David Herold's position was equally precarious. Apprehended with the President's assassin and having bragged about the crime--telling one prosecution witness, Willie Jett, as he crossed the Rappahannock, "We are the assassinators of the President"--Herold's attorney, Frederick Stone, placed whatever slender hopes for saving Herold's life on his client's simple-mindedness and youth. One defense witness called Herold "a light and trifling boy" who was "easily influenced," while a second said of Herold:"In mind, I consider him about eleven years of age." Stone argued to the Commission that Herold "was only wax in the hands of a man like Booth."
% g& h6 W. W! B+ I3 V" }# z Unlike Lewis and Herold, the guilt of Ford's Theatre stagehand Edman Spangler was not beyond question, but prosecutors presented several witnesses who testified that Spangler played a critical--although minor--role in Booth's escape from theatre. Joseph Burroughs, better known as "Peanuts," a Ford's employee given the duty of guarding the stage-door during plays, testified that between nine and ten o'clock on the night of the assassination Spangler "told me to hold [Booth's] horse." Burroughs told the Commission that when he replied that "I had to go in to attend my door" Spangler said he should hold the horse anyway and "if there was any thing wrong to lay the blame on him." Other witnesses reported seeing Booth around seven-thirty that evening, standing at the back door of theatre and holding his horse and calling for "Ned" Spangler. John Sleichmann, a property man for theatre, testified that he saw Booth enter the back door of theatre and ask Spangler, "Ned, you'll help me all you can, won't you?" According to Sleichmann, Spangler replied, "Oh, yes." Joseph Stewart, a theatergoer with a front orchestra street who ran after Booth across the stage yelling, "Stop that man!," testified that he was "satisfied" that Spangler was the person he saw near the rear door who was in a position to block Booth's exit if he had been so inclined. Finally, John Miles, a Ford's employee, testified when he asked Spangler who it was he saw holding Booth's horse before his escape, Spangler replied, "Hush, don't say anything about it." Spangler's defense attorney, Thomas Ewing, argued that while the prosecution evidence might suggest Spangler agreed to assist Booth on April 14, it failed to prove that Spangler was aware of Booth's guilty purposes in requesting his assistance.
+ ?# F& n, j8 {, a. ~/ h9 L/ G$ k A letter from Samuel Arnold to Booth, dated March 27, 1865, and found in Booth's possession after the assassination provided compelling evidence that Arnold had willingly agreed to participate in the original plan to kidnap Lincoln and take him to Richmond. In his letter, Arnold wrote that "None, no, not one were more in favor of the enterprise than myself." Arnold's attorney, Walter Cox, argued that Arnold "backed out from this insane scheme of capture" and it was "abandoned somewhere about the middle of March." Arnold, he argued, left Washington for Maryland about March 20 and that there "is no evidence that connects" Arnold with the "dreadful conspiracy" of assassination. Cox told the Commission that Arnold's participation in the "mere unacted, still scheme" of abduction was "wholly different from the offense described in the charge."5 w! Z3 K- ~3 h3 q
Michael O'Laughlen, who boarded at the same home in Washington as Arnold, might qualify as the most forgotten of the eight conspirators on trial. The key evidence against O'Laughlen also links him to Booth's abandoned plan to abduct Lincoln. On March 13, Booth sent to O'Laughlen, then in Baltimore, a telegram from Washington: "Don't fear to neglect your business. You better come at once." Twelve days later, Booth sent another telegram to O'Laughlen: "Get word to Sam. Come on, with or without him, Wednesday morning. We sell that day for sure. Don't fail." Prosecutors suggested that the "business" referred to in Booth's telegraph was the kidnapping of Lincoln and that the "Sam" referred to in the second dispatch was Samuel Arnold. Bernard Early, an acquaintance of O'Laughlen's, testified that he rode into Washington with O'Laughlen from Baltimore on the day before the assassination. Early said that the next day he waited with O'Laughlen at the National Hotel, where Booth had taken a room, for forty-five minutes before sending "up some cards to Mr. Booth's room for O'Laughlen" and leaving. Most incriminating, perhaps, was the testimony of Major Kilburn Knox, who testified that about ten-thirty on the night of April 13 O'Laughlin, wearing black clothes and a slouch hat, entered the home of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and inquired of the Secretary's whereabouts. Knox said that O'Laughlen remained in the hall for a few minutes before being asked to leave. Two other witnesses also reported seeing O'Laughlen at the Secretary's home. Defense attorney Walter Cox argued that the prosecution witnesses were mistaken, and that on the night in question O'Laughlen innocently strolled the streets of the nation's capital enjoying the "night of illumination," the celebration of the Union victory that saw every public building in Washington lit with candles. Cox also argued that the evidence showed persuasively that O'Laughlen did nothing to further the assassination on the night of the fourteenth, which he spent drinking at Lichau House before departing for Baltimore the next day. |
发表于 2012-8-16 08:34:12
