Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1866-07-20

Correspondence of the New York Herald.
Singular disclosures in Washinston.The
Assassination OF President LincOln--Sub-
Orning Witness to Prove the Completely
of jeff. Davis, &c.
The Investigations Of the Judiciary Com
mittee of the House of Representatives in re-
lation to the alleged completely Of JEFF Davis,
Clay, and others, in the murder OF President
Lincoln, have developed one ofthe most vii
famous conspiracies ever concocted in the
civilized world. Strange to tell, it is not
the conspiracy for the assassination Of Pres
ident Lincoln and his Cabinet but an equal
ly bloody and far more cowardly and cruel
one, to murder, through the forms Of law,
ext President Davis and others Of the defunct
Confederacy.
This revelation will no doubt astound the
public, and well it may; but to none who
have observed the malignant and fendlsh
spirit Of the Radicals in Congress and other
high places will it seem incredible. The Ju-
dietary Committee, anxious as most of its
members are to suppress the evidence it has
deduced, and screen the conspirators from
the opprobium they justly merit, will not
venture to deny my averments.
| Whence or from whom derived the in
formation [ am imparting need not and with
propriety could not, be specifically disclosed !;
but [ may observe, for the general interest of
your readers, that at this capital there is no
time equal to holiday, and during session
of Congress no holiday equal to the Fourth
of July for eliciting State secrets.
But to return to the conspiracy. The Ju-
dietary Committee. as soon as authorized to
investigate the charges against Messrs Davis
Clay, and others, sent for such persons and
papers as they had been led to believe would
furnish eliminating evidence. The princi-
pal persons sent for had already been exam
ined er porte in the Bureau Of Military JUS
| tice.
Immediately after the execution Of Mrs.
Surratt and her fellow -culprits, the Judge
Advocate General set to work in dead earn
est to procure evidence for the conviction OF
Davis, Clay, and others, as co-conspirators.
Several detectives were employed to hunt up
and hunt down every person supposed to
have had any correspondence or communica-
with the suspected parties, or any knowledge
tending directly or indirectly to connect them
with the conspiracy.
But after weeks of industrious labor and
research, the detectives failed to discover
anything of the slightest consequence bearing
upon the subject. This result was commu-
nicated to the Radicals in the Cabinet, and
by them confded to the leading Radicals
then about to assemble-in Congress, and
probably to many, certainly to few, celeb
rites of their faction not in any office.
Another agent of great experience and
shrewdness was engaged to perform the work
which the others had failed to accomplish
He was charged to find the necessary wit
nesses at all hazards to proceed la For
ney, or in any way he deemed best calcula-
ted to insure success, but on no account to
fail. He in few weeks produced nearly a
dozen witnesses, who deposed under oath,
in the Bureau of Military Justice, to matters
and facts enough to hang both Davis and
Clay higher than Hannah.
One of these witnesses, calling himself
William Campbell, deposed that he was ma
tive of New Orleans, and had been Con-
federate soldier that in the latter part OF
March or first Of April, 1865, he was called
on at Richmond by John HI. Surratt, who
bore letter of introduction from William 9.
Cleary, then in Canada; that said letter re-
ouested him to introduce Surratt to Judah
p. BENJAMIN. Secretary Of State, with whom
he (deponent) was intimately acquainted
and assured him that Surratt would unfold a
grand scheme, in which he (deponent) was
earnestly solicited to participate; that Sur
raft did on the same day disclose to him the
plot to assassinate the President and Cabinet
further, that in compliance with Cleary' 8 re-
quest he introduced Surratt to Benjamin.
The fellow then told a long yarn about an
9TH M Davis and BENJAMIN. and