Friday, October 27, 2017

Poetry Cycle--Conspirator's Daughter

The Conspirator’s Daughter:
A poetry cycle about Anna  Surratt, daughter of Mary Surratt who was hanged with three others as part of the “Lincoln conspiracy”
Epigraph
She was an only daughter, and had lived with her mother, who was a widow.
 Poor Anna! I can never forget her look, or the sound of that restless footstep in the room above me. The two haunt me yet, and will until my dying day. It matters little to that poor mourner, that the whole trial has been declared by authority unconstitutional and illegal. That does not bring back the dead, nor lessen the grief of the survivor, nor can it blot out the shame and disgrace which will forever attach itself to the nation, which suffered such flagrant abuse of power to pass unnoticed and unrebuked.  –Virginia Lomax

A Five-turn Knot
            I really did not think Mrs. Surratt would be swung from the end of it, but she was, and it was                demonstrated to my          satisfaction, at least, that a five-turn knot will perform as                successful a job as a           seven-turn knot.—Colonel (Captain) Christian Rath
Upstairs in his room at the penitentiary,
the hangman prepared
four nooses for the executions,
carefully measuring out the lengths
of Boston hemp brought in
from the Navy Yard,
cutting and saving one last length of rope
for mother-- just in case--still praying
he would not need it the next day.

Three seven-turn knots
for three of the condemned.
Three regulation hangman knots
neatly wound military style.
The captain slighted the fourth
coiling only five turns.
A shoddy job, he must have thought,
or perhaps his heart was not in it
or  he was tired
and placed it aside.

The ropes still needed testing, though.
He tied each noose to a tree limb
and a bag of buckshot,
then tossed the bag to the ground.
The ropes performed successfully
as they would the next day.

Stretched taut, the ropes held
All four lifeless bodies slowly swinging
in the sweltering heat of a July afternoon--
the coiled knot of the noose
underneath four white hoods
tight against each left ear.


Morning, Noon, and Night

               I found this in the back room of the first floor of Mrs. Surratt’s house. The back part was all                sealed, and my     curiosity               was excited by noticing a piece torn off the back. I opened the back and        found the likeness of J.       Wilkes Booth,       with the word “Booth” written in pencil on the back of it.—   Lieutenant John W. Dempsey,          May 19, testimony for the prosecution

Louis Weichmann tried to kiss me and gave me presents.
One was a carte-de-visite of an elderly man sitting in a chair,
one arm around his grandson’s shoulders,
the other holding the young lad’s hand.

The old man’s eyes gaze down at his granddaughter
who is seated on the ground, a finger raised to her lips,
perhaps rebuking the playful dog sitting at her feet. 
The picture is titled Morning, Noon, and Night.

Leaning against the old man’s chair is the mother,
her head tilted to one side, looking wistfully at the camera.
She reminded me of mother, so I placed it on the mantel
in the back room of our boardinghouse on H street.

One day, Honora Fitzpatrick and I went to a daguerrean gallery
to have her picture taken.  Much to our delight and surprise,
we saw some pictures of  the actor, my brother’s new friend--
Mr. Booth. We bought two photographs of him.

But when Johnnie saw the photographs he was angry
and told me to tear them up, throw them in the fire,
or he would take them from me.  So I hid them behind
the sentimental lithograph Louis Weichmann had given me.

And this was the proof they used against mother.

Source:
(That picture belonged to me; it was given to me by that man Weichman, and I put a photograph of John Wilkes Booth behind it. I went with Miss Honora Fitzpatrick to a daguerrean gallery one day to get her picture; we saw some photographs of Mr. Booth there, and, being acquainted with him, we bought two and took them home. When my brother saw them, he told me to tear them up and throw them in the fire, and that, if I did not, he would take them from me. So I hid them. I owned photographs of Davis, Stephens, Beauregard, Stonewall Jackson, and perhaps a few other leaders of the rebellion. My father gave them to me before his death, and I prize them on his account, if on nobody else’s. I also had in the house photographs of Union Generals—of General McClellan, General Grant, and General Joe Hooker.)
Anna E. Surratt, testimony for the defense, May 30, 1865.







A Pallet, A Pillow and a Prayer
               “Don’t forget to send the pillow upon which her head rested and her prayer beads, if you can find         them--these things are      dear to me.”—Anna Surratt, letter  to General Hartranft, July 9, 1865
The Washington Arsenal  was reopened
to hold the prisoners and conduct the trial.

Mother’s cell was 3 ½ feet wide, 7 feet long,
 7 feet high with a straw-filled pallet

for sleeping on the cold floor.  A metal bucket
rested in one corner of the cell, reeking,

waiting to be emptied by the young guards
who snickered about  the womanly red flow

that plagued mother  and made her ill.
A table and wash basin in the other.

Four times a day, the prisoners were fed:
soft bread, salt pork or soup, coffee or water.

Mother would not eat at first until finally
Her hunger was unendurable.

We prayed into the night. Then I watched her rest
her head upon the pillow on her wretched pallet.

What dreams she had—I can only imagine—
I know my own.


Sources:
Prison cells in the female ward (these cells were twice as large as the men’s cells) were cleared and inspected.  Shuck mattresses were delivered to the cells and nails were taken out of the walls to ensure that the prisoners would not harm themselves or possibly others.

The prisoners’ meals usually consisted of coffee or tea, bread and salted meat.  After finishing their meal, the bowl in which their beverage was served was removed.  No other items would be brought in to the cell.

Each cell measured 7′ by 3 ½′ by 7′ with solid masonry walls eighteen inches thick. Their iron doors opened alternately to the north and south to prevent the prisoners from communicating with each other.


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