Hanged!

October 1, 2022
A meticulously researched account of Mary Surratt, whose still-disputed role in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln led to her becoming the first woman executed by the United States government. No one disputed the fact that actor John Wilkes Booth fired the shot that killed Lincoln. A simultaneous, fortuitously nonfatal, attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward made it immediately clear that a conspiracy was involved. In the weeks following, with Booth dead, seven men were arrested for the crime--and one woman, Surratt. A widow, devout Catholic, and former enslaver, Surratt owned and ran a boardinghouse where Booth sometimes met with the other defendants. From the start, newspapers reviled her and, during the trial, wrote sexist, prejudicial accounts of her description and actions. The trial itself, run by a military tribunal, was biased in favor of the guilt of the accused. Surratt was sentenced to death, refused clemency by President Andrew Johnson, and hung the following day. The controversy surrounding her execution did not die, however; conflicting testimony by her former boarder Louis Weichmann, in particular, created doubts that persist to this day. Miller does an admirable job of sifting through the often conflicting source material and judicial obfuscation. Her author's note discusses which sources she most trusts and why. The full truth of this intriguing historical mystery will never be known. A bold, sympathetic, well-written account of a perplexing and complicated subject. (who's who, sources, notes) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

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November 1, 2022

Gr 7 Up-The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is well-covered ground in youth literature, but information on one of the coconspirators, Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed by the U.S. government, can be hard to find. Miller remedies this with her exhaustive look into Surratt's trial and execution. Surratt, a slave owner and resident of Maryland, a Union state, was the mother of John Surratt, a Confederate messenger. She also ran a boarding house that John Wilkes Booth was said to frequent. Shortly after Lincoln's death, she was arrested along with several other conspirators. Despite being a civilian, she was given a trial by a military tribunal as it was argued finding an impartial jury would be impossible. The tribunal did not give her any protections that a civilian court would afford the accused. In fact, her lawyers were denied rights as basic as evidence discovery, leaving them only minutes to think of questions for the prosecution's witnesses after hearing testimony for the first time. Examples like this abound throughout the narrative, which will leave readers shaking their heads. All along, Surratt maintained her innocence and was convicted despite a split among the tribunal members. Her son went into hiding for years, then was subsequently captured but was freed due to the statute of limitations. VERDICT Miller provides readers a compelling and detailed analysis of the courtroom proceedings against Surratt that will intrigue lovers of history and true crime stories. Recommended for middle and high school collections.-Karen T. Bilton

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2022
On April 14, 1865, just days after the conclusion of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth shot (and killed) President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater. Booth would die more than two weeks later during the attempt to apprehend him, and attention shifted onto his accomplices and co-conspirators. Caught up in the plot was the widow Mary Surratt, who ran a Washington, DC, boardinghouse that Booth and other conspirators (including Surratt's son) frequented. Surratt's guilt by association and the hearsay surrounding her role in the plot were enough to condemn her to the gallows after one of the most unusual trials in American history. Miller (The Borden Murders, rev. 1/16) finds the unlikeliest of protagonists in Surratt. Using court transcripts and contemporaneous secondary sources, Miller pieces together information surrounding Surratt, her family, and her boardinghouse guests during and after the assassination of the sixteenth president. Extensively researched, the narrative is carefully organized to give readers the bearings necessary to follow specifics of the many witnesses and their multiple versions of events. The story lays bare the shocking disregard for judicial normalcy as Surratt and her co-defendants were tried in a peacetime military court while simultaneously tried by the newspapers of the day. True-crime fans will be enthralled by this compelling nineteenth-century case and the woman at its emotional center. Appended with an author's note, list of sources, and an index (unseen). Eric Carpenter

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from November 1, 2022
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* In this tour de force, Miller (The Borden Murders, 2016) leads readers through the web of conspiracy surrounding Lincoln's assassination to encounter the woman seemingly at its core: Mary Surratt, proprietor of the boardinghouse where John Wilkes Booth met with his allies. The intricate narrative proceeds chronologically from the night of the assassination into the chase, capture, questioning, and trials of each suspect, and it's enlivened by dramatic primary-source material as well as the author's own vivid turns of phrase. The courtroom is the riveting centerpiece, described in such sensory detail that readers feel every twist as they confront the implications of trial by military tribunal rather than in civil court. Not only were defendants prohibited from testifying, their lawyers were required to prove them innocent while being kept out of the discovery loop. Mary Surratt's case was dependent on intent: if she was unaware of the conspiracy swirling around the visitors to her boardinghouse, there was no crime. Unfortunately, public opinion, bias in the press, and ever-shifting testimonies played crucial roles. Surratt's last days were rich with pathos. Yet she remains a mystery, and the question of her guilt is unresolved. Miller both respects her subject and satisfies her audience's hunger for true crime, shares the quirks of interpreting source material, and uncovers the interplay of police corruption, politics, prisoners' rights, and sexism in Mary's fate.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2022
On April 14, 1865, just days after the conclusion of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth shot (and killed) President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater. Booth would die more than two weeks later during the attempt to apprehend him, and attention shifted onto his accomplices and co-conspirators. Caught up in the plot was the widow Mary Surratt, who ran a Washington, DC, boardinghouse that Booth and other conspirators (including Surratt's son) frequented. Surratt's guilt by association and the hearsay surrounding her role in the plot were enough to condemn her to the gallows after one of the most unusual trials in American history. Miller (The Borden Murders, rev. 1/16) finds the unlikeliest of protagonists in Surratt. Using court transcripts and contemporaneous secondary sources, Miller pieces together information surrounding Surratt, her family, and her boardinghouse guests during and after the assassination of the sixteenth president. Extensively researched, the narrative is carefully organized to give readers the bearings necessary to follow specifics of the many witnesses and their multiple versions of events. The story lays bare the shocking disregard for judicial normalcy as Surratt and her co-defendants were tried in a peacetime military court while simultaneously tried by the newspapers of the day. True-crime fans will be enthralled by this compelling nineteenth-century case and the woman at its emotional center. Appended with an author's note, list of sources, and an index (unseen).

(Copyright 2022 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)