Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Sentenced to death, she was hanged, becoming the first white woman executed by the United States federal government. Surratt was the mother of John H. Surratt, Jr., who was later tried but was not convicted of involvement in the assassinationOn July 7, 1865, Mary Surratt was hanged alongside three others convicted of playing a part in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Her story served as the inspiration for the new movie “The Conspirator”–but to many she remains a shadowy, if not entirely unknown, footnote in Civil War history. Who was Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt, an alleged collaborator in the plot to kill the country's 16th president?

Mary Surratt was the first woman tried and executed by the United States. She owned and ran a boardinghouse in Washington, D.C. where John Wilkes Booth and other conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln often met. She was tried and convicted of complicity in Abraham Lincoln's assassination and hanged on July 7, 1865. Though current scholarship indicates otherwise, many writers have portrayed her as an innocent victim of a vengeful military tribunal that did not have the right to try her for her involvement in the assassination plot. Two events supported this view. One was the 1866 Supreme Court decision Ex parte Milligan, which invalidated the authority of military courts to try civilians in places where civil courts were functioning. Ambiguity concerning military and civil authority in Washington, D.C. in 1865 raised questions about the legality of her trial. The other event was the trial of her co-conspirator son, John Surratt, before a civil jury in 1867, two years after her death. Surratt's testimony was similar to that of his mother. When his trial ended in a hung jury, it seemed to many that the military court had executed an innocent woman.

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Despite all that has been written about the April 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the story of John Surratt—the only conspirator who got away—remains untold and largely unknown. The capture and shooting of John Wilkes Booth twelve days after he shot Lincoln is a well-known and well-covered story. The fate of the eight other accomplices of Booth has also been widely written about. Four, including Surratt’s mother, Mary, were convicted and hanged, and four were jailed. John Surratt alone managed to evade capture for twenty months and escape punishment once he was put on trial. In this tale of adventure and mystery, Andrew Jampoler tells what happened to that last conspirator, who after Booth’s death became the most wanted man in America.

At 2:30 am on April 15, 1865, Mary Elizabeth Surratt was awakened by loud knocking at the door of her H Street boardinghouse in Washington D.C. Officers first inquired as to the whereabouts of her son, John Surratt. She was quickly told that her son was wanted in connection with the murder of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and acquaintance of the family! Three days later, Mary found herself under suspicion and under arrest for involvement in the assassination of the president.Elizabeth Steger Trindal worked fifteen years to chronicle the life of this little known but important figure in American history. Mary Surratt's son, John Surratt, was believed to have acted in a plot with John Wilkes Booth and othersto not only murder the president but also kill Secretary of State Seward. John Surratt was out of the country, and Booth yet to be apprehended. But Mary and others were arrested in connection with the assassinationof the president.Eventually they were brought to trial by a military commission.Tried by a military tribunal despite protests by her defense lawyers that it was illegal to try a civilian before a military court, Mary and three others were tried for the crime of conspiring with Booth and found guilty. Many prominent citizens pleaded with President Andrew Johnson for a stay of Mary's execution. He steadfastly refused. On July 7, 1865, Mary Surratt along with the other accused assassins was hanged. In its grief over the death of President Lincoln did America condemn an innocent woman die? This moving account will no doubt elicit new debate on the subject of the Civil War and reveal a new perspective on the events surrounding Lincoln's assassination.

NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author James Swanson delivers a riveting account of the chase for Abraham Lincoln's assassin. Based on rare archival material, obscure trial manuscripts, and interviews with relatives of the conspirators and the manhunters, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER is a fast-paced thriller about the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth: a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia.

Blood on the Moon examines the evidence, myths, and lies surrounding the political assassination that dramatically altered the course of American history. Was John Wilkes Booth a crazed loner acting out of revenge, or was he the key player in a wide conspiracy aimed at removing the one man who had crushed the Confederacy's dream of independence? Edward Steers Jr. crafts an intimate, engaging narrative of the events leading to Lincoln's death and the political, judicial, and cultural aftermaths of his assassination.