Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress

[Circular.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams

Department of State, Washington, July 8, 1865.

Sir: The military commission appointed to try the conspirators against the lives of the late and of the present President, of members of the cabinet and others, has brought its proceedings to a close by sentencing Mary E. Surratt Lewis Payne, David E. Herold, and George Atzerodt, to death by hanging; Samuel A, Mudd, Michael O’Laughlin, and Samuel Arnold to imprisonment at hard labor for life, and Edward Spangler to imprisonment for the term of six years at hard labor.

The sentence against the four first-named persons was yesterday carried into effect.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

[Same, mutatis mutandis, to our principal ministers abroad. ]