Lincoln's Hair and Wood from Execution of the Conspirators

On July 7th, 1865 Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were hanged from a wooden scaffold in the yard of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington, DC. They had been found guilty as conspirators in the plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln and William Seward. Here are strands of Abraham Lincoln's hair and wooden fragments from the scaffold used in the execution secured as a souvenir by a soldier acting as a guard serving in the 1st US Veteran Volunteers. Following the execution, souvenir hunters quickly sought wood and rope from the scaffold.