print portraits drawn by myself of all those who ever served in my Cabinet. I think I know them all perfectly, unless it may be Stanton.”

Visitors at the War Department will remember seeing there Mr. Stanton's portrait, a perfect likeness, which represents him leaning on his elbow, the forefinger of his right hand against his cheek, and his thumb under his chin. This was the position chosen by the artist for his picture, it being Mr. Stanton's exact pose when looking with mournful anxiety on the face of the dying President; and at the moment he breathed his last, when the attending physician, with hand on Mr. Lincoln's pulse, announced that it had ceased to beat, Mr. Stanton, with deep feeling, said, "He now belongs to the ages."

It is pleasant to find that, even in this late and last hour, Mr. Stanton was brought to realize the true grandeur of the illustrious man whose martyrdom will bear precious fruit through the centuries to come.

December 1, 1893.

CHAPTER VI.

GENERAL HOLT AND THE LINCOLN CONSPIRATORS.

Triumphant Refutation of the Charges of allowing Mrs. Surratt to be manacled, and of his withholding from President Johnson the Recommendation for Commutation of her Sentence to Life Imprisonment.

In the New York Tribune of September 2, 1873, there appeared an anonymous communication written from Washington under the signature of "Truth," so grossly calumnious of General Joseph Holt, Judge-Advocate-General in the trial of the assassins of President Lincoln, that he demanded the name of the author, who proved to be John T. Ford, of Ford's Theatre, where the fearful tragedy was

enacted, and who, at the time, was committed to the Carroll Prison, where he was kept-on suspicion, it is presumed— over a month, when he was liberated without being brought to trial. Naturally enough, perhaps, he harbored a strong prejudice against General Holt, and sought to defame his character under cover through the press. Among other things he accused General Holt with having kept Mrs. Surratt "heavily manacled during her trial, and also of virtually depriving her of reputable counsel,"-referring to the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, who, as clearly appears by his argument, which was upon the question of jurisdiction, voluntarily withdrew, leaving the case in the hands of his associate counsel, Messrs. Clampitt and Aiken. General Holt met the other charge by a letter, addressed to him, under date of September 4, 1873, from General J. F. Hartranft, who, referring to Ford's article in the Tribune, said:

"I think it proper, in justice to you, to declare publicly that its statements, so far as they relate to occurrences within my own observation, are absolute falsehoods. As marshal of the court before whom the conspirators were tried, I had charge of Mrs. Surratt before, during, and after the time of her trial, in all a period of about two months, during which she never had a manacle or manacles on either hands or feet; and the thought of manacling her was not, to my knowledge, ever entertained by any one in authority."

One would suppose that proof so conclusive ought to set forever at rest the "manacle" charge; and, as regards the reference to Reverdy Johnson, it is plain beyond doubt that, "had he desired to continue in the case, assuredly there was no power that could have prevented him from doing so."

Yet, notwithstanding this and the overwhelming testimony on the other more serious and wanton charge against General Holt of withholding from President Johnson the recommendation of five members of the court that the sentence of Mrs. Surratt be commuted to imprisonment in the penitentiary, John T. Ford appears again in the North American Review for April, 1889, in an article reiterating

the falsehoods of his anonymous communication, and trying to show that General Holt was guilty of withholding from President Johnson the aforesaid recommendation of Mrs. Surratt to mercy.

Now, in as brief a manner as possible, I will recite some of the stronger evidence, clearly proving the falsity of this last charge, made first before President Johnson's term expired, and afterwards by Johnson himself, when he was seeking "to curry favor with the South in the hope of being elected to the Presidency." He did not dare to make the charge while he was at the head of the Government, because he knew if he did that General Holt would instantly demand, as he did ask for in 1866, a court of inquiry, which the President declined to order, and that all the facts and circumstances of the case would come out. General Holt, I think, took little, if any, public notice of this slander until he found it had received the indorsement of ex-President Johnson, when, in a communication published in the Washington Daily Chronicle of August 26, 1873, he produced the most incontrovertible proof that "President Johnson had knowledge of, considered, and commented on the recommendation of Mrs. Surratt to clemency by members of the court before her execution." It had been publicly asserted that President Johnson approved the findings of the court "without having seen the recommendation or known of its existence," although it was known, of course, to every member of the court, and it was also made known to Secretary Stanton, both by General Holt and by Judge Bingham, one of the special judge-advocates in the trial, immediately after the close of the trial. In his answer to General Holt (see Washington Daily Chronicle of November 12, 1873), Mr. Johnson undertakes to support his assertion that he never saw the recommendation by showing that it was omitted in Pitman's authorized publication of the proceedings of the trial. But this omission was fully explained. It arose simply from the fact, as stated by General

II. L. Burnett, special judge-advocate, who superintended the publication, that "the recommendation to mercy constituted properly no part of the record of the trial," and was not, therefore, furnished by him to Pitman for his book. In a letter of December 22, 1873, to General Holt (see Washington Daily Chronicle, December 1, 1873) Mr. Pitman also says, "The recommendation in favor of Mrs. Surratt was not inserted in my book for the reason that it formed no part of the proceedings of the trial; it was not mentioned at any open session."

Judge Bingham says:

...

"Before the President had acted on the case I deemed it my duty to call the attention of Secretary Stanton to the petition for the commutation of sentence upon Mrs. Surratt, and did call his attention to it before the final action of the President. . . . After the execution I called upon Secretaries Stanton and Seward and asked if this petition had been presented to the President before the death sentence was by him approved, and was answered by each of these gentlemen that the petition was presented to the President and was duly considered by him and his advisers before the death sentence upon Mrs. Surratt was approved, and that the President and the Cabinet, upon such consideration, were a unit in denying the prayer of the petition; Mr. Seward and Mr. Stanton stating that they were present."

Attorney-General James Speed, in a letter to General Holt, March 30, 1873, says:

"After the finding of the military commission that tried the assassins of Mr. Lincoln, and before their execution, I saw the record of the case in the President's office, and attached to it was a paper, signed by some of the members of the commission, recommending that the sentence against Mrs. Surratt be commuted to imprisonment for life; and, according to my memory, the recommendation was made because of her sex. I do not feel at liberty to speak of what was said in Cabinet meetings. In this I know I differ from other gentlemen, but feel constrained to follow my own sense of propriety."

James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior, states positively that "after the sentence and before the execution of Mrs. Surratt, I remember distinctly the discussion of the ques

tion of the commutation of the sentence of death pronounced on her by the court to imprisonment for life, had by members of the Cabinet, in the presence of President Johnson." He thinks there were only three or four members present, and when he entered the subject was under warm discussion. He does not remember hearing read in Cabinet meeting any part of the record of the trial or the recommendation of clemency, but says he was "told that the whole case had been carefully examined by the Attorney-General and the Secretary of War," the two Cabinet. officers more immediately concerned, officially, in the matter. At this period Mr. Harlan was the editor of the Chronicle, and in reference to the recommendation to mercy he said, "Had such a paper been presented, it is, in our opinion, hardly probable that it would, under the circumstances, have induced him to interfere with the regular course of justice."

James M. Wright, at the time Chief Clerk of the Bureau of Military Justice, states that when President Johnson sent a messenger to General Holt requesting him to bring the papers before him for his action, the recommendation for mercy was among them, in plain sight, and that when the case came back through the Adjutant-General's office it remained attached to the other papers.

General R. D. Mussey, President Johnson's private secretary, says, "On the Wednesday evening previous to the execution (which was Friday, July 7, 1865) Mr. Johnson said to me that he was going to look over the findings of the court with Judge Holt, and should be busy and could see no one." Two or three hours afterwards, Mr. Johnson came out of the room where he had been in conference with General Holt and said to him [General Mussey] that “the papers had been looked over and a decision reached." General Mussey continues:

"I am very confident, though not absolutely assured, that it was at this interview Mr. Johnson told me that the court had recommended Mrs.