Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1867-08-20
Conspiracy Against the President.

|
military positions, and have heretofore looked
upon their disgraced and ruinous proceedings
with an unaccountable apathy, we can scarcely
think that the public will receive the startling
revelations just made by Charles A. Durham
alias Sanford Conover without being startled
into some manifestation of Indignation and
alarm. This man, it will be remembered, test
1 testified, before the Military Commission which
murdered Mrs. Surratt. After having render
ed this service to the Government and the Rad
cal party he was left to his fate, and to concate
what remained in the country of honest public
! opinion, he was tried and sentenced to the
penitentiary. He petitioned for pardon on
the 9th of July, basing his application on pure
| y technical grounds, and it was supported by
Mr.. Ashley, by Mr. Holt, and by Mr.. Riddle,
| one of the counsel, for the Government in the
late Surratt case, who all urged the services
which they said Conover had rendered in that
case as emitting him to pardon. On the Doth,
finding that orders had been issued for his
removal from the Washington jail to the Albany
penitentiary, he addressed to the President
communication. In that document he states
that Ashley, the prime engineer Of the impeach-
approached him with proposition to suborn
| witnesses who would swear that Booth had paid
familiar visits to Mr.. johnson at the Kirkwood
House just before the assassination that he
and Booth had correspondent with each other,
and that the latter had stated, about the 4th of
March, to friends whom he sought to enlist in
the conspiracy, that he was acting with Mr..
Johnson's knowledge and that it had been ar
ranged that Mr. Lincoln was to have been
murdered On that day. Congress, Ashley said,
would protect all who would swear to these
statements, and Conover was assured that he
would be released. He says he accepted the
proposal, whether in good faith or not we need
not stop to inquire He was then furnished
with memorandum of the lies which the wit
nesses were to be schooled to repeat, and among
these were statements duplicating Mr.. Davis
and Benjamin, as well as President Johnson, as
parties to the assassination. Conover sent for
were duly instructed and then examined by
Ashley and Benjamin E. Butler Congress
passed at Butler instance an act for the protec-
ton of just such witnesses, and their dispositions
were about to be taken, but Conover would not
permit it until his own pardon had been secured.
This however he failed through the blunders, he
asserts of one of Ashley agents to receive, and
he then exposed the whole conspiracy as he
says he intended to do from the first. Such is
a brief outline of this damaging story Of an
attempt by Radical leaders to get the President
out of office, and to prove him and other OBJ
noxious men parties to an assassination by means
of periurers who were to be protected and
"splendidly rewarded for their diabolical ser
vices We avow in the sight of Heaven our
sincere undoubting conviction of the truth of
Conover's revelations. That he is an unprin-
cipled scoundrel we fully coneede. That he is
an abandoned peijurer we admit, but the basest
of men sometimes tell the truth, and we solemn
ly believe he has done so now. Bad as he is,
we would accept his word at any time just as
readily as that of Ashley, or Of Butler; and
Ashley cannot deny his credibility, for the fact
is indisputable and notorious that he has latter
ly been repeatedly visiting Conover in jail to
procure testimony from or through him in the
impeachment case. He who thus sought in
formation from Conover, and who would have
relied upon it as true cannot question his YER
acity now, and Holt and Riddle who accepted
| testimony furnished by him in the case of John
Surratt cannot venture to repudlate his lnteg-
rity But our convictions are founded chiefly
upon the in ternal evidence of its truth afforded
by the narrative itself We have not space
within which to give reasons which have i'm
PEELED us to this conclusion, but they are many
and seem to us to be irresistible. Baltimore
Gazette.
Judge Henry W. Thomas, of Alexandria, one
| of the Judges of the Circuit Court of Va, and
Hon. Jno. S. Pendleton, of Culpeper, familiar
ly known as ''Jack Pendeton," ex-member of
Congress and at one time United States Minis
ter to Chill, have been indicted by Judge I'm
derwood's Grand Jury-the former for refusing
to admit in his Court the testimony of a negro
woman at period when the code of Virginia
was in full force, and there existed no supple
mental law, either judicial or military, making
negroes competent witnesses in cases Of the
kind then pending before the judge, and the
latter for having taken the registration oath
the charge alleged being that of perjury Both
gave bonds for their appearance before the
Court in November.
Killed by Snake
On Sunday, the 18th inst, at the White Sui
phur Springs in Greenbrier, West Virginia, an
Arab, one of the accomplished acrobats con-
nected with the Circus of Dan Castillo was
killed by the bite of rattlesnake which he had
bought the day before and which he was trying
to tame. He was bitten several times on the
hands and arm. He died horrible death, and
before doing So caught the snake in his hands
and ate portions Of it.
1t would seem that the rattlesnakes in that
reconstructed State are in as unreconstructed
state as the copperheads.
One night last week, Mr.. John Myers, Of
Trout Run Valley, in Hardy county, was rob-
bed of seven hundred dollars-three hundred
in specie and four hundred in greenback curren-
cy. The robbery was committed by seven per-
sons, disguised as negroes, who made an entry
Into the house and arrested and confined both
Mr.. Myers and his son, the only men about,
when they proceeded to plumber the house.
Fit is to the interest of the Southern peo-
pie to have the Southern States reconstructed
under the Sherman Shellabarger bill, why is it
that the Radicals manifest such anxiety for its
| accomplishment? Will the Southern people
ponder this question? TInaeo Danaos ct dona
terentes.
On the 18th of September, the vote of the
city of Richmond will be taken on the PROPOSE
ton to subscribe taoo millions of dollars to the
stock of the Chesapeake and Ohio r. r. Com
pany. There seems to be no doubt that the
subscription of that amount will be voted.
The trotting horse, Dexter, has been bought
by Robert Bonner-price $500 At Buffalo
on the 18th inst, he trotted a mile in harness
in the unprecedented short time of two minutes
and seventeen and one-fourth seconds.