- Henry Lawrence Burnett
Henry Lawrence Burnett (
December 26 ,1838 –January 4 ,1916 ) was a brevet brigadier general for the Union in theAmerican Civil War and a prosecutor in the trial that followed theAbraham Lincoln assassination .Early life
Burnett was born in
Youngstown, Ohio , in 1838. Determined not to become afarmer , he ran away from home to get an education and eventually married Kitty Hoffman, the daughter of a judge.Civil War
When the Civil War broke out, Burnett joined the
2nd Ohio Cavalry , where he rose to the rank of major. After being trampled by a horse and seriously injured, however, he transferred to theJudge Advocate General's Corps of theDepartment of the Ohio .After the assassination of President
Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Burnett was called upon by Secretary of WarEdwin Stanton to be an Assistant Judge Advocate General. Along with him wereJohn Bingham andJoseph Holt , the Judge Advocate General. The accused conspirators whereGeorge Atzerodt ,David Herold , Lewis Powell a.k.a. Paine, Samuel Arnold,Michael O'Laughlen ,Edman Spangler ,Samuel Mudd andMary Surratt . The trail began onMay 10 ,1865 . The three spent nearly two months in court, awaiting a verdict from the jury. Holt and Bingham attempted to obscure the fact that there were two plots. The first plot was to kidnap President Lincoln in exchange for the Confederate prisoners the Union had. The second was to assassinate Lincoln, Vice PresidentAndrew Johnson and Secretary of StateWilliam H. Seward in a plot to throw the government into electoral chaos. It was important for the prosecution not to reveal the existence of adiary taken from the body of Lincoln's assassinJohn Wilkes Booth . The diary made it clear that the assassination plan dated from the 14th of April. The defence surprisingly did not call for Booth's diary to be produced in court. Holt was accused of withholding evidence, but it was never proven.OnJune 29 ,1865 , the eight were found guilty for their involvement in the conspiracy to kill the President. Arnold, O'Laughlen and Mudd where sentenced to life in prison, Spangler six years in prison and Atzerodt, Herold, Paine and Surratt were to hang. They were executedJuly 7 ,1865 . Surratt was the first woman in American history to be executed. O'Laughlen died in prison in 1867. Arnold, Spangler and Mudd where pardoned byPresident Andrew Johnson in early 1869.Post-Civil War
After his wife Kitty died, Burnett moved to
New York to practice law, serving as counsel to theBuffalo and Erie Railroad . He was married a second time, to Sarah Lansing, only to find himself widowed once again in 1877. At this point, Burnett left his children with his late wife's family and relocated toNew York City . He married once again, this time to Agnes Tailer, and moved to an exclusive district of the city. In 1898, PresidentWilliam McKinley appointed Burnett federaldistrict attorney for the southern district ofNew York and upon completion of his four-year term, he was reappointed by McKinley's successor,Theodore Roosevelt .Seeking a country home away from the city, Burnett and his wife purchased a horse- breeding farm in
Goshen, New York where Henry raced on the amateur circuit. He diedJanuary 4 ,1916 and was interred inSlate Hill Cemetery in Goshen.External links
* [http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/burnett/generalburnett.htm Site on Brig. Gen. Henry Burnett]
*findagrave|3596 Retrieved on2008-02-12
* [http://www.samuelmudd.com samuelmudd.com]Persondata
NAME= Burnett, Henry Lawrence
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SHORT DESCRIPTION= Union Army General
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