American History Tellers - Traitors | Accomplice or Martyr | 5

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Not every case of treason is open and shut. With some accused traitors, questions of their guilt or innocence can linger for generations. That’s certainly the case with Mary Surratt. Even before she was hanged in 1865 for her alleged role in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, many argued that she was an innocent widow convicted on false testimony. After her death, she became a martyr to the Confederate cause. To this day, Civil War scholars are divided on whether or not she was an active participant in the Lincoln plot.On this episode, Lindsay speaks with author and historian Kate Clifford Larson. Her book The Assassin’s Accomplice attempts to debunk many of the myths surrounding Surratt and the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. They’ll discuss not only Surratt, but our general fascination with traitors and their stories of duplicity and betrayal.Please support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's July 1865 in Washington, D.C. It's been one week since Mary Surratt was executed for her part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. As one of the residents of her boarding house, you were a star witness at the trial. But now Surratt's creditors have seized the house, and you need a new place to live. You walk away from a new boarding house you've just toured, slamming the front gate shut in frustration. The landlord refused to rent you after he realized who you are. Since Rot's execution, public opinion has turned against you and your name has been dragged through the mud.

Now you're trudging down the sidewalk towards yet another boarding house when you hear a familiar voice behind you. Well, well, look who it is. You turn and see your old classmate, John Brophy, approaching. You sigh and keep walking, but he chases after you. Hey, what's your hurry? Can't you spare a moment for an old friend? Leave me be, Brophy, please. You and Brophy used to be friends, but like so many others, he's turned on you since Surratt's conviction. He even wrote a newspaper article attacking your character.

The two of you haven't spoken since. But he catches up to you and flashes a twisted sneer. What are you doing on this side of town? That's none of your concern. But Brophy grabs your elbow to stop you. Now wait just a moment. As your friend, you owe me an explanation for why you betrayed that poor woman. I owe you nothing.

Apparently it's not enough for you to criticize me in the press. Now you have to harass me in the street. You lied on the stand. Probably to save your own skin. That's what I'm thinking. And your lies sent an innocent woman to her death. Mary was guilty. There's no doubt.

And I wasn't the only one to testify against her. There was plenty of evidence that sealed her fate. She did this. You betrayed her. How could you? She was a good friend to you. You look into your former friend's eyes and see real pain there. Brophy, too, knew Surratt and helped her try to overturn her death sentence. You're reminded that for him, this is personal. Now in that, John, you're right. She was always kind to me. And at first, I didn't want to believe that she could have aided in the plot to kill the president. But I assure you, it's true. I saw what I saw. And you feel nothing for the fact that you helped send her to the gallows. No, you can't say I feel

nothing. I was very sorry that she had to die that way. I hoped the government would spare her. But I don't regret my testimony. I spoke the truth. You and I, we've known each other for years, John. You know me to be an honest man. No, you were. I don't know who you are anymore, though.

There's no point in arguing further. You shake your head and walk away. But Brophy won't let it go. You know, this isn't over. And I won't stop. No, not until everyone knows you're a liar. Mary was innocent. You keep walking. It's clear there's no convincing Brophy of Mary Surratt's guilt and that his attacks on your character will continue. You only hope that this sudden wave of sympathy for Surat will pass. It neglects the facts. It's a misrepresentation of justice.

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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham. And this is American History Tellers. Our history. Your story. In the spring of 1865, Lewis Weichmann testified at the trial of Mary Surratt, who was accused of conspiring to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Weichmann's testimony helped secure Mary's conviction and later execution. But public sympathy for Mary grew after her hanging, and Weichmann came under attack, even from some of his own friends. Many believed that Weichmann had lied on the witness stand to conceal his own role in the conspiracy, sending an innocent woman to the gallows in his place.

Mary Surratt's execution would haunt Weichmann for decades. For the rest of his life, he dedicated himself to justifying his testimony. All the while, Surratt's sympathizers publicly harassed him, as well as others who testified against her or sat on the military tribunal that sentenced her to death. And to this day, the question of Surratt's guilt or innocence continues to divide Civil War scholars. Here today to discuss that divide and share her own take on Mary Surratt's story is author and historian Kate Clifford Larson. Her book, The Assassin's Accomplice, attempts to debunk many

of the myths surrounding Seurat and the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. Here's our conversation. Kate Clifford Larson, thank you so much for speaking with me on American History Tellers. Well, thank you for having me. Mary Seurat is not a well-known figure in American history, although she probably should be. Prior to your book, there wasn't much literature on her. How did you find out about her particular case? Well, it's actually a funny story. So I have my PhD in American history, and I never learned about her involvement in the assassination plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. So after I graduated from my program at the University of New Hampshire,

and I was publishing my book on Harriet Tubman, and every day I Google Harriet Tubman's name, and I see if there's new documentation about her, or to see who's celebrating her, talking about her, using her in contemporary culture. And one of those days, a notice popped up that the Surratt Museum in Clinton, Maryland was hosting a bus tour to the eastern shore of Maryland to visit the landscapes of Harriet Tubman's life. And I was like, what is the Mary Surratt Museum? And so I went online and I found their website. And here was the story of Mary Surratt, who knew John Wilkes Booth and who was hanged for her role in the assassination. And a lot of people believe that she was innocent and it was a huge travesty. And I thought, well, I'm a woman's historian. I'm going to investigate this and I'm going to save

Mary from the dustbin of history and I'm going to prove she's innocent. And that's how I started the project. Well, let's talk about her innocence and your mission to prove it. You began research, as you just mentioned, on The Assassin's Accomplice, your book, expecting to prove her innocent, but you decided that she was guilty instead. Why did you think she was innocent at first? Well, because there was so much online, and one of the books that I acquired was a book about Mary Surratt that was written, I think, in the 70s or 80s that claimed that Mary was innocent. And then there were older books that claimed that she was innocent. And I thought,

well, we needed a contemporary new look at her life and bring this out in the open and show that she's innocent. But as soon as I started digging into the primary documents, I discovered that she was not innocent. Well, before we get to her prosecution in your eyes here, why don't we start with Mary the woman? What kind of person was she? What was her upbringing? What were her beliefs or values?

So she was born in the early 1820s in Prince George's County, Maryland, to a middle class slaveholding family. And so brothers to run the plantation. And her mother was a very smart woman and was able to maintain control of all of their property, enslaved people, the farm, et cetera, which was unusual for a single woman at that time, a widow, because usually the creditors just descend on a family and take as much as they can. So her mother was very smart, maintained control, and expanded their holdings over the can. So her mother was very smart, maintained control, and expanded their holdings over the years. And young Mary was sent away to a Catholic boarding school as a young teenager. The family were Episcopalians, but there was limited education for girls, let me put it that way, in the South in particular at the time. So her mother sent her to this

Catholic boarding school, and she became a devout Catholic convert as a middle teen. She was a smart young woman, girl, and she did very well. And she took after her mother. So when she graduated from high school, she returned home. And in the late 1830s, she fell in love with John Surratt, who was a bit of a rogue. He was an adopted son of a local family, and he was a heavy gambler and a drinker. He had fathered a child with another woman in the community. But young Mary fell deeply in love with him, and they got married in 1840. I would imagine against the wishes of her mother and the rest of her family, but she did. And they went on to have three children. And she was an incredibly devout Catholic and helped, you know, build a

Catholic church in the area and was very close to several Catholic priests. And that was her solace and basically her salvation at a time when her husband was quite difficult to live with. So she had a privileged life, but also a difficult personal life. And her husband eventually passed and left her his businesses. So she, in another way, resembles her mother a bit. That's right. He actually inherited significant assets from his adoptive parents. And he had a farm and he had many properties and a boarding house that he acquired in Washington, D.C. And during the 1850s, Mary struggled to raise her children and sent them away to boarding school as well because her husband, John, decided to open a

tavern at the crossroads in a place that became known as Surrattsville, now known as Clinton, Maryland. And Mary didn't want her children being raised in the atmosphere of a tavern where people were drinking and gambling, her husband's favorite pastimes. So he eventually died as the world got closer and closer to the Civil their property, take care of their children, and to try to negotiate with all the creditors that were descending upon her as the war started raging in the early months of 1862. So she was a smart woman, and it took all that she had to keep her assets together and her family. You're painting a portrait of a strong woman, an independent woman that may have made a mistake in her personal life, but took it in stride and tried to do the best for herself and her family. That's right. Boarding school was expensive. She needed to bring her children home from boarding school, which I'm sure they didn't all like. Her eldest child, Isaac, joined the Confederacy

and fled to Virginia to sign up to fight against the United States Army. And her younger son, John Surratt, came back home to help her run the tavern and the businesses. They had a blacksmith and a wheelwright and a farm. And her daughter, Anna, came home too to help her run the business as well. But, you know, there was a lot of rebel activity in Southern Maryland in that area. And young John became very active in the Confederate spy networks in that region. And he was caught a couple of times. And that was very dangerous for Mary because her property was at risk. The United States government could confiscate all of her property if her son was tried and convicted as a spy. So she pulled out of Southern Maryland and brought her family to Washington, D.C. to live in a boarding house on H Street that her husband had acquired in the early 1850s. And the house was then empty, and she decided to run it as a boarding house. And it ended up being a great place for her son, John, to continue his

spying activities. Because, you know, Washington was a busy city. And who was going to notice that he was slipping in and out of the area and conducting that kind of Confederate business. And she leased her tavern to a man by the name of John Lloyd. And so life seemed, you know, pretty stable for her by the fall of 1864. But things were about to change pretty quickly. Well, let's talk about Mary's son, John Jr. a little more and his activities in and around this boarding house. It was him who allowed John Wilkes Booth into the family circle. How did John Jr. wind up full of himself and a moderately successful spy. I'm not clear on everything that he did for the Confederacy, but he was dedicated to the Southern cause. There's no question about that, as his mother was. So he was known in Southern Maryland for his activities.

There were plenty of sympathetic Marylanders in that region, not all of them fled to Virginia, but they did their best to thwart the efforts of the Union Army. And in fact, the Union soldiers occupied portions of southern Maryland because there was a lot of Union activity going on that was so close to Virginia and messages and supplies could go back and forth quite easily. So John had made himself quite well known to other Confederate operatives in the region. So in Washington, D.C., it sort of opened up more opportunities for him. While he's doing that, that John Wilkes Booth, the actor,

has become more and more enraged by what was happening during the Civil War. He hated Abraham Lincoln. He just hated the United States position on the Southern cause. So he started scheming with a plan to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and ransom him for the freedom of Confederate prisoners in Union prison camps. This was in the summer of 1864. And so he needed things. He needed support. He needed help. He needed people. He needed horses. He needed wagons. He needed, you know, rifles and things like that. So he started meeting with some of these associates of John Surratt's in Southern Maryland, like the Dr. Mudd's of the world and Samuel Cox and other people like that. And eventually someone suggested that he talk to John Surratt in Washington, D.C. And he, in fact, was introduced to John Surratt

one day on the street in Washington. John Wilkes Booth was walking with Dr. Mudd down the street and they ran into John Surratt and one of the boarders in his mother's boarding house, Lewis Weichman. And that started the connection between John Wilkes Booth and John Surratt and Surratt's whole family. And that was the beginning of the planning of the plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. And that was in December of 1864. So now, at this point, John Wilkes Booth is fully within the circle of the Surratt family. And working with John on the specifics of this outrageous plot to kidnap the president. But what was Booth's relationship with Mary Surratt? So that's very interesting. I think that he found comfort and safety in the boarding house.

And she was intelligent. She was an older woman that could give him wise counsel, particularly about the comings and goings in Southern Maryland. She was a perfect front for him because she was a respectable, pious, middle-class woman running a boarding house. Who would suspect that anything was going on in that boarding house? They did have secret or private meetings, just the two of them in her bedroom, her quarters in the boarding house. I do not believe that there was a relationship beyond just an intellectual kind of helping relationship. She may have looked at him fondly, but I think that she served a purpose for him and she was happy to help someone that was willing to

fight for the Southern cause and to thwart the efforts of Abraham Lincoln. So she bought into his plans as well. So this brings us to the point where I'd like to try to figure out what swayed you from the current literature insisting that she might be innocent and change your mind that you would determine she was involved in the conspiracy. So what did you discover that was left out of the record that changed your verdict on her? So the remarkable thing is a lot of the records come from the trial after she was arrested, after the assassination, and all of the co-conspirators were discovered and arrested while John Wilkes Booth is running through the Maryland countryside and then fleeing into Virginia, the co-conspirators were all caught. And so their testimony, they were interrogated. So those

statements are available at the National Archives. And then the trial testimony is riveting. So the Pittman brothers had just developed their shorthand method so they could take shorthand versions of all the testimony each day and it was translated and sent out by telegraph to all the newspapers around the country so the day after each day's testimony all the testimony was printed in the newspapers every witness witness, every gavel that was hit on the table at the trial was recorded in the newspapers. So going through all the testimony, then lining it up with all the witness testimonies and eyewitness records, it just became so obvious that Mary was involved in the plot, not only to kidnap Abraham Lincoln, but she aided

and abetted John Wilkes Booth on the day that he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. There was no getting around it. And everybody that believes that she was innocent kept saying, well, they all lied. They all lied. Well, you know, I'm not buying that everybody lied. It just isn't possible. It was Mary Surratt who was involved and she was guilty and she was hanged. So I think that it was the interrogations and the trial transcripts that really revealed to me just how guilty she was. And I couldn't walk away from all of that. And then it was interesting how people tried to rework that testimony to make it sound like it meant something that it never did. So it was fascinating. It was sort of like, here we go

with people trying to create fake news. And it wasn't. The real news had been published in the newspapers for months, and then people decided to not believe it. Well, you mentioned that it was obvious to you that she was guilty, but I wonder how guilty was she? In what way do you think Surratt herself contributed to the assassination plot overall? Was she an accomplice, or did she play a larger role? Was she the mastermind? Well, she certainly wasn't the mastermind. Booth definitely was the mastermind. And regardless of how chaotic it all seemed, the kidnapping scheme and all the co-conspirators that he kind of collected with John Surratt's help.

I mean, when you look at those co-conspirators working together, it's sort of like the Keystone Cops. It's the mistakes they made and the ridiculous things that they did. It's just stunning to me. They thought that they could pull off a kidnapping. So, you know, she wasn't the mastermind behind that. But the days leading up to the assassination, she did several things that aided and abetted John Wilkes Booth to make it possible for him to fulfill his wish of assassinating the president and then helping him escape. And you can't get away from that. So that's why she was found guilty. She aided and abetted. She could have stopped him and she did

not. And that's why she was hanged. Well, let's move on to her trial, because certainly the authorities at the time thought she was guilty. But in a stroke that perhaps shows how clever she is, she took on a very somber appearance, wearing a black veil. What was she trying to say with her attire during this time in her trial? Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. It is so fascinating to me that she chose to do that. She played to the audience and the audience wasn't just to the packed courtroom. There were tickets that were passed out to people so that they could come in and observe the trial and it was packed. And then the newspaper reporters that reported it every day. So there was a nationwide audience. And she,

I believe, understood that. So she presented herself in this black dress with a heavy black veil. She was the pious Catholic woman who was a widow who was being attacked by the United States government. You know, it was just an image that she wanted to portray to show this giant oppressive government taking advantage of and hurting a Southern woman who had nothing but goodness and piety in her life. So that's how I see her And that's how I know she was playing it. She was no simpering widow. She was a smart businesswoman. And she was all about protecting her children and her assets. And she believed in the Southern cause. And she was not going to back down from that. So when she went into the courtroom dressed like that,

I could see the image she was trying to portray. It backfired, though, in many ways, because people needed to see her face. They needed to see her. And she couldn't, people couldn't be sympathetic towards her if they couldn't see her face. And so they imagined that she had a criminal face. So back in those days, you know, they had all this pseudoscience about the shape of someone's head, how close their eyes were together, how thin their lips were. It was an indication of criminality. So they imagined that Mary Surratt had all those characteristics that made her look like a criminal. But they couldn't see her because she had such a thick veil over her head. So I think it backfired for her.

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the beginning. But that wasn't true. Public opinion was really against her practically the whole trial. It was sort of salacious and it was shocking. And people were still reeling from Lincoln's death and his assassination, his murder. So they were not about to be sympathetic to the people that were being accused, that's for sure. And she didn't help herself. So the jurors were one thing, but they were all Union Army officers. So it wasn't likely that she was going to sway them. It was a military trial, which was incredibly unusual, but for the time period, probably not. But she thought, you know, at least public opinion,

perhaps that could sway people. And it didn't because she just read the audience wrong. However, she didn't live long enough to see how the audience changed after she died. I think to modern listeners who certainly weren't around at the time, it's probably good to just think about the event this trial was. You know, we did not get as a nation the opportunity to try Oswald for his crime of assassinating JFK.

But, you know, we did, we have seen this sort of up-to-the-moment coverage of other trials, the O.J. Simpson trial, for instance. And it occurs to me that the trial of the conspirators of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is kind of like both of those moments together. The assassination of JFK plus O.J. Simpson. Can you tell me what you think the American populace was feeling about this moment? I think you just nailed it. And as I mentioned in the opening about the Pittman brothers coming up, developing their shorthand so they could sit at the trial and record every single word and it could be published in newspapers, word by word, scene by scene. It riveted the nation. I mean, newspapers just sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

It was a remarkable press event, too. It changed the nature of reporting because so much could be recorded. And I put that in italics. So that changed the way people experienced the trial and the way it was reported. And people really got a minute-by-minute sense of what was going on in that courtroom. I mean, the descriptions, even the reporters and the Pittman brothers

recorded the smells, the sounds, the rustling of the women's skirts in the viewing gallery. You know, it just brought the whole trial to life. And Anna Surratt changed in the years after her death. And in fact, her son was tried in those years. How did the public change their minds in the few years after her trial and execution? So it happened very quickly. Now, John Surratt was the one co-conspirator who was not captured. He fled to Canada. He was protected by Jesuit priests. He got himself to England.

And then eventually he went to Italy and he was a papal guard. And then he was chased into Egypt where he was finally captured in 1867. But throughout the whole trial, I just imagined that Mary was desperate to protect her son from being captured because, of course, he was involved in the plot. So she stood strong. She took the fate. John Surratt knew what was happening to his mother. He did not return and perhaps help his mother get off and take her place. He just let her suffer for him.

He goes off and then he's captured in 67. But by then the country had moved on. It was tired of the assassination. It was tired of the strife and the conflict because for two years since the trial, people had started to re-evaluate what had happened. And Mary had several supporters who were desperate to have her be liberated. And once she was hanged, they put on a full court press to challenge the government and to refashion her image into this, as I said, a pious widow who was just taken advantage of by John Wilkes Booth, and she was innocent, and she was hanged by this horrible ogre of a government. And people went for it because the press just loved to keep that drama going. There wasn't any sympathy for the other co-conspirators, but for Mary Surratt, there was. And those

advocates, those supporters of hers didn't let up for 30, 40, 50 years. It's stunning how they kept fighting. It's like they convinced themselves. Some of them knew she was guilty and others tried to believe that she was innocent and they just never gave up. And the ones that knew she was guilty, by 40 years later, they had convinced themselves that she was innocent, and they just never gave up. And the ones that knew she was guilty, by, you know, 40 years later, they had convinced themselves that she was innocent. So, that changed the way people in the 20th century viewed the assassination and Mary Surratt's role is through the eyes of those supporters and the people who kept up the campaign to prove that she was innocent or to convince people that she was innocent. I can imagine family members, close people to Mary Surratt, who would keep the torch of light for her and battle for 30 or 40 years to rehabilitate her image. But it sounds like this

was a broader group. So my question is, were they trying to rehabilitate her image or were they trying to rehabilitate something else, perhaps even the Confederate cause? And it no longer was about slavery and reconciliation was more important than the movement to improve the world for formerly enslaved people during Reconstruction, voting rights, expanding the economy in the world and across the nation. And I think that people really clung to that new South kind of history. And Mary was part of it as this woman that was wrongfully accused. And she was a casualty of the overbearing United States government that had taken so many Southern lives and ruined so many families. And so she fit into that narrative. She was a very sympathetic character. I would like to say, though, that her family didn't play as much a role in that as these other supporters who were more interested in elevating Mary and refashioning her story. Her daughter, Anna, married a young man who actually struggled after they married because no one wanted to hire him because he had married Anna Surratt. And then

John Surratt, once he was arrested and brought back for trial, he endured a trial. He was so arrogant. Anyway, it was declared a mistrial. He was never tried again. And then he went out on the lecture circuit boasting about how he had fooled the Union Army and gotten away. And it didn't go over well with any audience. So then he moved on to work in Baltimore for the rest of his life, quietly. And so did Isaac. Isaac returned from the Confederate Army and moved to Baltimore and lived a very quiet, nondescript life. So it wasn't the family that did that. It was these other supporters. And it just stuns me how they became so dedicated to trying to retell Mary's story and lying about the facts of what happened. But they had an audience that was willing to soak it all up. And they did. They did. Tell me a little bit about the men who testified against Surratt, who uncovered the conspiracy to begin with. What happened to them, like Lewis Weichman, for instance, after the trial? So Lewis Weichman was a boarder in the House,

and he observed everything that was going on. And he became suspicious because of the activities of these co-conspirators coming and going out of the House and the secret meetings and the fake mustaches that he discovered and that they were wearing as they were doing their work. And he worked for the War Department, and he reported his observations to a superior who did not send that report on to other authorities. He just said, well, keep watching what was going on. And Lou Weichman, during his testimony, he

just told what he found, what he saw. And he helped the authorities track down the co-conspirators. So he was vilified by those Mary Surratt supporters. And people later on claimed that he was part of the conspiracy and that he had a bigger role in the conspiracy than he admitted that he lied on the stand. Well, I don't see him part of the conspiracy at all. In fact, John Wilkes Booth didn't like him at all and tried to frame him. So that kind of story fell flat for me. But Lewis Weichman struggled and struggled for people to listen to him. He was criticized publicly after the hanging. You know, the people really turned on him, and he spent decades trying to prove his innocence. And interestingly, any of those conspirators could have turned state's evidence, and they would not have been charged. That was the law back then. They couldn't charge someone that was willing to testify. And so I don't know

why the others didn't testify, too. He was willing to testify and tell the truth. So his statements were some of the statements that people even today will say Lou Weichman lied. Well, all the evidence shows that Lou Weichman did not lie. So I feel for Lou Weichman. He's not a very sympathetic character in some ways, but he was not the person that brought down Mary Surratt. There was another man who was the tenant at the Surratt farm in Surrattsville, and he was involved in storing guns and other items for John Wilkes Booth, who would need those items after he assassinated the president and escaped the city and was racing through southern Maryland in order to find his way to Virginia. And he held a rifle and some other items for John Wilkes Booth.

He testified about how involved Mary was in making those arrangements. And so people called him a liar. And then there were other people who noticed her movements and what she did, and they were all called liars. But all of their testimony fits with other evidence that was presented at the trial. lives afterwards. And I think it's all tied up in what you said about after the Civil War, the change in attitudes and the rewriting of the history of slavery and the Civil War, so that they became casualties of that as well. Well, if there was a movement to rewrite history and make Mary Surratt a martyr for the cause, why then did Surrattsville change its name to Clinton? Well, that's a good question.

I'm not really clear on why they did that. But I know that local people, this is what I was told when I interviewed people who lived in that area, and a wonderful woman by the name of Laurie Verge, who used to run the Surratt Tavern Museum, which I encourage everyone to go and see. And they have a research center. It's a marvelous place to do research. She was born and raised in the area and long line of ancestors from the area. And she said everybody used to talk about how Mary Surratt was guilty. So I found that very interesting that even local people who had been part of that Confederate rebel network of spies all knew that or said they knew that Mary was guilty. Now, maybe you know why they changed it to Clinton. I don't recall why they changed the name to Clinton, but it was a good idea that they did that. You were a consultant on the 2011 film about Mary Surratt's trial of the

conspirator directed by Robert Redford. What did that film get right about Surratt's trial of The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford. What did that film get right about Surratt? What maybe did it miss the mark on? So, I think that they were too kind to Mary. I think originally the script had been written back in the 1990s, way before my book was written and before a lot of these documents became available or someone started looking at them. So the script was very sympathetic to Mary and showed that she was innocent and it was just this horrible travesty. But when Robert Redford got a hold of it in the early 2000s, he was partially influenced by what was going on in Guantanamo Bay. These military trials, the military tribunals were taking place. And he started looking at this trial of Mary, which was also a military tribunal. And they decided to

rework the script because it was too much in favor of Mary Surratt. But there were certain things that they couldn't, they wouldn't let go of. And that was to cast a little bit of doubt in the audience's eyes that maybe Mary was innocent. So the film kind of walks this fine line. Was she guilty or was she partially guilty? So they wanted people to find her a sympathetic character. And they also wanted to show a more motherly relationship that they wanted to portray Mary Surratt as being more of a mother figure to the attorney, and that didn't exist either. So I wanted them to be much more harsh on Mary, but they weren't willing to go that far, not at all. Now streaming. Welcome to Buy It Now,

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You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So there are these waves of turning tides against and for Mary Surratt. Certainly in the eyes of the law at the time, she was guilty. Then a revisionism comes up and she is a victim of an oppressive system. And now more and more people believe, as you do, that she was indeed guilty. But 150 years later, the jury is still out. Why do some people still

strongly believe that Mary Surratt is innocent? What evidence do they point to? And what is the issue that it's still important in 2021? You know, it is very curious why some people believe that she was innocent when the evidence is really overwhelming. And I just find it curious that people are willing to believe that everybody lied instead of imagining that perhaps the person was guilty and that everybody isn't lying. And why does it matter today? Well, there are certain things about the story that are important for us to know about. First of all, a military trial for civilians is rare and it is horrible. They are not fair trials at all. So that is important, something to discuss. You know, the judge and jury have control over everything. And when you read the transcript of Mary's trial, just it's amazing how little control the defense had and that the

prosecution just kind of could do whatever they wanted. And they were rarely, you know, the objections to what they were doing were agreed. So that I think is a fascinating thing. And everybody should read about that because military trials are tough, tough trials, and they are not places for civilians. And then I think it's a lesson today that, you know what, women can be evil and do bad things too, not just men. And I think that's part of the problem. It's hard for people to look back at that time, that Victorian era, and imagine this woman could be so horrible and guilty and plot to kill a president. Well, of course she could do that. There were women that were guilty of many things back then. And her piety was no protection. Just because you're a

religious person doesn't mean that you don't commit crimes. So I think that we need to humanize these characters in our past and look at them as real human beings who have faults and foibles and opinions that might be offensive to us. And they acted on those opinions. And we need to acknowledge that. Hold them accountable. I think Mary needs to be held accountable for her guilt. She was. She was hanged. And I think they got it right. I think Mary needs to be held accountable for her guilt. She was, she was hanged. And I think they got it right.

I do. Another woman in our series on American traitors was Ethel Rosenberg. And she too had an enormous amount of support behind her insisting on her innocence. And it wasn't for decades after her trial that new documents recently declassified seemed to cement her guilt. Do you think there are parallels in how the public viewed Mary Surratt and Ethel Rosenberg, main traitors to their nation, but also women?

Right. We do have this problem trying to come to terms with women who do really evil things. And so there are parallels, I believe. And it is interesting how hard historians and investigators have to work to show the guilt of a woman versus that of a man. Generally, you know, we're willing to accept the bad characters in men, but when it comes to women, we're more hesitant. And, you know, women can be just as evil, maybe not quite as many. I don't know. I can't judge that, but it's a good lesson. And I think Ethel Rosenberg also played that role as the aggrieved wife, you know, the innocent wife, the woman, how could she possibly have done those things? How could she possibly be a spy? Well, yeah, she was really smart. And we're not giving women the credit

for being really smart and making those decisions and acting on their beliefs. So it's sort of a cautionary tale that we should always kind of look at people and take them at their word and not try to find excuses or to, you know, find their innocence when clearly they're guilty. Kate Clifford Larson, thank you so much for talking with me today on American History Tellers. Thank you so much for having me. That was my conversation with historian and bestselling author Kate Clifford Larson. Her books include The Assassin's Accomplice, Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln, and Bound for the Promised Land,

Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. From Wondery, this is the fifth episode of Traitors from American History Tellers. On the next season, at the dawn of the 20th century, America was embroiled in its first major overseas conflict, all over a former colony of Spain, the Philippines. At first, Filipino freedom fighters welcomed the United States. But a new generation of American leaders, like Teddy Roosevelt,

didn't want to just liberate the Philippines. They wanted to make them part of an American empire. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. To learn more about Mary Surratt and the Lincoln assassination, check out my other podcast, 1865, a dramatization of the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination, the hunt for Booth, and the quest to bring the conspirators to justice. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham Graham for Airship. Audio editing and sound design by Molly Bach. This episode was produced by Kelly Kyle and Peter Arcune. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marsha Louis from Wondery. For more than two centuries, the White House has been the stage for some of the most dramatic scenes in American history. Inspired by the hit podcast American History Tellers, Wondery and William Morrow present the new book, The Hidden History of the White House.

Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, the world-altering decisions, and shocking scandals that have shaped our nation. You'll be there when the very foundations of the White House are laid in 1792, and you'll watch as the British burn it down in 1814. Thank you. Barack Obama approves the raid to bring down the most infamous terrorist in American history. Order The Hidden History of the White House now in hardcover or digital edition, wherever you get your books.