Mary Surratt - Civil War and Widowhood

Civil War and Widowhood

The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. The border state of Maryland remained part of the United States ("the Union"), but the Surratts (like many if not nearly all their Prince George's County neighbors) were Confederate sympathizers and their tavern regularly hosted fellow sympathizers. (The Surratt tavern was being used as a "safe house" for Confederate spies, and at least one author concludes that Mary Surratt had "de facto" knowledge of this fact.) On March 7, 1861, (three days after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as President of the United States) Isaac Surratt left Maryland and traveled to Texas, where he enlisted in the Confederate States Army (serving in the 33rd Cavalry, or Duff's Partisan Rangers, 14th Cavalry Battalion). John Jr. quit his studies at St. Charles College in July 1861 and became a courier for the Confederate Secret Service, moving messages, cash, and contraband back and forth across enemy lines. The Confederate activities in and around Surrattsville drew the attention of the Union government. In late 1861, Lafayette C. Baker, a detective with the Union Intelligence Service, and 300 Union soldiers camped in Surrattsville and investigated the Surratts and others for Confederate activities. He quickly uncovered evidence of a large Confederate courier network operating in the area, but despite some arrests and warnings the courier network remained intact.

John Surratt collapsed suddenly and died on either August 25 or August 26 in 1862 (sources differ as to the date). The cause of death was a stroke. The Surratt family affairs were in serious financial difficulties. John Jr. and Anna both left school to help their mother run the family's remaining farmland and businesses. On September 10, 1862, John Jr. was appointed postmaster of the Surrattsville post office. Lafayette Baker swept through Surrattsville again in 1862, during which time several postmasters were dismissed for disloyalty. John Jr. was not one of them. In August 1863, John Jr. sought a job in the paymaster's department in the United States Department of War, but his application raised suspicions about his entire family's loyalties to the Union. Surratt was dismissed as postmaster on November 17, 1863, for disloyalty.

The loss of John Jr.'s job as postmaster caused a financial crisis for the Surratt family. When John Sr.'s estate was probated in late November 1862, the family owned only two middle-age male slaves. However, by 1863, Louis J. Weichmann (a friend of John Jr.'s from St. Charles College) observed that the family had six or more slaves working on the property. By 1864, Mary Surratt found that her husband's unpaid debts and bad business deals had left her with many creditors. Several of her slaves ran away. When he was not meeting with Confederate sympathizers in the city, her son was selling vegetables to raise cash for the family. In November 1863, agents of the federal government once again became suspicious about the Surratt family's loyalties. Mary Surratt was tired of running the farm, tavern, and other businesses without her son's help. In the fall of 1864, she began considering moving to her townhouse in the city.

On October 1, 1864, Mary Surratt took possession of the townhouse at 604 H Street NW in Washington, D.C. The house was made of gray brick, 29 feet (8.8 m) wide, 100 feet (30 m) deep, and had four stories. The first floor, which was level with the street, consisted of two large rooms that were used as the kitchen and dining room. The second floor contained a front and back parlor, with the room in the rear used as Mary Surratt's bedroom. The third floor had three rooms—two in the front and one larger one at the back. The fourth floor, which was considered an attic, had two large and one small room (occupied by a servant). Surratt began moving her belongings into the townhouse that month, and on November, 1, 1864, Anna and John Jr. took up residence there. Mary Surratt herself moved into the home on December 1. That same day, she leased the tavern in Surrattsville to a former Washington, D.C., policeman and Confederate sympathizer John M. Lloyd for $500 a year. On November 30, December 8, and December 27, Mary Surratt advertised for lodgers in the The Daily Evening Star newspaper. She had initially said that she only wanted lodgers who were known to her personally or were recommended by friends, but in her advertisements she said rooms were "available for 4 gentlemen."

Some scholars have raised questions about Surratt's move into the city. Historians Kate Larson and Roy Chamlee have noted that although there is no definitive proof, a case can be made that Surratt made the move into the city in furtherance of her and her son's espionage activities. For example, Larson and Chamlee say, on September 21, 1864, John Surratt wrote to Louis J. Weichmann, observing that the family's plans to move into the city were advancing rapidly "on account of certain events having turned up"—perhaps a cryptic reference to either his Confederate activities in general or the conspiracy to kidnap or kill Lincoln. Larson has observed that although the move made long-term economic sense for Surratt, it also (in the short term) would have meant moving expenses and furnishing up to 10 rooms in the townhouse—money she did not have. Chamlee, too, found little economic reason to move into the city, concluding that it would have been more profitable to rent the H Street boarding house entirely to lodgers. The city was also a more dangerous and morally challenging place for her daughter, and Surratt had striven to keep Anna away from such influences (such as her husband, John Sr.) for years. Moreover, Surratt still owed money on both the tavern and the townhouse, and would take out yet another mortgage against the townhouse in January 1865. John Jr. transferred all his title to the family property to his mother in January 1865, an act that indicates she knew he was engaged in treasonous activity (a traitor's property could be seized) and that she knew why he had given up his title to the houses and land.