Compiled by E. Sue Terhune
([email protected])
Brigadier-General
Henry L. Burnett, Union soldier and lawyer, was the son of Henry and Nancy Jones Burnett, and a descendant of William Burnet, colonial governor of New York. He was born at Youngstown, Ohio, December 26th, 1838. The Burnett family -- or Burnet, as it has been frequently spelled -- is one of the oldest and most honorable in the United States. More than one of it's family members have occupied positions of great importance in the history of the country.
A copy of General Burnett's memoirs on the Lincoln assassination begins, "I was serving with my regiment, the 2nd Ohio Cavalry along the Cumberland in Southern Kentucky in the latter part of the year 1863, when the Judge Advocate on the staff of General Burnside, Major J. Madison Curtis (brother-in-law of the late Senator Douglas), committed an offense for which charges were preferred against him. General Burnside sent inquiries to the front for some officer who was a lawyer, and who could be recommended as capable of trying his Judge Advocate. I was recommended, and ordered back to Cincinnati, where General Burnside's headquarters then were, as commander of the Department of the Ohio. "
In September 1864, Burnett was ordered to Indiana to act as Judge Advocate of the court detailed to try the members of the "Knights of the Golden Circle" or "Sons of Liberty." Shortly thereafter, he received a dispatch from the Secretary of War, directing him to report in person immediately to the War Department to aid in the examinations respecting the murder of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Mr. Seward.
"When I entered upon the duty of assisting in the investigation of the murder of the President, on the 19th of April, it must be borne in mind that at that time, it was not positively known who had assassinated the President, or attempted the life of Secretary Seward; Booth was the alleged assassin. How wide-spread was the conspiracy or who were in it, or of it, was not known. "
After a thorough investigation, President Andrew Johnson ordered the Adjutant-General to detail nine competent military officers to serve as a military commission. On the 6th of May, the Adjutant-General issued an order appointing the commission to meet at Washington on the 8th of May for the trial of Herold, Atzerodt, Payne, O'Laughlin, Spangler, Arnold, Mrs. Surratt, Dr. Mudd, and such persons as might be brought before it implicated in the murder of the late President Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and in an alleged conspiracy to assassinate other officers of the Federal Government at Washington City, and their aiders and abettors.
The detail of the Court was as follows: Major-General David Hunter, Major-General Lewis Wallace, Brevet Major-General Augustus V. Kautz, Brigadier-General Albion P. Howe, Brigadier-General Albert S. Foster, Brigadier-General T.M. Harris, Brevet Brigadier-General James A. Ekin, Colonel C.H. Tompkins, Lieutenant-Colonel David T. Clendenin. Brigadier-General Joseph Holt was appointed Judge Advocate and recorder of the commission, and the Honorable A. Bingham and myself were assigned as assistants or special Judge advocates. These nine brave soldiers and intelligent and conscientious officers, after two months of careful and laborious investigation, did find and decide that the accused, together with Surratt, Booth, Jefferson, Davis, and his rebel agents and confederates then in Canada, namely, George N. Saunders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper and George Young were guilty of conspiring to kill and murder President Lincoln, Vice-President Johnson, Secretary Seward and General Grant.
The trial of the accused occupied the commission from the 10th day of May to the 30th day of June inclusive, and resulted in the conviction of Herold, Atzerodt, Payne and Mrs. Surratt, and their sentence to be hanged at such time and place as the President might direct; and the conviction of O'Laughlin, Spangler, Arnold and Mudd, and the sentence of all except Spangler to imprisonment at hard labor for life. On July 5, 1865, these sentences were approved by President Johnson and the sentences of Herold, Atzerodt, Payne and Mrs Surratt were ordered to be carried into effect on the 7th of the same month, between the hours of ten o'clock AM and two o'clock PM.
"The execution of the assassins was the closing scene of the greatest tragedy in our history. The assassination removed from the stage of life the greatest figure of the century. "
After the trials General Burnett moved to Cincinnati, where he practiced law with Judge T.W. Bartley until 1869, and then with Ex-Governors J.D. Cox and John F. Follett until 1872. He handled several notorious cases and, in January 1898, McKinley appointed him federal district attorney for the southern district of New York, and on the completion of his four-year term he was reappointed by Roosevelt.
Burnett married three times:
His first wife was Grace (Kitty) Hoffmann who died about age 26. Children from that marriage were: (1) Grace Hoffmann Burnett [von Oertzen] (Major General von Oertzen ran a WWI concentration camp in Germany.); and (2) Katherine Cleveland Burnett.
His second wife, Sarah Lansing, died at age 29. Children from that marriage were: (3) Lansing Burnett, who died unmarried at age 24; and (4) Catharine Olivia Gibson Burnett [Van Deusen], the first female newspaper publisher in Colorado
His last wife was Agnes Suffern Tailer, of a prominent New York family, who survived him. Children of that marriage were: (5) Edward N.T. Burnett, Yale '09, a date grove owner; and (6) Henry Lawrence Burnett, Jr. institutionalized of unsound mind.
In his later years he spent much of his time at his country home, Hillside Farm, in Goshen, NY, where he kept a large stable of harness horses which he drove on the track of the Goshen Driving Club. In the middle of November 1915, while at the farm, he was taken ill with pneumonia. Despite his serious condition he insisted on being taken by train to his city home, where, two months later, he died. [He was buried in Goshen, NY.]
SOURCE:
Portions from:
Henry L. Burnett memories of Lincoln Assassination
contributed by Mary S. Van Deusen <[email protected]> Copyright © 1998
http://www.tiac.net/users/ime/famtree/burnett/lincoln.htm
