Mary Elizabeth Surratt - "Please Don't Let Me Fall!"

MARY ELIZABETH SURRATT BOOK 5 THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION SERIES On a night meant for celebration, a single gunshot splits the air at Ford's Theatre—and Washington City clamps shut like a trap. By dawn, detectives pour into Mary Elizabeth Surratt's quiet H Street boardinghouse, turning parlor whispers into evidence and breakfast tables into witness stands. Was Mary the quiet hinge on which the plot turned—or the neatest neck to fit a noose? From Washington's gaslit corridors—slick with soot, echoing with boot heels and the rattle of telegraph keys—to a plank-floored military courtroom ringed with bayonets, where verdicts are stamped out faster than mercy can form a prayer, this story tracks Mary's desperate struggle to keep her family from splintering while a raw, grieving nation demands a sacrifice. Neighbors avert their eyes. Friends forget the truth at the threshold and remember a different one under oath. Witnesses swear one version at dawn and another by dusk, their pockets heavy with promises and fear. Her daughter hammers on locked doors, shoves petitions beneath shutters, pleads with men who never remove their gloves. And over the prison yard the iron clock refuses to pity anyone; its hands scratch forward, each minute a footstep toward the scaffold. In that narrowing corridor of time, every breath is a wager—confess, defy, or let the rope speak for her. Threaded with intercepted letters, sudden arrests, and testimony that shifts like sand, this novel moves from the shuddering heart of a city reeling from war to the echoing chamber where justice is hurried, soldiers keep the time, and mercy arrives too late. Whether Mary Surratt was monster or martyr, one fact cannot be argued: after Lincoln fell, someone had to hang. The question that haunts every page is why it had to be her—and who wanted it that way. Why? Because the government officials at the time thought it might be more lenient in regards to the evidence allowing the court to get to the bottom of what they perceived as a vast conspiracy. From all indications, enough preliminary witnesses mentioned Mary Surratt's participation as responsible for providing the nest that hatched the egg, her boarding house in Washington City. One thing in the proceedings that appeared suspicious was on the night she was arrested, she denied having ever seen Lewis Thornton Powell when he appeared at her boarding house. According to numerous witnesses in the trial, Lewis had been there on multiple occasions to meet with her son and others. Was Mary lying, or was it just too dark when she was asked if she recognized him in front of the boarding house. Mary Surratt was on trial with seven men. Her attorneys were John Clampitt and Frederick Aiken. In prison, Lewis Powell continued to tell anyone who would listen that keeping Mary shackled and in prison was wrong as she had nothing to do with the assassination of the President. Testimony given by John Lloyd and Louis Weichmann weighed heavily in the Military Commission's final decision. During the trial, Mary dressed in total black. Her head was covered in a black bonnet. The expressions on her face were barely recognizable hidden behind the netting of her silk veil. This court case, in its entirety for Mary Surratt, is depicted in this novel, the fifth novel in the Lincoln Assassination Series. The reader will have the opportunity to determine from the evidence and the testimony of the witnesses whether or not Mary Elizabeth Surratt should be hung or be turned free.