Surratt Tavern

Surratt Tavern. Confederate Safe House. Owned and operated by the ardently pro-Southern Surratt family, this building was used by Confederate agents as a safe house during the Civil War. Built in 1852, the structure was a tavern, hostelry and post office., Surratt's son, John, Jr., a Confederate courier, came into contact with actor John Wilkes Booth in 1864. Booth planned to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln, and Surratt was to help convey Lincoln to Richmond. The tavern was to serve as a way-station during the kidnapping. Weapons and supplies were secreted here., In December, 1864, Surratt's mother, Mary E. Surratt, rented out the tavern and moved to her other home on H Street in Washington. Booth visited there often, and two of his conspirators boarded with her briefly. Eventually, the kidnapping plan turned to assassination, and after Booth shot the president on April 14, 1865, he and accomplice David E. Herold came directly here to retrieve the weapons the conspirators had stashed earlier. They arrived at midnight, then headed south toward the hamlet of T.B., Mrs. Surratt's tenant here later gave damaging testimony that sent her to the gallows on July 7, 1865 - the first woman executed by the federal government. Her son fled the country but was later returned for trial. The trial resulted in a hung jury.