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George Andreas Atzerodt (June 12, 1835 – July 7, 1865)** was a conspirator with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Atzerodt immigrated from Germany in 1843 when he was 8 years old. He opened his own carriage repair business in Port Tobacco, Maryland. He was chosen by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve and failed to make the attempt. He was tried and executed along with other conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne and David Herold.
The conspiracy
Some years after opening his carriage repair business, Atzerodt met John Wilkes Booth in Washington D.C. Atzerodt was willing to join in a conspiracy to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln, as he later admitted in his trial which took place May 1, 1865. According to the prosecution, Booth instructed Atzerodt to assassinate the Vice President, Andrew Johnson, on April 14 1865. On that morning, Atzerodt booked a room at the National Hotel where Johnson lived, and Booth was staying. However, he could not muster the courage to kill Johnson, so he began drinking at the hotel bar. He presumably became drunk, and spent the night perambulating the streets of Washington, DC.
During his stay at the hotel, Atzerodt had asked the bartender about the whereabouts of Vice President Johnson. This aroused suspicion the next day after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. An employee of the hotel contacted the police regarding a "suspicious looking man in a gray coat". The military police then conducted a search of Atzerodt's room on April 15, and found that he did not sleep in it on the night of April 14, had a loaded revolver concealed under his pillow, and a concealed bowie knife as well. Furthermore, the police also found a bank book belonging to his co-conspirator, John Wilkes Booth, in the room. Atzerodt was arrested on April 20. He was found at his cousin, Hartman Richer's, house in Germantown, Maryland.
Atzerodt's attorney, Captain William Doster, stated to the court that he intended "to show that George Atzerodt was a constitutional coward; that if he had been assigned the duty of assassinating the Vice President, he could never have done it; and that, from his known cowardice, Booth probably did not assign to him any such duty." However, this was to no avail. Atzerodt as well as three other convicted conspirators (Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne and David Herold) were hanged in Washington, DC on July 7, 1865. George Atzerodt's last words were: "May we all meet in the other world. God take me now."
References
The conspiracy
- Biography and Images of George Atzerodt, Assassination Conspirator. University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law. Accessed December 9, 2004.
External links
1835 births | 1865 deaths | American Civil War people | Assassins | German-Americans
"George Atzerodt"