Surratt, Mary (1823-1865), was an American woman who played a role in the assassination of United States president Abraham Lincoln . Federal investigators arrested her in April 1865 for assisting John Wilkes Booth and others in their plot to kill Lincoln. A military court found her and other plotters guilty of treason and conspiracy. In July 1865, Surratt became the first woman executed by the U.S. government.
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins was born in Prince George County, Maryland, in May or June of 1823. She married John H. Surratt when she was 17. The couple opened a tavern and post office in what is now Clinton, Maryland, in 1852. The Surratts sympathized with the South in the years before and during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Mary’s husband died in 1862.
In 1864, Mary put the tavern up for rent and opened a boarding house in Washington, D.C. In late 1864, Mary’s son John Surratt, Jr., met the actor John Wilkes Booth and joined Booth’s conspiracy to kidnap President Lincoln. Soon, the conspirators began to meet at Mary Surratt’s boarding house. The conspirators also included Lewis Powell , a former Confederate soldier also known as Lewis Payne or Paine. Booth eventually changed the plot. The new plan was to assassinate Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward.
On the night of April 14, 1865, Powell entered Seward’s home and stabbed him several times. The same night, Booth shot Lincoln during a performance at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. Seward survived his wounds, but Lincoln died the next day. The plan to assassinate Johnson was not carried out.
On April 17, Mary Surratt was arrested. She and seven male defendants were charged with conspiracy to assassinate federal officials. Booth, who had escaped to Virginia, was shot and killed by federal troops on April 26. John Surratt, Jr., was not in Washington at the time of the assassination. He escaped capture until 1866 and was later released.
Northerners had celebrated the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee Lee on April 9, 1865. However, the last Confederate armies did not surrender until late May. U.S. authorities considered the actions of the conspirators to be acts of war. President Andrew Johnson ordered the plotters to be tried by a military commission instead of a civil court.
The trial began in Washington on May 10, 1865. Prosecutors accused Mary of helping to plan the crime and aiding Booth’s escape. On June 30, the commission convicted all of the defendants. Four defendants received prison sentences. The court sentenced Surratt, Powell, and two others to death. They were hanged on July 7.
