Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1866-12-06
sURRATF AND THE sAssASSINA-
TION.

rls, Minister OF the united cJates ~ Cou-
stantinople, telegraPhs to Mr.. Seward as
follows - ...-.. -..... -r-----ei
" CoNsTANTINoPLE, Dec. John II. |
SuGratt was arrested in Alexandria last
week. He is now here in irons, and viii
be sent to the United States at once"
Our dispatches this morning state that
Surratt win be brought to this country 10
one Of the United States war vessels now
stationed ia the Mediterranean, SO we
may expect to hear of his arrival at the
national capital in the course Of a few
weeks at farthest When it was an
nounced that Surratt had been arrested
at Rome but had escaped, the Boston
AdrertiSer, leading and influential Re-
publican organ, suggested that if he
should again fall into our hands that he
be offered his life, his liberty, or any
other price which might be sufficient to
secure it, to obtain from his lips the in
formation which will shed the light of
day upon the most difficult as well as
the most interesting criminal mystery of
time" The information he possesses in
regard to the parties and incidents of
that terrible tragedy would no doubtclear
up much of the mystery that shrouds
that dark deed, but there is a doubt
whether even these offers would elicit
from him a perfectly truthful state
ment. Then there is reason TO
fear that the malice which prompted
and paid for the accusation against JEFF
Davis, might now rejoice to direct it
against President johnson, for such in
situation has already been made through
Radical channels. 1t was freely asserted
that his testimony would have cleared
his mother, who protested her innocence
to the last moment of her life, and al
though he must have known that his
mother was to be hung, the ungrateful
son never made the slightest effort to save
her life. This implies guilt on his part,
but if he had been a true man, he would
have put his own life in peril to have
saved that of his innocent mother This
single incident argues that he knows q
great deal that would throw a food of
! light upon the assassination conspiracy.
But whether he would give this informa-
ton truthfully is very grave question.
Without the strongest corrobOrative
evidence, we should doubt the testimony
of any man who would permit his innO-
cent mother to suffer even tosave his own
neck
Recent developments have tended to
obscure the facts of the conspiracy" to
murder Mr.. Lincoln and others, not the
most Insignificant of which is the recent
discovery of the peguries and receptions
of Conover, Montgomery and others, and
if Surratt can be induced to tell ian un,
vanished tale" this mystery may be un-
raveled The tragic affair is involved in
a double mystery: the parties implicated
in the assassination plot and their object
and the pursuit and reported killing of
Booth. OF the former, it is declared by the
Boston Advertiser, that though the most
acute legal minds have been employed to
sift it to the bottom, is today wrapped in
as close an unfathomable mystery as
covers any similar plot in the dimness Of
the middle ages" and that "the extent of
the general ignorance about it may well
be gagged by the fact that of tn, two
well-known gentlemen who were put in
charge of the case by the Government,
and studied it long and closely, one still
| declares that Jefferson Davis was the chief
conspirator, while the other stakes his re-
| putatiOn on the shocking and incredible
accusation that the present President of
the United States was an accomplice in
the plot %" - This statement of the Adcer-
tiser shows to what extent the minds of
men are worked by ignorance and preju-
dice, and how ready the members Of a
political faction, insane under their sue
cesses, are to seize upon the most improb-
able insinuatiOn in regard to the Chief
Magistrate of the nation. If tbs igno-
rance were dispelled it would be great
relief to the nation, while it would GER
tainly disappOint many who have allowed
groundless suspicious to become some
thing akin to convictions.
In regard to the mystery about Booth
all that tho public know is that an inns
mense reward was offered for his capture,
dead or alive, and that this offer did Sc
cure the dead body of some person re-
ported to be the chief conspirator, when
every public interest required that he
should have been taken alive Then the
mysterious manner in which the authori-
ties disposed of the lifeless body, was
well calculated to excite doubt whether