The conspirators who assassinated Abraham Lincoln being prepared for execution, Washington DC, USA, 1865
The conspirators who assassinated Abraham Lincoln being prepared for execution, Washington DC, USA, 1865
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What's up with the umbrella?
It was a style for women at the time to carry an umbrella for shade.
Sure, but is it a woman waiting to be executed, that wanted to keep up appearances?
I looked it up and it would seem it is. I would've guessed one of the relatives of the conspirators, but it seems they allowed the conspirator Mary Surratt to keep an umbrella with her.
Wow! That is amazing! Also she was the fist woman in America to be hanged!
No, the first woman to be hanged by the US Federal Government.
The US had the death penalty since colonial times, so several were hanged well before 1865. This list has several examples. Most of these women were executed for ordinary crimes like murder or robbery, so not a federal offense like treason.
Interesting! I just read it on the linked wiki page.
Some absolutely heartbreaking cases on there by the way, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia_(slave)
People are fucked up.
Alexander Gardner's intimate involvement in the events following President Lincoln's assassination would have challenged even the most experienced twentieth-century photojournalist. In just short of four months, Gardner documented in hundreds of portraits and views one of the most complex national news stories in American history. The U.S. Secret Service provided Gardner unlimited access to individuals and places unavailable to any other photographer. Free to retain all but one of his negatives-a portrait of Booth's corpse-Gardner attempted to sell carte-de-visite and large-format prints of the whole picture story. America, still wounded from the four-year war, was less than interested.
The photographs of the execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Paine, David Herold, and George Atzerodt on July 7, 1865, were, however, highly sought after by early collectors of Civil War ephemera beginning in the 1880s. This photograph shows the final preparations on the scaffolding in the yard of the Old Arsenal Prison. The day was extremely hot and a parasol shades Mary Surratt, seated at the far left of the stage. (She would become the first woman in America to be hanged.) Two soldiers stationed beneath the stage grasp the narrow beams that hold up the gallows trapdoors. The soldier on the left would later admit he had just vomited, from heat and tension. Only one noose is visible, slightly to the left of Surratt; the other three nooses moved during the exposure and are registered by the camera only as faint blurs. Members of the clergy crowd the stage and provide final counsel to the conspirators. A private audience of invited guests stands at the lower left. Minutes after Gardner's exposure, the conspirators were tied and blindfolded and the order was given to knock out the support beams.
“You’re invited!!” [kids’ birthday party style invitation]