John H. Surratt was a member of the Confederate Secret Service. In 1863, he became a messenger for the Confederacy, carrying secret messages to boats on the Potomac River. Some of that information included troop movements around Washington.
Most accounts
of the conspiracy say Dr. Samuel Mudd introduced Surratt to Booth on December
23, 1864. However, in 1898, Surratt told George Alfred Townsend, Dr. Mudd never
introduced him to Booth. Instead, he had received “a letter of introduction
from a valued and trusted friend.”[i]
From the very
first, he looked on Booth as a “hot-headed, visionary man.” His “wild scheme”
of kidnapping Abraham Lincoln made him laugh in Booth’s face. Booth was eager
to draw him into the conspiracy because he “knew every crossroad, bypath, and
hiding place in northern Virginia and southern Maryland.”
“Booth said he was
willing to take any chance,” said Surratt. “I believe he was a monomaniac on
the subject. John Wilkes Booth had
brooded over the South’s wrongs so much that his mind was unsettled on the
subject...He was unquestionably insane when he shot Lincoln. No man in his
right mind would have done that. [John Wilkes Booth] was the South’s worst
enemy.”[ii]
John Surratt’s
whereabouts on the night of the assassination have
been hotly debated for over one-hundred and fifty
years. He claimed to be in Elmira, New York, conducting business for the
Confederate Secret Service. When he learned about the assassination, Surratt
fled to Canada and Rome, becoming a member of the Papal Guard. He was later
captured in Alexandria, Egypt, and returned to the United States in 1867. The
Government tried John Surratt in a civil court and dropped all charges against
him, making Surratt the only conspirator to escape prosecution.
The newspapers summed it up best.
“Many thousands of dollars must have been expended to bring about the capture
of John Surratt, but now having obtained his body, the authorities seemed
totally at a loss to know what they should do with him. Since it was far from
certain that John Surratt was guilty, the most generous and politic course was
to let him have the benefit of the doubt.”[iii]
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