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The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth | George Alfred Townsend | |
Letter V: A Solution Of The Conspiracy |
Page 5 of 11 |
So Surrattsville only ten miles from Washington, has been throughout the war a sect of conspiracy. It was like a suburb of Richmond, reaching quite up to the rival capital; and though the few Unionists on the peninsula knew its reputation well enough, nothing of the sort came out until the murder. Treason never found a better agent than Mrs. Surratt. She is a large, masculine, self-possessed female, mistress of her house, and as lithe a rebel as Belle Boyd or Mrs. Greenhough. She has not the flippantry and menace of the first, nor the social power of the second; but the rebellion has found no fitter agent. At her country tavern and Washington home Booth was made welcome, and there began the muttered murder against the nation and mankind. The acquaintance of Mrs. Surratt in Lower Maryland undoubtedly suggested to Booth the route of escape, and made him known to his subsequent accomplices. Last fall he visited the entire region, as far as Leonardstown, in St. Mary's county, professing to be in search of land but really hunting up confederates upon whom he could depend. At this time he bought a map, a fellow to which I have seen among Atzerott's effects, published at Buffalo for the rebel government, and marking at hap-hazard all the Maryland villages, but without tracing the highroads at all. The absence of these roads, it will be seen hereafter, very nearly misled Booth during his crippled flight. |
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The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth George Alfred Townsend |
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