Rome’s Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
The co-conspirator, Mrs. Surratt
Contents
Mrs. Surratt rented her property at Surrattsville, and took a house in Washington, and as a means of support, took in boarders. Through his acquaintance with her son, John H. Surratt, at St. Mary’s College, Wiechmann became an inmate of her house; and boarded and lodged there for some months before, and up to the time of assassination. In this way he saw many things that occurred in that house in connection with the conspiracy, but without understanding their import; and as he was a very agreeable and obliging young man, bright and intelligent, he seems to have been a favorite with Mrs. Surratt. He frequently escorted her to church, as she was a very devout Catholic; and was used by her on two occasions, just before the assassination, to drive her down to her former home at Surrattsville. The last time was on the afternoon before the assassination. As soon as the assassination was made known, the military police of the city and General Baker’s whole secret service force, were set at work to discover the perpetrators of the crime.
It was soon ascertained that it was John Wilkes Booth who had shot the President; and the detectives soon discovered that Surratt was an accomplice of Booth; and that Booth had been a frequent caller, of late, at the house of Mrs. Surratt; and so, within six hours after the assassination, Mrs. Surratt’s house was visited by the detectives, and all of its inmates were kept under their surveillance. Wiechman went, voluntarily to the Provost Marshall’s office, along with another of the inmates of Mrs. Surratt’s house, by the name of Hollohan, and submitted to a honestly and conscientiously, in answer to the questions put to him, narrated all that he knew in connection with Booth’s visits to Mrs. Surratt’s house. This examination developed the fact that Booth’s business there was always with John H. Surratt, and in his absence, with his mother; and that it was always strictly private and confidential in its character.
Wiechmann was thus discovered to be an important witness in the case, and was so held by the government.
After the arrest of Mrs. Surratt and Payne, Wiechmann recognized Payne as a man who had made two visits to Mrs. Surratt’s, once under an assumed name and other suspicious circumstances; and remaining there three days on the occasion of his last visit. He left for Baltimore, but returned a few days later, clandestinely, to the city, and occupied quarters that had been provided for him by Surratt, where he was kept hidden away; but had been visited, on one occasion, by Mrs. Surratt, to the knowledge of Wiechmann. All of these things he faithfully related to the examining officer. On the trial of Mrs. Surratt he showed himself to be conscientious witness to the truth. He was placed in a very delicate and trying position, in being called upon to testify in a case where those with whom he had been intimately associated, and trusted as friends, were on trial for the highest crime that they could have committed; and that involved their lives. His bearing before the court made it manifest that he felt very deeply the delicacy and gravity of his position; but that he could not shrink from a frank disclosure of the facts that had come within his knowledge, in connection with the case.
The facts disclosed by this witness, taken by themselves, though calculated to give rise to strong suspicions of Mrs. Surratt’s connection with the crime, were not sufficient to have convicted her. It was only when the testimony of Lloyd and of Colonel Smith was made to supplement that of Wiechmann, that her guilt was clearly shown. Because Wiechmann had been thus brought into the case as a witness, and had given an honest and truthful testimony, he was most cruelly followed up with the persecutions of the Roman Catholic priesthood; and was treated, by both priest and layman, as an excommunicated person, only worthy of scorn and contempt; and on no account to be associated with. He was given to know that he would never be allowed to enter the priesthood: and it was only through the good offices of the government that he was allowed to find any employment by which to gain a livelihood. He never met the fact of any priest after that, for many years at least, but to see the deepest expression of hatred and scorn. He was completely boycotted, and ostracized by his church.
He was made a witness again on the trial of John H. Surratt, when every effort was made by the counsel for the defense to cause him to contradict the testimony he had given before the commission; but without avail. To discredit him, much of the cooked up testimony previously referred to was brought in.
In this effort, also, they were foiled. He was badgered on the witness stand for two whole days, and treated with the most scornful contempt by the counsel for the defense. He was branded by them as a perjured witness, although they had been unable to impeach him by the methods known to the law. He was even charged with having been a member of the conspiracy; and that he had testified falsely, to save his own neck by convicting Mrs. Surratt. It was even charged that he had bought his immunity from the government by consenting to give the testimony which it had prepared for him, in order to convict Mrs. Surratt. This charge had also been reiterated publicly, within a very recent period. Wiechmann was on the witness stand, at the time of the visit of the president of St. Mary’s college, and of its students to Surratt, in the courtroom, but could not gain the slightest token of recognition from any of them. They were fast and free to show their warmest sympathy with the man who stood before the world as guilty of the murder of the President of the United States, but would not recognize the man, who, but recently, had stood on equal terms with him at the college, as a fellow student. And why was this? The only obvious reason was that he had been an honest and conscientious witness to the truth.
The same treatment was given by the counsel for the accused to another witness: Dr. McMillen.
It will be remembered that this witness was the surgeon of the Peruvian, and that it was to his care that Surratt had been committed, under the name of McCarthy, by his co-conspirators, Boucher and LaPierre.
The voyage across the Atlantic occupied seven or eight days, and as the doctor was the only man on board in whom Surratt could confide, and as he was carrying in his breast the secrets of a great crime, that was weighing heavily on his conscience, and being all the time haunted by the spectra of detectives, it was natural that he should seek relief in the confidential companionship of McMillen. He became very communicative, and related the difficulties that he experienced and overcame, in making good his escape from Washington, and in getting back to Canada, after the assassination–the parts taken by Porterfield, Boucher and LaPierre, in keeping him hidden away in Canada for five months, and many other things relating to the conspiracy; and finally, he revealed to him his identity. The testimony of this witness was entirely conclusive as to his guilt, and so, he was particularly obnoxious to the prisoner’s counsel.
He was treated by them, from the start, just as they would have treated a witness who had been convicted of perjury, although they were unable to discredit him, by the legal methods. They could not look at him, or speak of him, but with the air and language of scorn and contempt. So important did it seem to discredit this witness, that priest Boucher voluntarily came all the way from Canada, to rebut his testimony. His man, DuTilly, was also brought: but notwithstanding the fact that they showed themselves to be swift witnesses, of the most ready kind, they failed to discredit this witness. Under the searching cross-examination of Judge Pierrepont they were made to corroborate the testimony given by the doctor, in all of its most essential and important particulars, and the unholy Father was made to convict himself of being equally guilty with the prisoner. (See report of the trial of John H. Surratt, published in two volumes by the government.)
It would seem that the Jesuits had had it in mind, from the beginning of the war, to find an occasion for the taking off of Mr. Lincoln. Early in the war, they set a paragraph going the rounds of the press, as far as they had it under their control, to the effect that Mr. Lincoln had been born in the Catholic Church, and had been made a member of the church by his baptism into it and that he had apostatized and became a heretic. Mr. Lincoln had seen this statement going the rounds of the press, and believed that such a gross falsehood would not have been published without a purpose. On the occasion of a visit from Father Chiniquy about this time. Mr. Lincoln called his attention to this paragraph, saying he had been greatly perplexed in trying to discover the object of its publication; and asking him if he could give any clue to the motive that had inspired such a falsehood. I will give Father Chiniquy’s own account of his interview with the President on this subject.
