The Springfield herald., 1899-04-21

OF the conspirators, he was sent down
to the arsenal to have charge of the
prison. In this way Capt. Rath came
to have a part in the execution. He
Is modest and rather shuns publicity.
but the other day he told some of his
impressions gained in the performance
of his duty. 1t will be remembered
that four of the conspirators were
hanged, Booth himself having been
shot and killed by the soldiers in their
pursuit. The four were: Harold, Payne,
Atzerot and Mrs. Surratt. Arnold,
Mudd and Mclaughlin were sentenced
to life Imprisonment and Spangler to
six years at the Dry Tortugas. Re-
.garding the last named, Capt. Rath
said:
"Spangler was employed at the thea
ter before Lincoln was shot, being the
house carpenter. He was Booths lac
key, and although he had evidently
been used by the conspirator, yet it is
my firm belief that he was entirely
innocent of any intentional part in the
crime. 1t was arranged that he should
be at the rear door of the theater on
the night of the assassination to let
Booth out, and yet l know from his
action and conversation afterward, as
well as from the others, that he did
not know what he was doing it for.
OF course the whole city was under
martial law and proceedings were not
the same as they would have been If
the civil authorities had been in sway.
l remember the day of the execution
Spangler was pretty nervous. He told
me afterward how he had felt. He
did not know that the military law re-
quired the reading of the sentence of
death to the accused and so when he
heard the prisoners Payne, Harold. At
zerot and Mrs. Surratt being taken out
he said to himself, That is the first
batch. Am | in the second?' And
he listened to the sounds from the
prison yard, the moving about and the
commotion, then the deathly stiffness
and finally the horrible lurching of the
prisoners to death. Spangler told me
that he lived year in that one hour
and long year at that, for every min
ute he felt that the door of his cell
might swing open and the guards ap-
pear to accompany him out to the
scaffold. 1t was when | took him out
of the prison to be sent to the Dry Tor
tugas that he looked up at the gallows
and blenched terribly at the thought
of what had gone through his mind.
and then he told me all about it. The
most acute agony could scarcely be
worse than that dreadful waiting
waiting, with Just the half certainty
that death would be his lot before
many minutes were gone. He was the
only one of the lot that was not guilty
The others never denied their guilt
disputing sometimes little questions of
dates and places. But their whole
bearing and the conversation when
they came together in the prison yard
confirmed their guilt. The execution of
the four was delayed considerably by
the tardiness of Gen. Hancock, secre-
tary of the war department. 1t was
to have taken place at o'clock in the
afternoon, but we had orders not to
proceed without the general. Two
O'Clock came and went then 2:15. and
still Gen. Hancock did not appear
Finally he came, painting a little, and
seeming to me to be little excited
He went with me into the prison and
said: Go ahead
Her. too-all four of them. gen
eral?' l asked.
"'Yes, all four of them
And so we went ahead. The reason
I asked that question and got that
answer was that there had been some