Part 11 (1/2)
Between O'Laughlin and the next prisoner, Spangler, sits a soldier in ultramarine--a discontented soldier, a moody, dissatisfied, and arbitrary soldier. His definition of military justice is like the boy's answer at school to the familiar question upon the Const.i.tution of the United States:
”What rights do accused persons enjoy ?”
The boy wrote out, very carefully, this answer:
”Death by hanging.”
The boy would have been correct had the question applied to accused persons before a court-martial.
Spangler, the scene-s.h.i.+fter and stage-carpenter, has the face and bearing of a day-laborer. His blue woollen s.h.i.+rt does not confuse him, as he is used to it. He has an oldish face, wrinkled by fearful antic.i.p.ations, and his hair is thin. He is awkwardly built, and watches the trial earnestly, as if striving to catch between the links of evidence vistas of a life insured. This man has a simple and pleading face, and there is something genial in his great, incoherent countenance. He is said to have cleared the stage for Booth's escape, but this is indifferently testified to. He had often been asked by Booth to take a drink at the nearest bar. Persons who drink a.s.sure me that the greatest mark of confidence which a great man can show a lesser one is to make that tender; this, therefore, explains Booth's power over Spangler.
Spangler is the first scene-s.h.i.+fter who may become a _dramatis personae_.
A soldier sits between Spangler and Doctor Mudd. The soldier would like Spangler to get up and go away, so that he could have as much of the bench as he might sleep upon. This particular soldier, I may be qualified to say, would sleep upon his post.
Doctor Mudd has a New England and not a Maryland face. He compares, to those on his left, as Hyperion to a squatter. His high, oval head is bald very far up, but not benevolently so, and it is covered with light red hair, so thin as to contrast indifferently with the denseness of his beard and goatee. His nose would be insignificant but for its sharpness, and at the nostrils it is swelling and high-spirited. His eyes impinge upon his brows, and they are s.h.i.+ning and rather dark, while the brows themselves are so scantily clothed with hair that they seem quite naked.
Mudd is neatly dressed in a green-gra.s.s duster, and white bosom and collar; if he had no other advantages over his a.s.sociates these last would give it to him. He keeps his feet upon the rail before him in true republican style, and rolls a morsel of tobacco under his tongue.
The military commission works as if it were delegated not to try, but to convict, and Dr. Mudd, if he be innocent, is in only less danger than if he were guilty. He has a sort of home-bred intelligence in his face, and socially is as far above his fellows as Goliah of Gath above the rest of the Philistines.
On the right of Doctor Mudd sits a soldier, who is striving to look through his legs at the judge-advocate, as if taking a sort of secret aim at that person, with the intent to fetch him down, because he makes the trial so very dry, and the soldier so very thirsty.
The last man, who sits on the extreme right of the prisoners, is Mr.
Sam. Arnold. He is, perhaps, the best looking of the prisoners, and the least implicated. He has a solid, pleasant face; has been a rebel soldier, foolishly committed himself to Booth, with perhaps no intention to do a crime, recanted in pen and ink, and was made a national character. Had he recanted by word of mouth he might have saved himself unpleasant dreams. This shows everybody the absurdity of writing what they can so easily say. The best thing Arnold ever wrote was his letter to Booth refusing to engage in murder. Yet this recantation is more in evidence against than then his original purpose.
Arnold looks out of the window, and feels easy.
The reporters who are present are generally young fellows, practical and ardent, like Woods, of Boston; Colburn, of THE WORLD; and Major Poore, who has been the chronicler of such scenes for twenty years. Ber.
Pitman, one of the authors of phonetic writing, is among the official reporters, and the Murphies, who could report the lightning, if it could talk, are slas.h.i.+ng down history as it pa.s.ses in at their ears and runs out at their fingers' ends.
The counsel for the accused strike me as being commonplace lawyers. They either have no chance or no pluck to a.s.sert the dignity of their profession. Reverdy Johnson is not here. The first day disgusted him, as he is a pract.i.tioner of _law_. Yet the best word of the trial has been his:
”I, gentlemen, am a member of that body of legislators which creates courts-martial and major-generals!”
The commission has collectively an imposing appearance: the face of Judge Holt is swarthy; he questions with slow utterance, holding the witness in his cold, measuring eye. Hunter, who sits at the opposite end of the table, shuts his eyes now and then, either to sleep or think, or both, and the other generals take a note or two, and watch for occasions to distinguish themselves.
Excepting Judge Holt, the court has shown as little ability as could be expected from soldiers, placed in unenviable publicity, and upon a duty for which they are disqualified, both by education and ac.u.men. Witness the lack of dignity in Hunter, who opened the court by a coa.r.s.e allusion to ”humbug chivalry;” of Lew. Wallace, whose heat and intolerance were appropriately urged in the most exceptional English; of Howe, whose tirade against the rebel General Johnson was feeble as it was ungenerous! This court was needed to show us at least the petty tyranny of martial law and the pettiness of martial jurists. The counsel for the defence have just enough show to make the unfairness of the trial partake of hypocrisy, and the wideness of the subjects discussed makes one imagine that the object of the commission is to write a cyclopedia, and not to hang or acquit six or eight miserable wretches.
LETTER IX.
THE EXECUTIONS.
Was.h.i.+ngton, Friday, July 7th.
The trial is over; four of the conspirators have paid with their lives the penalty of the Great Conspiracy; the rest go to the jail, and with one exception for the remainder of their lives.
Whatever our individual theories may be, the great crime is ended, and this is the crowning scene:
It was a long and dusty avenue, along which rambled soldiers in bluishly white coats, cattle with their tongues out, straying from the herd, and a few negroes making for their cabins, which dotted the fiery and vacant lots of the suburbs. At the foot of this avenue, where a lukewarm river holds between its dividing arms a dreary edifice of brick, the way was filled with collected cabs, and elbowing people, ab.u.t.ting against a circle of sentinels who kept the a.r.s.enal gate. The low, flat, dust-white fields to the far left were also lined with patrols and soldiers lying on the ground in squads beside their stacked muskets. Within these a second blue and monotonous line extended. The drive from the a.r.s.enal gate to the a.r.s.enal's high and steel-spiked wall was beset by companies of exacting sabremen, and all the river bank to the right was edged with blue and bayonets. This exhibition of war was the prelude to a very ghastly but very popular episode--an execution. Three men and a woman were to be led out in shackles and hung to a beam. They had conspired to take life; they had thrilled the world with the partial consummation of their plot; they were to reach the last eminence of a.s.sa.s.sins, on this parched and oppressive noon, by swinging in pinioned arms and m.u.f.fled faces in the presence of a thousand people.