#David Herold

[thommi-tomate]

2.FC Bayern's David Herold will leave the club after spending the 23/24 season at Karlsruher SC in the 2.Bundesliga to join them permanently.

[lincolncollection]

Conspirators Executed

On July 7, 1865, at approximately 1:26 p.m., four of the people convicted of conspiring to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln were hanged in the yard of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary (now Ft. Lesley McNair) in Washington, D.C. Mary Surratt, David Herold, Lewis Powell, and George Atzerodt had been found guilty by a military tribunal on June 30 and sentenced to be hanged.  President Andrew Johnson had approved the sentences on July 5, and the condemned had been told on July 6 that they would be hanged the next day.  A last-ditch attempt by her lawyers to delay Mary Surratt’s execution with a writ of habeas corpus failed when President Johnson declared the writ suspended for this case, and Surratt became the first woman executed by the United States.

Approximately 1,000 people witnessed the execution, though tickets were issued to limit the number of witnesses in the prison yard itself.  Among those with a ticket was Gen. Reuben Mussey, President Johnson’s private secretary, whom Johnson had sent to observe the proceedings.  This ticket was issued to Mussey and signed by Maj. Winfield Scott Hancock.  A note on the reverse indicates Mussey would be admitted between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Photographer Alexander Gardner also witnessed the execution. He and his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan took a series of photographs.  These photographs from the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection tell the story.

The scaffold stands ready, complete with ropes on the cross beam and chairs on the platform for the condemned.  Two long vertical beams under the scaffold floor hold the trap doors closed.

Officials, the condemned prisoners, and their guards and ministers assemble on the scaffold platform as the death warrants are read.  Umbrellas offer some shade in the 100-degree heat.  The prisoners are seated, with Mary Surratt and Lewis Powell on the left and David Herold and George Atzerodt on the right.  The two soldiers assigned to knock the beams out from under the trap doors stand ready, and a line of soldiers stands on the wall above.

The conspirators’ bodies—Surratt, Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt—hang from the scaffold.  Twenty-five minutes elapse before they are cut down.

This view of the prison yard immediately after the hanging shows the scaffold trap doors open and the bodies hanging.

Wooden coffins are stacked and graves prepared in the prison yard.

After the conspirators’ bodies were cut down, they were placed in the coffins and buried in the prison yard.  It wasn’t until February 1869 that President Johnson ordered the bodies be released to the families.  The bodies of Surratt, Herold, and Atzerodt were claimed by relatives; Powell’s body remained unclaimed.

[lincolnkennedyfanatic-blog]

My mom and I were talking about our worship leader at church and she said his name was David Herol. I thought she said Harold, so I made her repeat Herol several times. If his name was David Herold......well lets not go there.

[ptarmigans-moved-blog]

Herold: Johnny, they've found us, we gotta get out of here!

Booth: not 'till I finish this!

Herold: Johnny-

Booth: [stubborn four year-old voice] no!

[fyabrahamlincoln]

On May 1, 1865 President Andrew Johnson ordered the formation of a military tribunal to try the eight people accused of being involved in John Wilkes Booth's failed kidnapping attempt and subsequent assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The trial for the eight accused began on May 10th and lasted until June 30th. The defendants were allowed to have lawyers and witnesses, they were not however, permitted to testify for themselves.

Dr. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlen were found guilty and each received a life sentence in prison. Mudd and Arnold would later receive pardons from Andrew Johnson in 1869 and were free to live the rest of their lives at home. Edman Spangler was found guilty of helping Booth escape Ford's Theatre and received a sentence of six years in prison. He was also pardoned by Johnson in 1869.

Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt were found guilty of the charges brought against them including conspiracy, assisting Booth, and the attempted assassination of William Seward. All four of them were sentenced to hang on July 7, 1865.

An estimated 1,000 people witnessed the execution of the four conspirators and many of these people viewed the execution from windows, the courtyard or from nearby buildings. The number of people who wanted to witness the event was so large, tickets had to be given out to a select number to reduce the crowd in the courtyard.

On the gallows moments before the execution, Mary was seated and an umbrella was held over her head to fend off the near boiling rays. Lewis Powell thanked his guards and repeated what he had been saying every day since his capture, “Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn’t deserve to die with the rest of us.” Hancock clapped his hands twice and the soldiers knocked them down. Twenty-five minutes later the bodies were cut down and buried in shallow graves nearby. After the burial one newspaper editor wrote "We wish to hear their names no more."