textfiles-politics/txt_files/riddle_p.lin

From bigxc@prairienet.orgSun Feb  5 12:13:07 1995
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 95 11:34:47 CST
From: Brian Redman <bigxc@prairienet.org>
To: Multiple recipients of list <conspire@prairienet.org>
Subject: Mask For Treason


[Originally posted under aegis of "Conspiracy
for the Day", August 2 through August 6, 1993]
 
Mask for Treason: The Lincoln Murder Trial
------------------------------------------
 
by Vaughan Shelton
 
[Excerpts]
 
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
+                                                               +
| "The history of the controversial Conspiracy Trial of 1865    |
+  as most Americans know it is a textbook version pared down   +
|  to a digestible nubbin... [The] basic account, with some     |
+  modifications, is the same one the engineers of the          +
|  Conspiracy Trial set out to promulgate. In a way their       |
+  success in planting such a version on the pages of American  +
|  history was a triumph in propaganda. For even before the     |
+  trial began, the first gusts of a storm of protest were      +
|  shaking the legend."                                         |
+                                                               +
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
 
 
                  The Riddle of Louis Paine
 
Louis Paine was one of the eight tried in the Conspiracy Trial of 
1865. He was one of the four persons (Louis Paine, Mrs. Mary E. 
Surratt, George Atzerodt, and David Herold) subsequently executed 
by the government on July 7, 1865.
 
Paine was arrested on April 17, 1865 (three days after the 
assassination of Lincoln) when he had the misfortune of knocking 
on the front door of a boardinghouse operated by Mrs. Surratt 
while government detectives were on the premises. Three weeks 
later, Paine was charged with conspiring to assassinate (along 
with seven others) President Lincoln, Vice-President Johnson, 
Lieutenant General U.S. Grant, and Secretary of State Seward.
 
"In addition to the sweeping general charges, Paine individually 
was accused of entering Seward's house on the night Lincoln was 
murdered and attempting to stab the Secretary of State to death." 
It was charged that "...hunger drove him to return to Mrs. 
Surratt's house [three days after the alleged attack on 
Seward]... disguised as a laborer."
 
"Even today, a century later [c. 1965], his [Paine's] image is 
unchanged from that given him by the prosecution at the 
Conspiracy Trial: A homicidal, half-witted brute without a 
flicker of remorse for the vicious crime he had attempted but 
bungled."
 
"But the persistence of the prejudice against this young man for 
a full century [c. 1965]... is a phenomenon of mass thought- 
conditioning that has no parallel."
 
"Even while the Trial was in progress, the possibility that the 
hate campaign being directed against the Booth 'conspirators' was 
a screen for a less visible conspiracy in high places was being 
hinted in the press." And when the Trial and execution had been 
carried out, the accusations of a frame-up did not diminish but 
rather increased. "In February of 1866 President Andrew 
Johnson... shouted during a speech from the White House steps:"
 
"   ... Are those who want to destroy our institutions and      "
"   change the character of the government not satisfied...     "
"   with one martyr? Does not the blood of Lincoln appease      "
"   the vengeance and wrath of the opponents of this            "
"   Government?... Have they not honor and courage enough to    "
"   effect the removal of the presidential obstacle otherwise   "
"   than through the hands of the assassin?                     "
 
 
"In spite of the fact that the legend of the Booth 
'conspiracy'... has remained the general basis for textbook 
versions of the episode for a hundred years..." suspicions have 
remained of a "...plot within a plot." Those looking into the 
historical material on the subject are often "...left with a 
strong impression that Edwin Stanton and certain of his political 
and official associates must surely have had a hand in the 
intrigue to remove President Lincoln by assassination."
 
Louis Paine did not know Booth and had nothing to do with the 
"conspiracy" for which he and the others were tried. "...Of the 
eight defendants at the Conspiracy Trial *he was the most 
innocent*." Ever since Paine's trial and execution, "...it has 
been the almost universal belief that his real name was Lewis 
Powell... There *was* such a man [i.e. Lewis Powell], and he 
played a leading part in the bloody events of Good Friday, April 
14, 1865. But he vanished that same night and never reappeared 
under his own name, though he evidently lived for many years 
afterward."
 
Louis Paine was *not* Lewis Powell. "Louis Paine was the *real 
name* of the young man who was tried, convicted, and hanged."
 
 
                           Confusion
 
"In the spring and summer of 1865 the country was under the 
control of the military establishment." Edwin Stanton presided 
over a War Department [B.R. Now called a "Defense Department."] 
that wielded great power.
 
Stanton and his accomplices organized "...the nation's grief and 
[focussed] it upon the project of finding and punishing the 
murderers... the country was kept in a state of hysteria on this 
one theme."
 
"This favorable atmosphere of directed emotion allowed the 
Department's Bureau of Military Justice to stage a mockery of a 
trial and erect a legend to screen two ominous realities: First, 
that the assassination was one phase of a power grab within the 
federal government. Second, that the removal of Abraham Lincoln's 
restraining influence at a time when Congress was not in session 
had cleared the way for a military dictatorship headed by 
Secretary of War Stanton."
 
Today, we can get a very detailed view of the events of that 
time. This is due in part to the fact that the "...telephone had 
not yet been invented, [and so] communications between officials 
in the War Department were routinely conveyed in written form."
 
The situation following the assassination of Lincoln was one of 
great hysteria. Furthermore, the various agencies investigating 
the murder of Lincoln and attempted murder of Seward lacked 
overall coordination. One aspect of the confusion then prevailing 
can be seen in the case of Louis Paine. "As late as April 24, ten 
days after the assassination, a memo written in the Bureau of 
Military Justice listed the prisoners committed by [that date]." 
The list did not include Louis Paine, although he had been 
arrested in connection with the assassination on April 17th.
 
Paine was a great puzzle to the investigators. At first he was 
willing to talk freely, "...though he denied knowing anything 
about a conspiracy to assassinate the President." However for 
some reason he suddenly refused to talk to anyone and remained 
that way "...until six weeks later, two weeks after the Trial had 
begun, when he just as suddenly decided to communicate with his 
baffled attorney, Colonel William E. Doster."
 
There was only one witness that the government had against Paine 
in the days following the assassination: a young black servant 
who had opened the door to the man who tried to murder Seward had 
positively identified Paine as being that man.
 
 
                       Seward's Assailant
 
"Many historians have sensed that a sinister force was in motion 
behind the scenes at the Conspiracy Trial." However, the primary 
force behind the scenes was *not* Stanton but rather Stanton's 
Secret Service chief, Colonel Lafayette Baker.
 
On Tuesday, April 18, 1865, Baker composed the first public 
"wanted" notice on Booth and "Seward's assailant." The 
description of Seward's assailant was extraordinarily detailed 
and specific. In fact, the "...handbill's description of an 
unnamed man was *an almost perfect description of Louis Paine.*"
 
Paine had been arrested on Monday, April 17. Until Paine's 
arrest, "...the War Department's official conception of the 
appearance of Seward's assailant... was of a man who looked like 
George Atzerodt [who did not resemble Paine]."
 
Thus, since the War Department's description of the man and the 
suspect described in Baker's handbill were so different in 
appearance, at least one of the two descriptions was wrong. The 
author contends that "Lafayette Baker composed the handbill with 
its description of Louis Paine *after he had [already] seen him in 
custody*."
 
"Later, at the Conspiracy Trial, ... [witnesses to the attack 
upon Seward] would testify under oath that the gaslights at the 
house that night had been few and turned down quite low, leaving 
the hallways and Secretary Seward's room in semidarkness."
 
 
Contrast the above-mentioned "semidarkness" with the description 
of the assailant in Baker's "wanted" handbill:
 
"   Height 6 feet 1 inch; hair black, thick, full, and     "
"   straight; no beard nor appearance of beard; cheeks     "
"   red on the jaws; face moderately full; 22 or 23 years  "
"   of age; eyes, color not known -- large eyes not        "
"   prominent; brows not heavy but dark; face not large    "
"   but rather round; complexion healthy; nose straight    "
"   and well formed, medium size; neck short and of        "
"   medium length; hands soft and small; fingers tapering; "
"   shows no sign of hard labor; broad shoulders; taper    "
"   waist; straight figure; strong looking man; manner     "
"   not gentlemanly, but vulgar. Overcoat double-breasted; "
"   color mixed of pink and gray spots, small -- was a     "
"   sack overcoat, pockets inside and one on breast, with  "
"   lapels or flaps; pants black common stuff; new heavy   "
"   boots; voice small and thin, inclined to tenor.        "
 
 
"The handbill description could have been written *only* after 
someone had observed its subject closely and at leisure under an 
excellent light, someone who had the authority to tell the 
prisoner to hold out his hands palms up."
 
Also worth noting is that whoever Seward's assailant was *knew* 
exactly where in the house to find the Secretary of State. The 
man who attempted to murder Seward got past the servant at the 
front door and fought his way upstairs to Seward's bedroom -- all 
without hesitation. He knew where to find Seward that night. As 
none of the witnesses remembered ever having seen the man before, 
it is probable that Seward's assailant had received inside 
information from *someone*.
 
"Whoever it was who rang the Seward doorbell the night of April 
14 and tried to stab Secretary Seward to death... knew on which 
floor of the mansion and in which room to find his victim; yet he 
was not known to the Seward family or the servants... The 
assailant was *sent* by someone -- probably paid by someone -- 
who could tell him the best time to arrive at the house and the 
floor and room where his victim could be found."
 
 
                     Mechanics of the Trial
 
"The case of Louis Paine was the real puzzler. There was every 
indication that the young man was a total stranger in Washington, 
known to no one. The residents of the Surratt boardinghouse... 
were unanimous in doubts that they knew him." The other 
"conspirators" did not know Paine, yet he was charged with being 
part of their "conspiracy."
 
"As we encounter more and more evidence that Louis Paine and his 
fellow defendants were deliberately framed by officials of the 
War Department, the reader should be reminded that this was not 
merely a hysterical national situation in which, because of 
pressure to find *someone* to punish for the murder of the 
President, several suspicious-seeming individuals were made the 
scapegoats by biased or overzealous prosecutors at a court 
martial."
 
"The procedures of these courts had only a vague connection with 
the established legal processes of the land. Defendants were 
presumed guilty and, as [Paine's attorney] Colonel Doster 
remarked in his reminiscences, '... were called on to *prove 
their innocence*.'"
 
 
In his reminiscences of the Trial, written forty years later, 
Paine's attorney Colonel Doster reveals some of his frustrations 
with the proceedings:
 
"   ...this was a contest in which a few lawyers were on one    "
"   side, and the whole United States on the other -- a case    "
"   in which, of course, the verdict was known beforehand...    "
"   During lunch one of the members of the commission           "
"   remarked, 'Well, Payne [sic] seems to want to be hung, so   "
"   I guess we might as well hang him.                          "
 
 
Colonel Doster further remarked upon "...The licence with which 
the Government dragged into this trial a thousand details of 
yellow-fever plots, steamboat burnings, and other things that 
were utterly foreign to the issue and which had no other effect 
than to inflame the public against the prisoners, showed a 
barbarous disregard or rather contempt for the settled barriers 
of legal inquiry."
 
These extraneous and irrelevant matters which the Government 
continuously threw into the case served to "...rekindle all the 
passions of wartime... by using the witness stand to review all 
the 'atrocities' perpetrated by the South during the 
hostilities."
 
As the higher-ups pulling the strings in this trial must have 
known, these theatrics played well to most of the nation. "In the 
1860's it was quite possible for a few clever lawyers and 
unscrupulous detectives to stage a treason trial in the nation's 
capital with all the flimflam of a medicine show."
 
 
                    The Arrest of Louis Paine
 
"At the time of his [Paine's] arrest and for a few hours 
afterward... Louis Paine answered the questions put to him 
willingly and with apparent candor. But something happened during 
that period which caused him to decide to hold his peace... The 
nature of his interrogation may have convinced him that he had 
been elected as a whipping boy no matter what he said... Within a 
short time after his arrest he entered a stolid silence which he 
did not break for six weeks."
 
As noted previously, Paine had been arrested when he knocked at 
the front door of Mrs. Surratt's boardinghouse while it was in 
the process of being raided. A detective Richard C. Morgan, 
present at the arrest, gave the following testimony on May 19, 
1865, at the Trial:
 
    About twenty minutes past 11 o'clock on the evening of 
    the 17th of April, ...I went to the house of Mrs. 
    Surratt for the purpose of... arresting the inmates of 
    the house; after we had been at the house about ten 
    minutes, ...I heard a knock and a ring at the door at 
    the same time; ...[We opened the door and] the prisoner, 
    Payne [sic], came in... [I asked] "who do you want to 
    see?"
 
    He [Paine] replied, "Mrs. Surratt."
 
    I [Detective Morgan] said, "what did you come here for, 
    this time of night?" He said he came to dig a gutter; 
    that Mrs. Surratt had sent for him; ...I asked where he 
    last worked, and he said somewhere on Ninth street; I 
    asked him where he boarded, he said he had no boarding 
    house, that he was a poor man, and earned his living 
    with the pick-axe in his hand.
 
    I asked him why he came at this time of night? He said 
    he came to see where it was to be dug, so that he could 
    commence early in the morning; I said, have you had no 
    previous acquaintance with Mrs. Surratt? He said, No; I 
    said, why did she select you for this work? He replied, 
    that she knew he was working in that neighborhood; that 
    he was a poor man and she came to him; ...I asked him 
    where he was from; he said from Fauquier county, Va.; 
    previous to this he had pulled out an oath of 
    allegiance, handed it to me and said, that will show you 
    who I am.
 
[B.R. This "Oath of Allegiance" that is mentioned was, from what 
I can gather, a signed loyalty oath carried by laborers, 
drifters, transients, and others which allowed them to travel 
freely in search of work. My sense is that it served as a sort of 
passport or identity paper.]
 
[B.R. What I find interesting about this "Oath of Allegiance" is 
that it may have been the precursor to our modern "Pledge of 
Allegiance." The "Oath of Allegiance" involved a signed pledge of 
loyalty to the federal government. If one wanted to work, one was 
forced to grant recognition to the Union. In the "Pledge of 
Allegiance" which I was required to recite every day in grade 
school, we pledged our allegiance to "*one nation*"... a nation 
that was "*indivisible*." To me it is interesting how this modern 
day "Pledge of Allegiance" is redundant on the theme of union 
(i.e. "one nation"... "indivisible," as if stressing the point).]

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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