doing that, however, I want to pass, for one moment, to the subject of this glass, to show when and how it got there a fact in evidence before you, and about which there is no dispute. I read from page 410: Q. Now I come to Friday morning, the day of the assassination; what occurred on that morning? A. On Friday morning I went to my office as usual; arrived there at nine o'clock. This was Friday, the 14th of April. Was at the office until about half-past ten, when an order came from the Secretary of War to the effect that those clerks under his charge who desired to attend divine service that day might do so. Q. This was Good Friday? A. Yes, sir. I left the office and went directly to St. Matthew's church, at the corner of 15th and H streets. After service was over, about a quarter of one or one o'clock, perhaps, I went home to Mrs. Surratt's house. Q. At what time? A. I got home at one o'clock or a little after one. I took some lunch, and then went up to my room and sat down and wrote a letter. About half-past two or twenty-five minutes after two, I heard a knock at my room door. In opening the door I saw Mrs. Surratt. She stated to me that she had received a letter from Mr. Charles Calvert about her property, and that it would be necessary for her to go into the country again and see Mr. Nothey, who owed her $479, with interest on the same for thirteen years. You will remember she had been there only the Sunday before. Q. The same Mr. Nothey with whom you had seen her on the 11th? A. Yes, sir. She gave me a ten-dollar note with which to go and get a horse and buggy. As I went out the parlor door, John Wilkes Booth came in. He shook hands with me and then went into the parlor. I then went to Mr. Howard's stable and there saw Atzerodt, who was endeavoring to hire a horse. His request was not complied with. He could not get one. I asked what he wanted with a horse. "O," he says, "I want to send off Payne." I then went to the post office and dropped the letter I had written and returned to Mrs. Surratt's house. Mr. BRADLEY. Did you get the buggy? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you went back with the buggy? A. Yes, sir; I went up into my room for a minute or two, and as I passed the parlor door I saw Mrs. Surratt and Booth in conversation. This was the day of the murder, gentlemen. Q. What time in the day was this? A. I cannot state the precise hour. It was between twenty-five minutes past two and twenty to twenty-five minutes to three. Booth was standing with his back against the mantelpiece, with his arms resting on it, and Mrs. Surratt had her back towards him. Q. What further? A. I went down to the buggy and Mrs. Surratt came down in a few moments, and was just about getting into the buggy when she said, "Wait, Mr. Weichmann, I must get those things of Booth's." She went up stairs into the house, and came down with a package in her hand. It was a package wrapped up in brown paper, tied round with a string, I believe, and, to the best of my knowledge, about five or six inches in diameter. I did not see the contents of the package. Q. Did you see what was done with it? A. It was put in the bottom of the buggy. Mrs. Surratt stated that it was brittle. She said even that it was glass, and was afraid of its being wet. I then helped her into the buggy, and we drove off. Q. On the way down, did anything occur of any note? A. Yes, sir; the buggy was halted once near a blacksmith's shop, about three miles from Washington, on the road to Surratts ville. There were some pickets there on the left-hand side of the road near the blacksmith's shop. The soldiers were lolling on the grass, and the horses were grazing about. Mrs. Surratt had the buggy halted, and wanted to know how long those pickets would remain there. She was informed that they were withdrawn about eight o'clock. She said, "I am glad to know it," and drove off. As you will remember, I read to you the other day the testimony of Mr. Lloyd, wherein he stated that this glass was brought there in the package; was put with the guns; and on the night of the 14th, after the murder, taken away by Herold. I now again come to the guns; to the fact that the very guns which Booth and Herold took away from Lloyd's on the night of the murder, were brought there to Surratt's own mother's house by Herold from "T B," and secreted there by Surratt. I read from the testimony of Mr. Kaldenback, page 637: Q. Do you know John M. Lloyd? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you recollect being there some time in the year of 1865? A. Yes, sir. Q. State if at that time you recovered any fire-arm there; and if so, state the circumstances under which you recovered it? A. Yes, sir; I found a fire-arm there. I lived there then; it was about the 25th of April, 1865, or somewhere thereabouts; I found it in the partition between the plastering. Q. What did you find? A. I found a carbine; it had a covering over it. Q. Describe in what part of the house it was. A. It was between the dining-room in the main house and the kitchen, which was attached to the main building. Q. Was it concealed? A. It was right between the plastering in the partition wall. Q. Describe fully to the jury the examination you made, and what you discovered at that time? A. There were detectives there; I am not certain what date it was; somewhere about the 25th of April; this detective was there on that night; he told me there was a fire-arm there, and said I must find it; this detective and myself went in search of it, and after searching for it for some time I found it. Q. Tell the jury how you found it, where it was concealed, and everything about it. A. I took a hatchet, knocked the plastering loose, and found it between the partitions; after I found it, I went for this detective before I removed it at all; he took it in his possession and carried it off. Q. Who was this detective? A. His name was George Cottingham, a government detective, at that time stationed down there. Q. State how it was that you happened to go to that particular place and find it? A. It was by the direction of Mr. Lloyd. I now read from the testimony of Mr. Thompson: Q. Where did you live in the spring of 1865? A. At T B. Q. What were you doing there? A. I was keeping a hotel there. Q. What was the name of it? A. The "T B Hotel." Q. Do you remember anything that happened there at that time connected with Herold? A. Yes, sir. Q. Tell us what it was. A. Herold came there some time in March-I do not know what time in March, 1865. Q What did he bring with him? A. A sword, a couple of carbines, and a couple of double-barrel guns. Q. Anything else? A. I remember nothing else except a revolver. Q. Nothing else? A. Nothing else that I know of. Q. Who came with him? A. Nobody at all. Q. What did he come in? A. He came in a buggy. Q. What did he do with those arms? A. He put them in the bar-room until the next morning. Q. What did he tell you? A. He told me that he was going down the Patuxent river shooting ducks. 66 Shooting ducks," he says. You will observe throughout that wherever a letter is written, wherever an act is done, an excuse or reason is given for it, as is always the case, as I have before stated, when an effort is being made to conceal crime. There was no truth in this statement, as you will see presently from the testimony. Q. Did he tell you he expected anybody there that night? A. Yes, sir; he said he expected John Surratt there. Q. What did he do in the night? A. Nothing at all; he came there about 8 o'clock-our supper was over-and ordered supper. They had supper prepared for him, and he afterward went to bed. Q. Did Surratt come there that night? A. No, sir. Q. What happened the next morning? A. The next morning he got up, took his guns, and came back towards Washington. Q. Do you know which road he took; the roads fork this side of your place, do they not? A. I do not know which way he took. Q. Does one road go to Surrattsville? A. One road goes to Surrattsville, and the other to Piscataway. Q. You do not know which road he took? A. I do not. I now read from the testimony of Mr. Norton, at pages 630 and 631, on same subject-these guns: the Q. Will you state where you lived in the month of April, 1865? A. At T B, Prince George county, Maryland. Q. When did you see any arms? A. I saw some arms in the month of March, 1865. Q. Where did you see them? A. I saw them at T B. Q. Who brought them there? A. David Herold brought them there. Q. What did he bring? A. He brought some guns. Q. How many? A. Two. Q. Did he bring anything else? A. He brought two carbines. Q. Anything else? A. He brought a pistol. Q. What else? A. He had a knife with him. Q. Any ammunition? A. Yes, sir. Q. What else? A. He had a rope with him. Q. Any other thing? A. He had a wrench. Q. Anything more? A. He had a horse and buggy. Q. What time in the day did he come? A. He came in the night. Q. What time in the night? A. About 8 o'clock. Q. What did he do with the things he brought? A. He took them out of his buggy. Q. What then? A. I carried them into the bar-room. Q. Then what did you do with them? A. I did not do anything more with them that night. Q. Did you or he do anything more with them? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he the next morning? A. He fired his pistol off. Q. Did he do anything more? A. He went away after breakfast. Q. Did he take the arms and ammunition all with him? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know which way he went? Mr. Lloyd has told you which way he went and where he went. On page 632 he says: Q. What did Herold say to you about Surratt? A. He asked me if Mr. Surratt had been there. I told him he had not; he said he expected he would be there. Q. Did he tell you at what time he expected Surratt there? A. He said he expected him there that night. Q. What time in the night was it that he said that? A. That was shortly after he came there. Q. Did Surratt come that night? A. He did not. Q. Did you see him that night? A. No, sir. Q. When did you see Surratt after that? A. I saw him on the 3d of April, 1865. Now we see how these carbines got to Lloyd's. He has told us that Herold came there that morning with them from T B, and that he (Lloyd) met Surratt there with them; that Surratt took him into the parlor where the guns lay, and told him where to conceal them; that he did conceal them in the place pointed out, but that he did so reluctantly. He further told us that after the murder was committed Herold came, in company with Booth, and took the guns away. One of these guns was subsequently taken away from the barn down in Virginia where Booth was shot, and brought here. It is now before you. I understand counsel on the other side to have asked us in the progress of this cause to connect one thing with another; and they have frequently moved the court to strike out certain evidence because it was not connected. I think it will occur to you that this is tolerably well connected. Here we have Herold at a tavern at T B, a little below Surrattsville, with these guns. He expected to meet Surratt at T B that night, but the latter failed to go there The next morning Herold takes the guns and goes to Surrattsville and leaves them there in the parlor of Lloyd's hotel. Surratt calls in Lloyd, and then goes with him to hide the guns. The guns are hid, and then, when the murder is committed, Herold goes there and gets them. Mrs. Surratt, on the very night of the murder, takes this glass to Lloyd's, has it put with the guns, and tells him (Lloyd) to have two bottles of whiskey ready; that those shootingirons will soon be wanted. Now, won't you tell me, gentlemen of the jury, how Mrs. Surratt knew about these shooting-irons? She was not there when Herold took them to that place, nor was she present when her son concealed them behind the plaster. Who told her, then, about those guns? Will you answer that question, gentlemen? How did Mrs. Surratt find out, on the day of the murder, when she took that field-glass there, that those concealed shooting-irons would be wanted soon? Again I ask, how did she find out, on the day the night of which the murder was perpetrated, that her son had hid those shooting-irons there, and that they would be wanted that night, she not having been present when they were brought, or when they were concealed? Does it need any answer? If it does, I will read to you the answer given by one of their own witnesses from Prince George's county-old Mr. Watson-page 746. You will there see the reason that he gives. It is the true reason. There can not be any doubt of that, for it is one that will commend itself to everybody : Q. In this conversation you speak of, you took sides with Mr. Bingham; you said you thought Mrs. Surratt was guilty, did you? A. Yes, sir; and think so yet. At page 727 he testifies as follows: Q. In this conversation you had with Mr. Tibbett, you told him you believed Mrs. Surratt was guilty? A. I did; I told him I believed she was guilty; and I think that every man― Mr. Merrick stopped him there, and thus prevented him from completing his answer. "I think that every man "every man what? That every man who has heard this evidence knows and feels that Mrs. Surratt was guilty. From all the facts connected with the bringing of those guns to this house, their concealment, and the placing of the field-glass with those articles, will not every one say that old Mr. Watson is right when he says, "I did say she was guilty, and I think so yet?" Now, if Mrs. Surratt knew where those arms were concealed, she of course got that information from somebody. From whom did she get it? Isn't it more than probable that she got such information from her own son, a full grown man, who had concealed them with his own hands? Herold brings them from TB; Surratt meets him there, and calls Lloyd into the parlor. Surratt points out the secret place where they can be concealed, and his own mother goes, on the day of the murder, and tells Lloyd the shooting-irons will be needed, as also the fieldglass, and that they will be called for soon, and tells him to have two bottles of whiskey ready. And you will remember these things were called for before 12 o'clock that night. Gentlemen, how are we to dispose of this matter? What do your honest minds say about it? It strikes me that there can be but one opinion regarding it. Every honest man, it appears to me, must entertain the same opinion as that expressed by old Mr. Watson on the stand. There is no escaping from the fact that Herold, Surratt, and his mother were all combined together in this matter; that the knowledge of the one was the knowledge of them all. I now come down to another little piece of evidence in the same connection. It is the testimony of Justice Pyles, from the same county, who also was an unwilling witness. He says John Surratt came to him to get some papers executed. He did not know exactly what they were. I will read from his testimony, page 386: Q. State how long prior to April, 1865? A. I did not commit that to memory. I think about three months, as near as I can recollect, before the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. About that time I had left home; I was working at my father's, or lower place, some mile or so from there. Mr. Surratt came down there for the purpose of getting me to sign some papers. I really cannot tell anything regarding the import of those papers. Q. To get you to sign some papers? A. Yes, sir; as a justice of the peace, in order to make them legal. Q. State what he said to you in regard to the object of his visit. A. Well, he seemed to be urgent to have me sign the papers, and having no pen, ink, or anything of the kind at the place, we proposed to go over to my brother's, about a quarter or half a mile off, and get pen and ink there. We started, and going along I asked him about his business, and so on. The draft was on hand at that time, and I asked him about it. He said either that he wanted to get some money, or to fix some papers to leave for his mother, or something of that kind. He told me he wanted to go away. I asked him where, or something of that sort, for I did not want him to go away, he had been in the neighborhood so long; and he said he wanted to go away to avoid the draft. What these papers were we do not know. They are one of those little things that appear in the progress of a cause of this kind. These papers were to be drawn up for some purpose. They were drawn up before a magistrate. Now, what were they? The preparation of these papers undoubtedly meant something. This testimony was given early in the case; and, if they had not meant something, counsel had ample opportunity to have it all explained away. We now come to the testimony of another witness of theirs-Mr. David Barry. It is a matter, brief but of much import. It will be found on page 873; Q. Take that letter (letter exhibited to witness in direct examination) and look at its date. A. Yes, sir; the letter is dated March 26, 1865. 4 Q. Can you tell the jury now the date when you came up here with these horses? A. It was the 26th of March, 1865. Q. Sunday? A. Yes, sir; Sunday. Q. They were gray horses? A. Yes, sir; both gray horses. These horses were the horses that Mrs. Surratt, Mrs. Slater, or Mrs. Brown, as she is sometimes called, and John Surratt took from Brooke Stabler's when they went down in the country. Q. When you brought the horses you took that letter to the stable? A. Yes, sir. Q. And when you had done that you went to Mrs. Surratt's house? A. Yes, sir, in the course of the evening. At the bottom of the page will be found the following: Q. Now please state to the jury when you saw her in the passage? A. The day before, which was Saturday, the 25th of March. Q. And then you saw a woman who John told you was Mrs. Brown? A. Yes, sir. How many names Mrs. Slater went by I do not know; but it seems she was at this time called Mrs. Brown. The record goes on: Q. Where did you see her last? A. In Port Tobacco. Q. Who was with her? A. John Surratt. Q. What did John Surratt tell you he was going to do? A. He told me he was either going to put her in safe hands to be taken to Richmond, or, if necessary, he would take her to Richmond himself. He sent this message to his mother: that if he did not cross the river he would be home the next day by the stage; that if he did not cross the river, he would return as soon as he could. 66 Now, this is the testimony that their own witness, Mr. David Barry, gives of the conversation he had with Surratt on the day after he had taken these gray horses and had gone down there to Port Tobacco. The woman on the brain" that he wrote about in a letter to old Brooke Stabler, was this woman, Mrs. Slater, or Mrs. Brown, whom he wanted to get to Richmond. He sent word to his mother that if he could get her across the river he would return in the next stage; if he could not, he should go to Richmond with her. That is what he was going to Richmond for, and this, you will remember, comes from their witness, and not from ours. Q. The last time you saw Surratt he was in Port Tobacco? A. Yes, sir, on the 26th of March. Q. Describe this woman he called Mrs. Brown. A. She was a rather slim, delicate woman. I think she had black eyes and dark hair. I do not recollect whether I saw her with her bonnet off. I think she wore her veil down nearly all the time. I saw her at the table. Q. She was delicate in size? A. I think so; that is my recollection. Q. What was her age, about? A. I should say she was under thirty. At page 872 this same witness says: Q. Proceed and state whether you, in company with John Surratt, went from that place anywhere else; and if so, where you went. A. Yes, sir; I accompanied them to Port Tobacco. Q. How long did you remain at Port Tobacco? A. I should like to say why I went to Port Tobacco. There was a man in Port Tobacco who belonged to the signal corps of the confederate army. I was anxious to see him in order to get information from two sons I had in General Lee's army. I understood from a man by the name of Howell, represented to be a blockade-runner, the day before Surratt came down, that he was at Port Tobacco. I mentioned it to Surratt, and asked him if he knew whether this man was there. He replied, "Yes." How he got his information I forget. He then offered me a seat in his carriage, remarking at the same time that it was somewhat doubtful whether he returned himself, but said if he did not return I could drive the carriage back; that he intended to see a lady he had in charge across the Potomac river, and, if necessary, to Richmond. Q. You staid all night at Port Tobacco ? A. I did. Q. Now state whether Surratt wrote any letter in your presence, and whether you brought it to this city. A. Yes, sir; I think he did. (Exhibiting letter of the prisoner to Brooke Stabler, relative to returning horses, dated March 26, 1865, heretofore placed in evidence.) This gentleman, who had two sons in the rebel army, comes here on the stand-brought by the other side-and states to you these facts. He has told the truth, and so will every honorable rebel when he is testifying under oath on the stand. A brave man will always tell the truth. As I said to you the |