Lincoln Assassination
Washington was in chaos after John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln and Booth's co-conspirator Lewis Powell came near to assassinating Secretary of State William H. Seward on the night of April 14, 1865. Booth died on April 26, 1865 from a gunshot wound. When the trials for the conspirators involved in the Lincoln assassination were ready to start, Bingham's old friend from Cadiz, Edwin Stanton, appointed him to serve as Assistant Judge Advocate General along with General Henry Burnett, another Assistant Judge Advocate General, and Joseph Holt, the Judge Advocate General. The accused conspirators were George Atzerodt, David Herold, Lewis Powell (Paine), Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlen, Edman Spangler, Samuel Mudd and Mary Surratt. The trial began on May 10, 1865. The three judges spent nearly two months in court, awaiting a verdict from the jury. Bingham and Holt attempted to obscure the fact that there were two plots. The first plot was to kidnap the president and hold him hostage in exchange for the Confederate prisoners held by the Union. The second was to assassinate the president, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward and thereby throw the government into electoral chaos. It was important for the prosecution not to reveal the existence of a diary taken from Booth's body and making it clear that the assassination plan dated from 14 April. The defense surprisingly did not call for Booth's diary to be produced in court.
On June 29, 1865, the eight were found guilty for their involvement in the conspiracy to kill the President. Spangler was sentenced to six years in prison; Arnold, O'Laughlen and Mudd where sentenced to life in prison; and Atzerodt, Herold, Paine and Surratt were sentenced to hang. They were executed July 7, 1865. Surratt was the first woman in American history to be executed. O'Laughlen died in prison in 1867. Arnold, Spangler and Mudd were pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in early 1869.
Read more about this topic: John Bingham
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“But, slavery is good for some people! ! ! As a good thing, slavery is strikingly peculiar, in this, that it is the only good thing which no man ever seeks the good of, for himself.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)