The French Lady and the Lincoln Assassination

    We don’t discuss much about Lincoln here on Looking for the Confederate War, really only once that I can recall, and it was on Lewis Powell, alias Payne. I had a chance to visit his grave, or at least one of his graves, back in 2021. (You can read more here.)

   A few days ago, I was reading a little book by George Raynor entitled Rebels and Yankees in Rowan County (North Carolina). Raynor has a chapter on Sarah Antionette “Nettie” Gilbert Slater, also known as the French Woman or the Veiled Lady. Raynor believes that Slater once lived in Rowan County, North Carolina. He also believes that she was a Confederate courier and spy in 1865.

Godey's Fashion Prints from the 1860s

   She was born January 12, 1843, in Middleton, Connecticut. Her father, Joseph Gilbert, was a French teacher and made pills. Parts of the family, including Nettie, moved to Kinston, North Carolina, ca. 1858, and then to New Bern, where she met Rowan Slater. He had studied music at Trinity College, then worked as a traveling musician and dance instructor. New Bern was a little more welcoming of his talents than Salisbury. They were married in New Bern in June 1861.[1]

   Slater worked as a purchasing agent for the Confederate government in Goldsboro. In 1863, the moved to Salisbury, settling on the family farm. On July 23, 1864, he enlisted in Company A, 20^th North Carolina Troops. He is listed as present or accounted for until he was captured on April 6, 1865, in the vicinity of Farmville, Virginia. Slater was confined in Newport News, Virginia, until he took the Oath of Allegiance and was released on June 26, 1865.[2]

   For some reason, Nettie decided to head north in January 1865. Raynor speculates that it was to visit her mother who was still living in New York City. She approached Burgess S. Gaither and James G. Ramsey, two North Carolina Confederate Congressmen, for a pass between the lines. They wrote Maj. J.H. Corrington, Confederate provost marshal, recommending a pass. “She has lost her only brother in the Confederate Army and we have no hesitation in vouching for the loyalty of this lady and her high social position and hope she will meet with no difficulty in passing the lines of our army.”[3] Secretary of War Seddon endorsed the request.

   What happened next is not really clear, but Nettie was recruited into the Confederate spy network. She was chosen to deliver messages to Montreal. She spoke French perfectly and could claim French citizenship. Raynor lays out a quick timeline. She made her appeal to go to New York on January 16, and was on her way to Montreal on January 31. Nettie was taking documents to support the claims that the St. Albans raiders were acting under orders. She was escorted by another Confederate agent, August “Gus” Howell. On her return trip, also bearing information, she met John H. Surratt, Jr. in New York, and he accompted her to Washinton, D.C., and the Surratt boarding house. Howell then went with her to Richmond.[4]

   More documents were needed by Confederate agents in Canada, and Nettie was back in Montreal on March 17, making the trip back through New York and Washington to the Surratt boarding  house. From there, they traveled to the Surratt Tavern. Federals had raided the tavern the night before, arresting Howell. John Surratt and Nettie crossed the Potomac River and then headed to Richmond. David Berry ferried them across the river. When Federal authorities questioned Berry, he described Nettie, who was using the alias of “Mrs. Brown,” as “a rather thin delicate woman. I think she had black eyes and dark hair. I do not recollect whether I saw her with her bonnet off. I think she wore her veil down all the time.” (Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 15.)

   In Richmond she met with state department and treasure department officials who asked her to go to Montreal a third time. She and Surrat returned to Washington and on April 4, set out again. Just what takes place over the next few days is unclear. Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. Several individuals were arrested, including Mary Surratt, John’s mother. She and three others were quickly tried, found guilty of being accomplices to John Wilkes Both, and were executed. John Surratt fled to Canada. Or, maybe he was already there.

   Raynor wrote that he was unaware of what happened to Nettie. She simply disappeared from history. Yet we do have more of the story. Nettie was arrested on April 30, 1865, and interrogated by a Colonel Ingram. Several witnesses swore that she was a Confederate agent known as the “French woman,” and a major link between the Confederates in Richmond and those in Montreal. Nettie was released.[5]

   For some writers, Nettie’s involvement was more serious. Michael Schein believes that John Surratt and Nettie were lovers, and that she had many aliases, including Kate Brown, Kate Thompson, and A. Reynaud. He also believes that if there was an order coming from Richmond for authorizing the assassination of Lincoln, it was carried by Slater and Surratt. (This has never been proven.)[6] Schein writes that Surratt, using an alias, and Nettie checked in to the St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal on January 10, 1865, at least three weeks before her first trip. Of course, the Mr. T.H. Hendrickson and Miss Slater that registered could be anyone. And why would he use an alias and she wouldn’t? The entire letter by the two Confederate congressmen was just a ruse, Schein claims.[7] Schein’s account seems full of “maybes” that rely on a lot of guesses and circumstantial evidence. He further speculates that Nellie fled with Surratt to Canada after Lincoln’s death. He had taken a round-about trip to rescue his “beautiful young co-conspirator with whom he is in love.”[8] Schein goes on, believing that Nettie left Surratt in late August 1865, returning to New York City.[9] Back in North Carolina, Rowan Slater files for divorce, which is granted on November 19, 1866. He believes that Nettie is dead. According to Schein, Nettie marries William Spenser, her sister’s widower, who also passes. Nettie, according to Schein, lives under the alias of “Sarah A. Long” in New York, passing away on April 20, 1920. “The Government never caught up with her. Whatever her crimes, they died with her,” Schein concludes.[10]

   One of Schein’s sources is an article by James O. Hall that appeared in North and South in August 2000. Hall claims that “Federal detectives sought to find an elusive young Confederate agent they knew only as ‘Mrs. Slater,’ sometimes referred to as ‘the French woman’ or  ‘the lady in the veil.’ The deceives never found her. It was not for lack of trying.” Chamlee, in his book Lincoln’s Assassins, actually cites records from the adjutant general’s office stating she was arrested, interrogated, and released – Records of the Judge Advocate General’s office, Roll 2, Nos. 766-784, National Archives. Hall concludes that Nettie disappeared from the pages of history following the war.[11]

   A lifetime could be spent on the mysterious life of Sarah Antionette “Nettie” Gibert Slater, centered around the last four months of the war. There are primary sources to explore, like those cited by Chamlee, and fanciful writings to debunk, like those of Schein. A good scholarly book on Confederate spies and the secret service as a whole is also needed. I confess that I do not have the books by Ted Boyias, Harold W. Mills, Jr., or Charles Rivers. I do have Tidwell’s Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln. Like Schein, there is too much “But it is not hard to draw a logical conclusion” speculation. Tidwell uses this phrase in describing the January 1865 trip of Surratt to Richmond.[12]

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[1] Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 10-12.

[2] Jordan and Manarin, North Carolina Troops, 6:444.

[3] Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 13.

[4] Raynor, Rebels and Yankees, 14.

[5] Chamlee, Lincoln’s Assassins, 198.

[6] Schein, John Surratt, 65.

[7] Schein, John Surratt, 66.

[8] Schein, John Surratt, 150.

[9] Schein, John Surratt, 180.

[10] Schein, John Surratt, 181.

[11] Hall, “The Veiled Lady” North and South, (August 2000), 34-44.

[12] Tidwell, Come Retribution, 341.

North Carolina's Mars Hill College and the War

   Mars Hill. That’s an interesting name for a place. In western North Carolina, in the rugged mountains of Southern Appalachia, is the small community of Mars Hill. It is home to Mars Hills University. Like so many other places across the nation, it has a deep and interesting war-time history.

   The area was a crossroads of sorts, with roads connecting Asheville to the south and Marshall, the county seat of Madison County, to the west. Local people wanted their children to have a better education. There was the Burnsville Academy to the west, but it was a several days’ walk, and was run by the Methodists. People in the area decided to form the French Broad Baptist Institute in 1858. They renamed the school Mars Hill College in 1859, choosing to remember a site in ancient Greece where the Apostle Paul debated the leading thinkers of Athens. The school had over 100 students in the 1860-1861 term.[1]

    In September 1862, the Rev. John Ammons, writing from Mars Hill College, implored fellow Baptists across the South to take up collections for missionaries and colporters for the Confederate army. “It is to you then, Pastors, that we appeal,” Ammons wrote. “Ask your congregations to give and they will do it. Let every pastor lay the matter before his congregation and take collections for Army Colportage for N. Carolina.[2]

    The College remained open the first two years of the war, under the tutelage of President Pinkney Rollins. Rollins was a closet Unionist, who after the war, made his views known. “[T]he rebels said he was a traitor, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and most of them refused to patronize him.”[3] Whether it was Rollins’s political views or due to the continuous draw of Confederate forces upon the male population, Mars Hill College closed its doors at the end of term in the spring of 1863.[4] Shortly thereafter, at least 100 Confederate soldiers arrived and took over the buildings. Colonel James Keith and Lt. Col. Lawrence Allen, often associated with the 64^th North Carolina, used the campus as a base for a short amount of time. The two are often connected with the Shelton Laurel war. Most of the 64^th North Carolina was captured when Cumberland Gap was surrendered in September 1864 (read more about that here.)[5]

   The college campus also became home to the headquarters of the home guard of Brig. Gen. John W. McElroy. One amusing incident occurred when a Confederate officer at home on leave conspired with the home guard commander to test the effectiveness of the home guard. That night, the two officers positioned themselves on a nearby hill and “began to fire. The company became frightened; the commander shouted to his men ‘Fall out’, ‘Attention!’ Whereupon one, Ned Waldrop, stated that he would fight if the captain would let him get where he wanted to be. ‘Where do you want to be?’ responded the captain. “Behind the College building, sir,’ was the reply. It was soon learned that the attack was just a joke, or “training.”[6] 

Missing marker at Mars Hill University 

    On another occasion, one member of the home guard who was working at Mars Hill bragged to another worker about his unit killing three brothers and almost killing the mother. A few days later, the mother’s brother, James Norton, arrived at the site and killed the man. Norton was tried for murder, but acquitted.[7]

    Often, the home guard was away chasing dissidents from the Shelton Laurel area. In late April or early May 1864, one group of dissidents from Shelton Laurel, composed of fourteen men and three women, raided across West Fork, possibly into Buncombe County. They killed one man and beat another to “nearly to death.” The group was caught by the home guard at Mars Hill, with only one man and one woman escaping. “The women were armed with revolvers and took a hand in the murder and robbery,” the newspaper reported.[8]

   In late March or early April 1865, portions of George W. Kirk’s command, the 2^nd and 3^rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry (US) visited the college, ransacking the buildings and burning two of them.[9]

    The college rebuilt after the war and continues, as Mars Hill University. There was a North Carolina Civil War Trail marker on campus denoting the war in the area until recently. Maybe once construction is finished, it will return.

  

[1] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 6.

[2] The Biblical Reporter, October 1, 1862.

[3] McLeod, From These Stones, 65.

[4] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 5.

[5] Gaston, Partisan Campaigns of Col. Lawrence M. Allen, 16.

[6] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 2.

[7] Inscoe and McKinney, The Heart of Confederate Appalachia, 270.

[8] Weekly Progress, May 17, 1864.

[9] Carr, “Mars Hill College,” 5-6.