It was the country home of Mary Surratt, first woman to be executed by the United States government after being found guilty of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
Minus:
- Baltimore is a mess
- My GPS is stupid
- I got lost
Plus:
- Stumbled onto the Surratt House!
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Woah, you really got lost if you wanted to be in Baltimore and ended up in Clinton. Hopefully you got back on track safely. I grew up in that area, and go back to appraise houses, but fled the county about 30 years ago.
Mrs. Surratt’s guilt has been a matter of debate ever since. She was probably associated with the conspiracy and under civil law would have been found guilty but not sentenced to death. Under the martial law that was in place in the aftermath, she was found summarily guilty and hung. The carnage of the war had hardened people’s sensibilities to the point where hanging a woman was no longer unthinkable.
The real injustice was the conviction of Samuel Mudd, who was innocent of any crime.
As I recall when they got her son and tried him years later in a civilian court he was found not guilty. No political trial in the heat of passion everywhere seems to be really fair. Mary, the first women eecuted in the U.S. was undoubtedly innocent.