21. The Military Tribunal and the conspirators
The trial of eight conspirators charged with complicity in the murder of Abraham Lincoln began on May 9, 1865, less than a month after the crime had taken place. The eight defendants were; Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, Dr. Samuel Mudd, Michael O’Laughlen, Ned Spangler, Lewis Powell (Paine), Mary Surratt, and David Herold. The tribunal was headed by Major General David Hunter, one of its prominent members was General Lew Wallace, who later authored Ben Hur. The tribunal was authorized by President Andrew Johnson, who was the only resort to an appeal.
All of the defendants were under the shadow of the death penalty, which required a two-thirds majority vote of the nine members. A simple majority was all that was required for conviction on each charge. The defendants were tried simultaneously. Over 350 witnesses testified over the course of the seven-week trial, and in the end, all of the defendants were found guilty. Four – Surratt, Atzerodt, Powell, and Herold, were sentenced to death and hanged in July 1865. With the exception of Spangler, who received six years in prison for temporarily holding Booth’s horse, the others were sentenced to life imprisonment.