George Atzerodt was a thirty-three-year-old German immigrant. He was short and stubby, with thick, rounded shoulders. He had “brown hair, a light-colored mustache, and unpleasant green eyes.”[i] He worked as a blockade runner in Port Tobacco, Maryland. Booth and John Surratt recruited him to ferry them across the Potomac after capturing Lincoln. Booth never gave him any money. Instead, he told him if they were successful, he should want nothing.[ii]
“I am one of
the party who agreed to capture the President of the United States,” Atzerodt
told the court. “But I am not one of the party to kill the President of the
United States, or any member of the Cabinet, or General Grant, or Vice
President Johnson. The first plot to capture failed, the second to kill I broke
away from the moment I heard of it.”[iii]
He met with
Booth and Payne at Herndon House at 8 p.m. on April 14. Booth said he would
take care of Lincoln and Grant. Lewis Payne would kill William Seward. Atzerodt
was supposed to take care of Vice President Andrew Johnson.
Atzerodt said
he would not do it. Booth hollered and told him he was a damn fool. “He would
be hung anyhow, and it was death for every man that backed out.”[iv]
After the
meeting broke up, Atzerodt wandered the streets until about 2 a.m. Then he went
to Kimmel House. The next day, he pawned his pistol at Georgetown and went to
stay with his cousin in Montgomery County. He was arrested there on April 19.
No comments:
Post a Comment