Hanging Mary: A Novel

by Susan Higginbotham

  The delay was wearing on all of us. In early June, the male prisoners had been relieved of their hoods, Anna told me, and they were allowed to exercise in the yard each day, two or three at a time. From my window I could see them wandering about, their shoulders slumped. Only Mr. Payne, pitching quoits with his guards, seemed unperturbed by the wait. “I wonder why,” I told Anna.

  “They say he doesn’t care what happens to him,” Anna said, staring down as Mr. Payne yelled in triumph. “In fact, he wants to die.”

  • • •

  On the Fourth of July, Anna and I stood at the window and watched the fireworks going off across the river. Poor Major General Hartranft, I thought as the last burst of colored light faded away.

  Another day passed with no word. Then on the sixth, around noon, soon after Anna had left to go to the post office, General Hartranft, accompanied by another man, entered my room. In a tone of voice I had never heard him use before, he said, “Madam, the commission has issued its findings and sentences, and they have been approved by President Johnson. This is Major General Hancock. He is here to witness me reading you the findings and sentence.”

  “Just tell me, sir, without reading me that lawyer’s prose. Am I to go to prison? For how long?”

  Major General Hartranft shook his head and held up a paper with a trembling hand. “After mature consideration of the evidence adduced in the case of the accused, Mary E. Surratt, the commission find the said accused of the specification guilty. And the commission do, therefore, sentence her, the said Mary E. Surratt, to be hanged by the neck until she be dead, at such time and place as the president of the United States shall direct.” He looked up. “That will take place here. Tomorrow, between the hours of ten and two.”

  “Tomorrow,” I mumbled.

  “Madam, I cannot tell you how sorry I am to give you this news. It is not what I expected, not what I had hoped. Whom do you wish me to send for, to stay with you in your last hours? Your daughter, I suppose? A priest, a friend, a relation?”

  I was shaking from head to toe. “Sir, I did not plot to kill the president. I knew nothing of any such plot. No one at that trial testified that I did. No one could testify that I did. I am innocent! For God’s sake, I have done wrong in my life, but I have not done murder, and I do not deserve to die for this!”

  “Mrs. Surratt, please tell me whom you wish me to send for. There is no time to be lost.”

  “I am innocent!” I could barely speak through my sobs. “I am innocent!”

  General Hartranft put his arm around me as I wept. Finally, when I stopped to catch a breath, he said again, “You want Anna, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I wiped my eyes. “Try to have them find her before she hears the news from someone else. She was on her way to the post office.”

  “I will. What priest do you wish to see?”

  “Father Jacob Walter from St. Patrick’s, and Father Bernardine Wiget from St. Aloysius.” I had worshiped at both of their churches; surely at least one of these men would attend me.

  “And is there anyone else you wish to see?”

  “Mr. John Brophy.” He was a friend of Johnny’s whom Anna told me had taken an interest in my case. If he could not help me, at least perhaps he could help my child, so soon to be alone.

  “I will get them all here as soon as possible. Now I am going to send Dr. Porter to give you something to ease you. Try to rest. I am so very sorry.” His own voice broke, and Major General Hancock, who had stared gloomily out the window throughout his visit, clapped him on the shoulder and steered him to the door.

  I lay on my bed. Even though the temperature had to be close to ninety degrees, I was shivering. Hanged by the neck until she be dead. Tomorrow.

  44

  NORA

  JULY 6, 1865

  “Extra! Mrs. Surratt to be hanged tomorrow!”

  My blood still runs cold to recall those words.

  Throwing down the novel I had been leafing through, I ran out of the bookstore and snatched a paper from the newsboy’s hands. “Hey, miss! You forgot to pay!”

  I tossed a coin in his general direction and read the paper, praying that the newsboy was barely literate and had misunderstood what the paper was saying. He had not. There in the cruelest black and white the Evening Star could muster were the headlines: MRS. SURRATT, PAYNE, HEROLD, AND ATZERODT TO BE HUNG! THE SENTENCE TO BE EXECUTED TOMORROW!

  In a daze, I walked to the house on H Street and knocked on the door. No one answered.

  I turned my steps toward the Misses Donovan’s house, where I found my father sitting in the parlor. “Come here, child. You have heard?”

  I nodded, and he took me into his arms while I sobbed. “I know you were fond of this lady. I am very sorry that it has ended thus.”

  He was speaking of Mrs. Surratt, I realized, as if she were already cold in the grave. I pulled back. “Father, I have to do something.”

  “Do what, Nora?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I can’t just let her hang, and do nothing. There must be something I can do.”

  “She has lawyers, Nora, and her daughter. No doubt her family in Surrattsville will come to her aid as well. She is not without help, although what good it will do I do not know.”

  “She is innocent, Father. She would never have plotted the death of the president.”

  “The commission does not share your view of her. Nora, I have hesitated in saying this, but I do not think you are aware of what your association with her has done. I have heard from several people, well-informed ones, that you have lost your chance for the government jobs you hoped to obtain. You are tainted, and it is her fault, and only hers, that you are. She should have known the damage that her doings could inflict upon you, her daughter, and any other young person in her household.”

  “She did not know what Mr. Booth planned, Father.”

  “I cannot believe that she was ignorant of his doings. At the very least, she must have known of the kidnapping, and that is enough to hang her. I am sorry for it, but my concern is with you and not with her. And that is why I am sending you to Baltimore today.”

  “Baltimore?” I asked as if I had never heard of the place.

  “Yes, to stay with your friend Camilla.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes. It is short notice, but I know you have a standing invitation, and it is best to get you out of here, when all of the talk will be of the execution. I have telegraphed her mother.”

  “How long am I to impose upon her hospitality?”

  “As long as she wishes. Child, don’t glare at me so! I know you are grieving for this lady. But you can do her no good by staying here, and you are doing yourself no good by staying here. Now, please go and pack.”

  Obeying, I threw some things into a carpetbag, not bothering to look if they were suitable for summer or winter. “I’m ready,” I said flatly when I returned.

  My father smiled and offered me his arm. I yanked it away rudely, relishing the hurt expression on his face, and together we made our way to the station in silence.

  Our train ride was every bit as miserable as our trip to the station. I snatched a book out of my carpetbag and held it to my nose for the duration of the ride, although I wasn’t comprehending a single word, while my father sat there wearing a face of stony misery. It didn’t help that all around us the talk was of the execution.

  At last, we pulled into Baltimore’s Camden Station, where I hoped no one would be there to meet us. Then wouldn’t my father have to take me back to Washington? But Camilla and her mama were there in their fine carriage, beaming at us. My father fairly shone with relief. “I thank you very much, Mrs. James, for receiving my daughter on such short notice,” he said. “The circumstances—”

  “I understand perfectly, Mr. Fitzpatrick. We’ll take good care of her.” Mrs. James
smiled, though I detected a look of worry in her eyes. Entertaining someone whose landlady was on the verge of execution was not something dealt with in the conduct books.

  My father shoved some bills into my hand and patted me on the cheek. “Try to enjoy yourself, Nora,” he said very gently. “Child, I truly mean well, though you don’t realize it.”

  I nodded and let him hand me into the carriage. He lifted his hand in farewell as I stared stonily ahead.

  “Well!” said Mrs. James brightly. “Shall we do a little shopping?”

  • • •

  How Camilla and I had become friends I never quite understood, for she was pretty and blond, with hair that fell in perfect ringlets. She was also the most talkative girl at Georgetown Visitation, and I had always been on the quiet side. Maybe that was my appeal—I made a most admirable listener.

  After our shopping trip—I had refused to spend my father’s money, but Mrs. James had thwarted me by purchasing a new bonnet for me—Camilla and I adjourned to her room, where she pulled out her album and gave me a report on what every girl at Visitation pictured in it had done over the past year. “Do you remember Miss Turner? She married a merchant and moved to Philadelphia. She has a lovely little baby but gained an enormous amount of weight. I do hope she can get it off, because she had a lovely figure. Do you remember how the men used to stare when we walked about with her? Oh, and here’s Miss Gray—such a pity, her father lost his money, and she’s had to teach school. Of course, she’ll probably marry soon. And here’s Miss Butler—I don’t mind saying at this point that I thought she was dreadfully snobbish, and for what? So what if her father had fifty slaves—they’re all free now.” Camilla took a breath and turned a page. “And here’s—oh, dear, I’m sorry.” Camilla ruefully gazed at a photograph of Mr. Booth in side view. “I’d forgotten he was here. He was a handsome devil, wasn’t he? Well, this is most awkward—”

  But I wasn’t thinking of poor Camilla’s faux pas, I was gazing at the carte de visite of the beautiful lady next to him. “Mrs. Douglas,” I said.

  “Yes. Don’t you go to the same church with her? Is she as lovely still as she is there?”

  “Yes.” If I can be of any help, please let me know. “Camilla, I’m begging you. Please do me a favor. It’s the most I’ll ever ask of you, ever.”

  “Goodness, Nora, what?”

  “Lie for me. I have to go back to Washington, and I have to go back tonight.”

  “Nora—”

  “Please! You’re my only hope. I have to see my friend Anna Surratt. And I have to see Mrs. Douglas. She might be able to save Mrs. Surratt. If I leave now for the train station, I can get to Washington by nine.”

  Camilla hesitated. “All right,” she said finally. “But what do I tell Mother? She’ll be expecting you for dinner.”

  “You’ll think of something. You’re smart, and you know it.” It was true, for all her rattle-brained conversation and her even more rattle-brained letters, Camilla had always been one of the best students at Visitation.

  “It’s your time of the month,” Camilla said slowly. “You’re having dreadful cramps—no, Mother will be up with that concoction she makes me when it’s my time of the month. It really works, though, you know. I’ll give you some. Oh, I have it. You’re at church! You’re at church praying for Mrs. Surratt’s reprieve! And you are perfectly prostrated with grief and don’t want to see anyone, not even Mother. And—”

  “I’ll leave the details to you,” I said, kissing Camilla on the cheek. “Now, help me sneak out of here.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Camilla said cheerfully. “Our servants are eminently bribable.”

  45

  MARY

  JULY 6, 1865

  It took General Hartranft’s men very little time to catch up with my daughter, for not an hour after I was told of my impending death, she was at my side. Wordlessly, we wept in each other’s arms until Father Walter entered the room, soon followed by Father Wiget and a young man I dimly recognized as Mr. Brophy. Johnny had brought him home to dinner a couple of times in those quiet days before Mr. Booth entered our lives.

  They gave me wine of valerian, and its effect allowed me to lie back on my bed and watch calmly as the two priests, who had surely never been called upon to assist on such an occasion as this, consulted with each other about their respective duties. Finally, Father Walter turned. “Mrs. Surratt, I will give you communion tomorrow morning at seven, but for now, I suggest that I take your daughter and attempt to see the president and move him to pardon you, or at least to give you more time to prepare for your death.”

  “I want to stay with my mother,” Anna said fiercely.

  “Miss Surratt, your presence may mean the difference between life and death for your mother. It may move the president in a way that my words could not.”

  “Go, child. I wish to speak to these men alone anyway.”

  Anna obeyed instantly, and she and Father Walter departed, leaving me with the other two men. “Shall I leave?” Mr. Brophy asked. “If you wish to make your confession…”

  “No. I first wish to talk to you about my Anna. You have been a friend to her, and I hope you will continue to be. She will need help with the most practical things of life, and I fear she will be taken advantage of.”

  “I will do everything I can for her, Mrs. Surratt. Mr. Holohan has said to me that he and his wife will look after her as well.”

  “Thank you, sir. Now let me speak to Father Wiget privately for a moment.”

  Father Wiget took Mr. Brophy’s place in the chair nearest my bed. “What do you wish to tell me, madam?”

  “That I am innocent of plotting the president’s murder. That I am guilty of aiding Mr. Booth.” It was the first time I said this to anyone, and my breath came more easily when I said it. “I did not know murder was planned, and I had no inkling of it. But I assisted him in what I thought was his plan to kidnap, and for that I must seek forgiveness. I also did nothing to alert the authorities, and for that I must repent as well.

  “And there is Johnny. I told him through my lawyers not to come here. But there is a bitterness in my heart now that he has obeyed and that he has not come back to be by my side, even though I know that he would probably hang if he returned. I cannot stop thinking that in his place, Anna would have returned. You must help me, sir. I do not want to die with this bitterness. I do not want him to come back and hang.”

  “Could he save you by coming back?”

  “I doubt it, and even if he could, I do not want him to die in my place.” I closed my eyes. “I am so muddled with all this happening, and the stuff they have given me.”

  “Your son will have a very heavy burden to bear when he learns of your death, Mrs. Surratt,” Father Wiget said gently. “Remember, it was he who brought Mr. Booth into your house, bringing all of your present troubles upon you. He will carry the weight of that for as long as he lives—and he is barely into his majority, is he not? Let me tell him, if he ever stands face-to-face with me, that you died in charity with him. I know him, and I believe he will need that comfort in days to come.”

  “I will try, Father.”

  Father Wiget smiled, as if relishing the challenge. “I will help you, madam.”

  • • •

  That afternoon, about the same time the Washington sun grew hottest in the sky, I began to hear a commotion in the prison yard—objects being dragged, hammering, men barking orders. Father Wiget heard it too, of course, and I saw him exchange sad looks with Mr. Brophy, who had returned. Only then did it dawn on me what was being built, and the courage I had been striving so hard to attain failed me utterly. I broke down weeping again.

  It was at that time that General Hartranft came into the room. “Mrs. Surratt, I am sorry, but I must move you downstairs in preparation for tomorrow. Please take what things you will need for tonight.
”

  I took a carpetbag Anna had brought me from our house and stuffed a few items in it: a prayer book, my rosary, a brush and comb, a toothbrush and tooth powder, my goose-down pillow.

  A person needed very little for the last night of her life, I found.

  • • •

  The cell I was taken to on the first floor was small and gloomy, without the creature comforts of the room I had been occupying upstairs—only a mattress on the floor and a couple of stools. Its one merit was that the sound of the scaffold being built was not as distinct. The three men who were to die with me had also been moved to nearby cells, for I could hear the comings and goings of their own visitors.

  Soon after I was moved, Anna returned, her face wet with tears. “The president wouldn’t see us. Judge Holt did, but he told us that there was nothing he could do, that only the president could commute your sentence.” The tears splashed from her eyes. “I can’t do anything to help you, Ma.”

  “Anna, you tried.” I stroked her hair, damp from the sweltering Washington heat. “My good girl, let that be a comfort to you in the years to come.”

  My daughter looked around her. “This is a horrid cell. Why did they move you here? Why are they treating you so? How can they be so cruel?”

  “Anna! They have moved us all down here. Come sit beside me. There are some practical matters I must talk to you about.”

  Anna hesitated but obeyed. For a short while, I talked to her about the things that had to be talked about: the money I owed, the few debts that were owed me, the lease on the tavern, my lawyer’s fees. “It is a great deal to put on you, but you are stronger than you realize. These last few weeks have shown that. And you will have help. Mr. Brophy has proven to be a good friend to you.”

  Speaking of these ordinary affairs seemed to steady Anna’s nerves, but not for long. As the evening fell, she became more unstrung, so much so that I began to fear for her reason. This death watch was no place for this child. “Mr. Brophy, please take Anna home to spend the night.”