The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1867-05-10
5f1st&lIaneous.
HOLT-CONOVER.

1t will be recollected that the House of
Representatives of the United States, not
long ago, directed the Judiciary Commit
tee to inquire how far the Confederate
authorities were concerned in the Presi-
dental assassination, and among other
witnesses brought before them for the pur-
pose Of duplicating the Confederate leaders
was Sanford Conover and man named
Campbell-Hoit's and Stanton's favorite
witnesses on the Surratt trial. The Judici.
airy Committee OF the last U. S. House of
Representatives were all Republicans, ex.
cept Mr.. Rogers, of New Jersey, who is a
Democrat. From the report of the Com
mittee the Philadelphia Age makes up the
following history of Conover, the right
hand man of the bureau of military justice,
and who, with others, it will be recollect-
ed, were hired by Holt to hunt up testimo-
mony for tho occasion. The Age says
When in Revolutionary story gallant
man was sentenced to die, he begged TO
be shot, as mode Of honorable DEATH
lie had committed no moral wrong-was
no thief, or perjurer, or murderer. His
prayer was rejected, and be died upon the
gallows. John Wilkes Booth a muir
derer, who shot an unsuspecting, merry
making man as it were from an ambush,
had the privilege which was denied to
Andre, and was shot to death, and his
last words of affection to his mother and
devotion to his country were duly chroni-
clsd and embalmed. But if he was mot
hung, or chained, or tortured, Mary E.
Surratt was. Muf1ed, and manacled, and
perhaps unconscious, she, the Maryland
mother Of broken-hearted daughter
persisted on the glbbet, and her body rests
in the unconsecrated soil of prison. yard.
One of the witnesses on whose testimony
she was put to death by Holt, and Stan
ton, and Hunter, and Wallace, was San
ford Conover, now a convict of perjury
for the very testimony be then gave. We
propose from authentic materials to tell
the story of Sanford Conover, and we beg
for it tie attention of our readers. Ii is
we'll worth it.
1t is not easy to find Conover's origin,
but the first fact we know of him is that
before the Lincoln murder, he says, he
was In Canada, a correspondent of the
New York Tribune. Gas soon," says he,
''as the investigation took place, I came
on to Washington and offered myself as
witness" And he was welcomed and
taken into pay, and as we have said ex-
amined On the trial of Mrs. Surratt, and
proved everything as to the completely of
the Confederate authorities that his en-
ployers desired and was kept 10 their pay
afterwards. Hanging Mrs Surratt was
not enough. That was easily managed.
But duplicating thoroughly the Confede-
rate leaders in the deed of blood was more
difficult, and so, in the summer and
autumn of 1865, Conover, under the
auspices of the Bureau of Military JUS
tice, went to work to cook up some cor
roborative testimony, to enlist some more
witnesses.
81 want to ask you," said the Chair
man of the Judiciary Committee, Sin
what capacity you were acting when you
discovered the other witnesses you have
named to the committee this morning P"
Answer. l was acting as agent for the
Bureau OF Military Justice.