For other persons named Henry Burnett, see Henry Burnett
(disambiguation).
Henry Lawrence Burnett (December 26, 1838–January 4, 1916) was a brevet brigadier general for the Union in the American Civil War and a prosecutor
in the trial that followed the Abraham Lincoln assassination.
Brig. Gen. Henry L. Burnett
Early life
Burnett was born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1838.
Determined not to become a farmer, 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 the Judge Advocate General's Corps of
the Department of the Ohio.
Henry Burnett (right) along with
John Bingham
(left) and
Joseph Holt (center) were the three judges in charge of the
Lincoln assassination trial.
After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, Burnett was called upon by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to be an
Assistant Judge Advocate General. Along with him were
John Bingham and Joseph Holt, the Judge Advocate
General. The accused conspirators where George Atzerodt, David Herold, Lewis Powell a.k.a. Paine, Samuel Arnold,
Michael O'Laughlen, Edman Spangler,
Samuel Mudd and Mary Surratt. The trail began on
May 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 President
Andrew Johnson and Secretary of
State William H. Seward in a plot to throw the government into electoral caos.
It was important for the prosecution not to reveal the existence of a diary taken from
the body of Lincoln's assassin John 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.
Burnett in his later years
On June 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 executed
July 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 by
President 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
the Buffalo 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 to New York City. He married once
again, this time to Agnes Tailer, and moved to an exclusive district of the city. In 1898,
President William McKinley
appointed Burnett federal district attorney for the southern district of
New 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 died January
4, 1916 and was interred in Slate Hill Cemetery in
Goshen.
External links
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