Family of Assassins: The Surratts of Maryland

On October 31, David O. Stewart delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Family of Assassins: The Surratts of Maryland. "Everyone knows about John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. But what about Mary Surratt, the boardinghouse keeper who "kept the nest that hatched the egg" of assassination and was the first woman executed by the United States government? Or her son John, a Confederate courier and boon companion to Booth, who fled through Canada and Britain to Vatican City, ending up as a Papal Zouave until he was chased across the Mediterranean and hauled back to face a Washington, D.C., jury that deadlocked and set him free? The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.