should have reached their destination.

Some of these were known,

and will be hereafter referred to by name; but there would seem to have been a number of them whose names were never learned. John H. Surratt came back, either alone or in company with some of them. That he was in Washington, aiding and abetting, on the day and night of the assassination, was positively sworn to by one of the witnesses who was well acquainted with him; and from the concurrence of testimony, there is good reason to believe that he was one of the two parties with whom Booth was in communication on the sidewalk in front of the theatre, as heretofore narrated, and that he acted as monitor, calling the time for Booth. He seems, however, to have had the bumps both of cautiousness and secretiveness largely developed, and so kept himself as much as possible out of sight in the transaction in which he was no doubt, at the same time, an active participant. He most probably left Washington on the first train after the work was done, as we have no trace of him again until we find him at Burlington, Vt., on his way to Canada, on the 18th of April. As it is my purpose to devote a chapter or two to his case especially, I shall not, at this time, pursue it any further; but as he was undoubtedly a very active and important factor in the conspiracy, and escaped justice merely by escaping capture at the time, and so securing a civil trial after the war was over, a history of his case naturally comes within the scope of my plan, and will serve to illustrate what I have already said in relation to the existing facts in regard to the population of the District of Columbia that would have rendered a civil trial futile in the cases brought before the Commission.

CHAPTER X.

EVIDENCE IN REGARD TO ATROCITIES NOT EMBRACED IN THE CHARGE AND SPECIFICATIONS, FOR WHICH DAVIS AND HIS CANADA CABINET WERE RESPONSIBLE.

IT will have been noticed that in its charge and specifications against the prisoners on trial the government charged Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, with combining, confederating, and conspiring together with one John H. Surratt and John Wilkes Booth to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, William H. Seward, and Ulysses S. Grant; and in the specifications it is alleged that David E. Herold, Edward Spangler, Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, George Atzerodt, and Samuel A. Mudd, together with the said John H. Surratt and John Wilkes Booth, incited and encouraged thereunto by Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, did kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, and assault violently with intent to kill William H. Seward. In this the government distinctly and unequivocally charged Jefferson Davis and his allies with inciting and encouraging the prisoners on trial to the commission of this great crime, with the political intent of giving aid to their sinking cause. They were not arraigned before the Commission, for they were not in custody; but they were arraigned before the world. The Commission was then not called upon to render a finding in their case; but the government was called upon to present to the world through the Commission the evidence on which its grave charge against

these men, who had rendered themselves conspicuous before the world, was founded. Its honor and dignity made this obligatory upon it. A careful reading of the charge and specifications on which the assassins were arraigned and tried will show that it was competent for the government to present, on that trial, the evidence in its possession on which it charged Jefferson Davis, Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, George Young, George Harper, and others, as being inciters to this crime. This evidence was so conclusive of their guilt as charged, that had they been before the Commission they could only have escaped conviction by impeaching the government's witnesses.

Before entering upon the consideration of the evidence a few prefatory remarks seem to be necessary. At an early period of the rebellion Jefferson Davis and his cabinet felt the necessity of sending some of the strongest men of the Confederacy to establish their headquarters in Canada, to look after the interests of the rebel cause, both at home and abroad, and to render assistance to that cause in every way that they could. Amongst its agents thus sent to Canada we find Jacob Thompson of Mississippi, who had been Secretary of the Interior during Buchanan's administration; Clement C. Clay, who had been a United States Senator from Alabama; Beverly Tucker, who had been a circuit judge in Virginia; George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, George Young, George Harper, and others of less note, acting in subordinate capacities under the above conspicuous leaders and agents.

These agents had been domiciled within the territory of a neutral government to carry on belligerent operations, contrary to the laws of nations and also of war; and the operations planned by them from time to time, and sometimes executed, were of the highest moral turpitude. The fact that, although the government of Canada held the position of a neutral power as between the belligerents, yet its people, in the proportion of five to one, sympathized with the rebellion, made it very favorable to the execution of the schemes of these Southern emissaries. They also occupied a position that geographically was most favorable to their purposes. They were within easy and constant communica

tion with the enemies of the government that were to be found in every Northern State, and at the same time were able to afford a place of refuge for rebel prisoners who were able to find means of escape from Northern prisons. Canada was a place where disloyal refugees and persons accused of offenses against the government congregated all through the war; and so Jefferson Davis's Canada Cabinet was never at a loss for material for carrying out its plans without regard to their character. They were constantly surrounded by desperate and reckless men, who were in deep sympathy with them in their desperate purpose to overthrow the government, and like them, ready to engage in anything that might give aid in carrying out that purpose. From the head of the rebel government on down through the ranks of this class of its agents, there appears to have been no restraint from any moral consideration. The honorable men of the Confederacy were found, to a large extent, in the ranks of its soldiers engaged in open warfare. he assassination plot was the last card of these desperate men; it was preceded by many others in which the laws of war and the laws of morals were utterly ignored. We will, therefore, in the first place, present some of the most flagrant of these, in regard to which the evidence makes Jefferson Davis and his Canada Cabinet responsible, in order that from these revelations we may be thoroughly informed of their utter disregard of every moral consideration, and that we may thus be prepared for the conclusions to which the evidence of their complicity in, and responsibility for, the assassination plot point.

To show the utter lack of moral appreciation, the entire disregard of all moral requirements, and contempt for the enlightened Christian sentiment of the world as embodied in the accepted codes of martial and international law, and that the assassination plot was only in keeping with their other schemes to aid the rebel cause, I deem it necessary to dwell at some length on the statement of these schemes, as shown by the testimony before the Commission. The St. Albans raid, under the lead of Lieutenant Bennett H. Young (made a lieutenant for this occasion only, and that by the filling up for him of a Commission that was sent to Clay, in blank, by the rebel secretary of war, and to be thus con

ferred by him, at his discretion, on the persons he engaged in such expeditions, as a protection in case of a trial for extradition), was simply a hostile expedition planned by these conspirators, who organized a squad of about twenty escaped Confederate soldiers. from the prisons in which they had been confined, and placed them under command of Young, armed with one of these commissions for his protection. This bogus lieutenant was instructed to pass through the New England States with his command, and escape by the way of Halifax, burning towns and farm-houses as he went; and by robbing and plundering to secure all the money he could, and whatever else he could convert to the use of the Confederate government. He made a foray into Vermont; set fire to the town of St. Albans; robbed two banks, securing about two hundred thousand dollars; and then, finding himself confronted by such opposition that he was unable to proceed, was compelled to retreat into Canada, being so closely pursued that he and a good part of his command were made prisoners. They were committed to jail to await a trial for extradition.

This was simply a guerilla raid, organized on neutral territory, not for the purpose of engaging in open and honorable warfare against an armed foe, but to burn and plunder the property of unarmed people, who were non-combatants engaged in the pursuits of peaceful life. Young's commission, however, enabled him to defeat the demand for his extradition, as he was not captured until he had regained that neutral territory on which, in violation of the law of nations, his expedition had been organized. It is easy to see from this where the sympathies of the Canadian court that tried this case lay. Pending this trial for extradition, Clay became very uneasy for fear the commission conferred by him on Young might not prove a sufficient protection, and so he sent Richard Montgomery, who was in the employ of the United States in its department of secret service, and who had so well wormed himself into the confidence of the Canada Cabinet as to be employed by them on this mission, with a letter to James A. Seddon, the rebel secretary of war, urging him by every consideration he could think of to give a direct sanction to Young's act, and to demand in the name of the Confederate government that he should be released.