Display of hoods grim reminder of Lincoln assassination plot

One of the most chilling reminders of the plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln and two other top U.S. government officials is a current display at the Smithsonian Institution’s American History Museum.

Eight cotton hoods designed to be worn by the convicted plot collaborators who were incarcerated in the assassination conspiracy can be seen in a display designed for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

The seven male prisoners – Edmund Spangler, Samuel Arnold, David Herold, Lewis Payne, George Atzerodt, Michael O’Laughlen and Dr. Samuel Mudd – were shackeled with leg and wrist irons and were forced to wear the heavy cotton hoods at all times. The hoods covered their eyes and ears with only a small opening for the nose and mouth.

Mary Surratt, the only female conspirator, was not required to wear a hood or to be shackeled as the men were.

“Secretary of War Edwin Stanton required that the (male) prisoners wear these hoods when they were in their cells and when they were transported back and forth to the trial,” Harry Rubenstein, American History Museum curator, said. “This is just vengeance. There was no practical reason whatsoever. This is just taking these people who had done this and treating them as miserably as you possibly could.”

The conspirators who were charged had varying involvement in the plot which, on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, resulted in the murder of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. With the Confederate army on the verge of defeat, a group of Southern supporters hatched the plan in hopes that it would keep their cause alive.

“This was a conspiracy aimed at disrupting the federal government,” Rubenstein added. “It was the hope of John Wilkes Booth and others that this would cause uncertainty in the Union government and a negotiated peace might be possible as a result.”

Although Booth assassinated Lincoln, Lewis Powell hit no vital organs as he stabbed Seward and George Atzerodt lost the courage to attack Johnson at the very last moment.

Booth, of course, subsequently was tracked down and killed, but the wrath of the nation led to the arrest of the eight conspirators who were tried by a military tribunal. On June 30, after a seven-week trial, each of the eight was found guilty by the panel of Union military officials.

“Ever since, there’s been a huge debate about some of them and how responsible were they in the overall conspiracy,” Rubenstein said. “The evidence against them isn’t all that great.”

Spangler, a workman at Ford’s Theater where Lincoln was shot, argued that his only involvement in the affair was briefly holding Booth’s horse.

Prosecutors alleged that Mary Surratt, the Washington, D.C. boardinghouse owner, had abetted Booth by providing him with a weapon during his escape, but her actual involvement is uncertain.

Three – Mudd, O’Laughlen and Arnold -  were sentenced to life in prison and along with Spangler - who received six years - were incarcerated at Fort Jefferson off Key West, Fla,, before being pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.

The four others – Payne, Herold, Atzerodt and Surratt - were sentenced to death and were hanged at Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington, D.C. Mary Surratt became the first woman ever executed by the U.S. Government. And, the entire episode continues to be considered a black mark on the history of the U.S. criminal justice system.

“All of these eight were a group of conspirators, on one hand or the other,” Rubenstein continued. “But it’s a little hard to say whether some of them were just victims of hanging out with the wrong people.”