Why Is Mary Surratt Innocent

Mary Surratt was a woman who was thought to be involved in Abraham Lincoln's assassination plot. Booth, the killer of Lincoln and her friend, asked her to deliver a package that ended up helping Booth get away from manhunters. For this reason added to lying to the police, having different reactions to news and having a son that was known to be a strong confederate, she was the first woman to be hanged. Although she wasn’t completely innocent, she did not deserve to be hanged for multiple reasons.

Mary Surratt’s court was not fair, not all information was presented in court. Stanton, the leader of the hunt for Lincoln’s killer and others involved, found a journal on John Wilkes Booth’s dead body. He didn’t show the information it contained at court which he later claimed was due to it not being important. He was so content on punishing all people involved in
The article says “Booth also left behind evidence seemingly exculpating mary in the assassination plot.” Furthermore, the journal didn’t mention Mary. The last reason Mary Surratt wasn’t guilty was the list of Booth’s helpers. That list didn’t have anything about Mary Surratt, yet it did contain information about all other helpers. The untrustworthy conspirators gave up information about all others but Mary Surratt. Could Mary Surratt still be guilty, the people used as evidence were conspirators.

The people that were evidence were not trustworthy. One of these conspirators, Booth, said “In the presence of almighty god, I swear Mrs. Surratt is innocent of the crime charged against her.” Both the article and the book agree Powell was freely giving all information correctly and without flaw. We can conclude that Powell was telling the truth at this time, Powell was trustworthy when he said this. Mary Surratt was, as Powell said “innocent of the crime charged against her.” Powell is not the only person to claim Mary Surratt was innocent