Sadness was not the only emotion which dominated Washington — there was anger and a lust for revenge. Suspected conspirators were arrested and trials were quick to follow. Of those arrested four were sentenced to death by hanging — Lewis Paine, George Azerodt, David E. Herold and the hapless Mary Surratt.³⁰ Many people considered the forty-five-year old owner of the rooming house where John Wilkes Booth had resided while in Washington to have been not guilty of the charge. One among those was Lewis Paine who avowed repeatedly, until the time of his own bungled execution,³¹ on July 7, 1865, that she had known nothing of the conspiracy. To no avail! It was controversial at the time and is still so. There have been many publications concerning the arrest, trial and execution or imprisonment of the conspirators. Chosen for display are contemporary accounts such as John Bingham's prosecutorial version.³² An examination of President Andrew Johnson's behaviour in respect of Mrs. Surratt's execution is contained in pamphlet titled Some Incidents in the Trial of President Lincoln's Assassins.³³ A fuller examination is contained in David DeWitt's monograph titled The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt.³⁴

Another of those convicted of conspiracy was Dr. Samuel Mudd whose involvement, trial and confinement in Fort Jefferson on Dry Tortugas Island, off the coast of Florida, is recounted.³⁵

An examination of the power of a military court to try Lincoln's assassins is addressed in the publication Opinion on the Constitutional Power of the Military to Try and Execute the Assassins of the President³⁶ written by James Speed. The author, the brother of Lincoln's closest friend, Joshua, was Attorney General at the time of Lincoln's death.

Not too much in the exhibition has been given over to John Wilkes Booth. However represented here is the first full-length book published about a month after Lincoln's assassination: a novel which had as its main character, John Wilkes Booth.³⁷

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30. David E Herold, Trial of the Assassins and Conspirators for the Murder of Abraham Lincoln, and the Attempted Assassination of Vice-President Johnson and the Whole Cabinet ... Containing the Evidence in Full, With Arguments of Counsel on Both sides, and the Verdict of the Military Commission. Correct Likenesses and Graphic History of All the Assassins, Conspirators, and Other Persons Connected with Their Arrest and Trial. Philadelphia: Barclay & co., 1865.
31. Paine was very tall and powerfully built. The noose placed around his neck was not strong enough to snap his spine so that his was a slow death by strangulation.
32. John Armor Bingham, Trial of the Conspirators, for the Assassination of President Lincoln, &c.: Argument of John A. Bingham, Special Judge Advocate, in Reply to the Arguments of the Several Counsel for Mary E. Surratt, David E. Herold, Lewis Payne, George A. Atzerodt, Michael O'Laughlin, Samuel A. Mudd, Edward Spangler, and Samuel Arnold, Charged with Conspiracy and the Murder of Abraham Lincoln, Late President of the United States Delivered June 27 and 28, 1865, before the Military Commission, Washington, D.C. Washington: G.P.O., 1865.
33. Henry Lawrence Burnett, Some Incidents in the Trial of President Lincoln's Assassins. The Controversy between President Johnson and Judge Holt. New York: Printed for the Commandery of the State of New York by D. Appleton, 1891.
34. David Miller DeWitt, The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1895.
35. Samuel Alexander Mudd, The Life of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd: Containing His Letters from Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas Island, Where He was Imprisoned Four Years for Alleged Complicity in the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, With Statements of Mrs. Samuel A. Mudd, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, and Edward Spangler Regarding the Assassination and the Argument of General Ewing on the Question of the Jurisdiction of the Military Commission, and on the Law and Facts of the Case; Also "Diary" of John Wilkes Booth. New York: Neale Pub. Co., 1906.
36. James Speed, Opinion on the Constitutional Power of the Military to Try and Execute the Assassins of the President. Washington: G.P.O., 1865.
37. Dion. J Haco, Wilkes Booth, the Assassinator of President Lincoln. New York: T. R. Dawley, 1865.