First published 2011
Historian Kate Clifford Larson reconstructs the story of Mary Surratt, the Confederate sympathizer who operated a Washington boarding house where Lincoln's assassins gathered to plan their attack. Surratt allowed conspirators including her own son John to meet at her establishment as they plotted the president's murder. When authorities arrested her after Lincoln's death, she faced a military tribunal that would determine her fate. The case presented a dilemma for nineteenth-century America: how to punish a woman whose actions violated every expectation of feminine behavior. Five commissioners urged President Andrew Johnson to spare her life because of her sex and age. Johnson rejected their plea, declaring that Surratt "kept the nest that hatched the egg." Larson draws on previously undiscovered interviews, confessions, and court records to reveal how Surratt's involvement in espionage and murder contradicted social norms of motherhood and piety. The book examines the intersection of gender, justice, and treason during America's most turbulent period, showing how one woman's choices led to her becoming the first female executed by federal authority.
Genres: biography, history, historical-fiction, crime, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, gender-roles, historical-figures
Setting: Washington
Period: 19th-Century
288 pages · Paperback · Basic Books
Content warnings: death, murder, violence