five thousand dollars' bail.
After the trial, Surratt became a model citizen. He farmed tobacco, taught at the Rockville Female Academy and gave public lectures and became the treasurer of the
Old Bay Line steamship company on
Chesapeake Bay. He became a teacher at the St. Joseph Catholic School in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Surratt retired from the Old Bay Line in 1914. In 1872 he married a second cousin of
Francis Scott Key Mary Victorine Hunter, they had seven children. On Friday
21 April 1916, Surratt died of pneumonia at 9PM. He was 72 years old.
Lincoln and Booth-More Light on the Conspiracy; Winkler, H.Donald; Cumberland House; ISBN-1-58182-342-8
Manhunt: The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer; Swanson, James L.;William Morrow;ISBN-0-06-051849-9
Lincoln's Avengers-Justice, Revenge, and Reunion after the Civil War; Leonard, Elizabeth D.;W.W. Norton & Co.; ISBN-0-393-32677-2
