The Norfolk post. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1865-1866, 1865-07-10
last hours were entirely modest and wo.

manly.
ADJUSTING THE pARApHERNALIA OF DEATH,
The stage was still filled with people.
the crisis Of the occasion had come: the
chairs were all withdrawn, and the con-
demned stool upon their feet.
n, The process of tying the limbs began,
1t was with shudder, almost blush
that saw an officer gather the ropes
three times tightly about the robes OF
Mrs. Surratt, and bind her ankles with
cords. She half tainted, and sank back.
ward upon the attendants, her limbs
yielding to the extremity of her terror,
but uttering no cry, only kind of sick
groaning, like one in the weakness Of
fever, when wry medicine must be ia.
ken. ~
Payne, with his feet firmly laced to-
gether, stood straight as one of the scat.
fold beams, and braced himself up 80
stoutly, that this doubtless prevented
the breaking of his neck. Harold
stood well beneath the drop, still whim.
pering at the lips, but taut, and short
and boyish. Atzerodt, in his grovelling
attitude, while they tied him, he began
to indulge in his old vice of Cabling
He evidently wished to make his finale
more eftee tive than his previously cow
ardly role, and perhaps was strengthen
ing his fortitude with q speech, as we
sometimes do of dark nights with a
whistle.
ATzERoDT's SPEECH
Gentlemen" he said with sort of
choke and gasp, take ware.n He evil
IDENTIFY meant "beware, !" or take care,,"
and COMPOUNDED them. Again, when
the white death-cap was drawn over his
face he continued to cry out under it,
once saying, Goodbye shentlemens,
who are before me now" and again,
"May we meet in the other world."-
Finally he drifted away with the low,
half-intelligible ebullitions, as "God
help me;N "oh! oh y and the like.
The rest said nothing, Mrs. Surratt,
who asked to be supported, that she
might not fall, but Harold protested
against the knot with which he was to
be dislocated, it being as huge as ones
double fist. -5 ~
In fact all the mechanical prepara-
tons were clumsy and martistic, and
the final scenes ofthe execution, therefore
revolving in the extreme. When the
of the prisoners, and they stood in line
life and immediate death, man at the
neck of each adjusting the cord, the
knot beneath the ears Of each protruded
five or six inches, and the cord was so
thick that it could notbe made to press
tightly against the flesh.
ri SILENCE. e.=
So they stood, while nearly thousand
faces from window, roof, wall, yard and
housetop, gazed, the scaffold behind
them still densely packed with the as
sistants, and the four executioners be-
meath, standing at observation-disclosures.
The priests continue tomurmur prayers.
The people were dumb, as if each wit
ness stood alone with none near by to
talk to him
THE SIGNAL.
An instant this continued, while an
officer on the plot before, motioned back
the assistants, and then with forward
thrust of his hand, signalled the execu-
TONERS. l -j
The great beams were darted against
the props simultaneously. The two traps
fell with slam. The four bodies drop
ped like single thing, outside the
vet crowded remnant Of the gallows
floor, and swayed and turned to and fro,
here and there, forward and backward,
and with a many helpless spasm, while
the spectators took little rush forward,
and the ropes were taut as the struggling
pulses of the dying.
Mrs. Surratt's neck was broken inn
mediately; she scarcely drew one breath.
Her short woman's figure, with the
skirts Topped closely about, merely dang
led by the vibration of her swift descent
and with the knot holding true under
the ear, her head leaned sideways, and
her pinioned arms seemed content with
their confinement.
Payne died horrible death, the knot
slipped to the back of his neck, and bent
his head forward on his breast so that he
strangled as he drew his deep chest al
most to his chin, and the knees contract
ed until they almost seemed to touch his
abdomen. The veins in his great wrists
were like whip cords, expanded to twice
their natural dimensions, and the huge
neck grew almost black with the dark
blood that rushed in a flood to the cir
cling rope, A long while he swayed
and twisted and struggled, till at last
nature ceased her rebellion and LIE went
out unwillingly.
Harold also paSsed through SOME
STRUGGLES. It is doubtful that his neck
was broken. The perspiratisn dripped
from his feet, and he swung in the hot
noon just living enough to make death
irritable.
Atzerodt died easily. Life did not
care to fight for his possession.
The two central figures lived long after
the two upon the TANKS. n ~
There they hung, bundles of carcasses
and old clothes, four in row, and past
all conspiracy or ambition, the river
rolling by without sound, and men
watching them with shiver, w lille the
heat of the day seemed suddenly abated
as if by the sudden opening of tomb.
The officers conversed in q half-audi-
BILE tone; the reporters put up their
books; the assistants descended from the
gallows;. andthe medicalmen drew near.
No wind stirred the Undertaking. bodies,
they were stone dead.
The bodies were allowed to hang about
twenty minutes, when surgeon Otis, U.
5. ", and assistant surgeons Woodward
and Porter, Q. s. A., examined them,
and pronounced all dead. In about ten
minutes more a ladder was placed against
the scatfold preparatory to cutting the
bodies down. An over-Zealous soldier
on the platform reached Overland severed
the cord, letting the body fall with
heavy thump, when he was immediate-
ly ordered down and reprimanded. Inc