Southern Md, Lincoln's Assassination, and Rumors

With collective confusion surrounding the death of Lincoln with that of JFK, many seem unaware that Abraham Lincoln's assassination involved multiple players (cf., The Family Plot to Kill Lincoln, Smithsonian, 8/28/13).  As per the Surrat Society home page,

"On the night of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot by the dashing young actor, John Wilkes Booth, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington City. While Lincoln lay dying, his assassin was making his escape into Southern Maryland.

"Over the next twelve days, Booth and his accomplice, David Herold, were tracked through the lower counties of Maryland and across the Potomac River into Virginia. They were finally trapped at Garrett’s Farm near Bowling Green, Virginia, where Herold was taken prisonsor and Booth was shot and killed by federal troops. Herold was hanged along with Mary Surratt on July 7, 1865."

Some "forgotten" details are deeply disturbing:

"after the capture and death of John Wilkes Booth on April 26, 1865, authorities began to explore the conspiracy Booth and others had planned to murder the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State on Good Friday, April 14 that year. They discovered one common theme: all the conspirators met at the boarding house owned by Mary Surratt.

"Mary Jenkins Surratt was a Catholic, having converted before her marriage to John Surratt in 1840. Everyone who had rooms in her house was a Catholic. Her son John, Jr.—who escaped capture and trial for a time by seeking sanctuary in a Montreal church rectory and then as a Papal Zouave

[Papal Zouave painting seen at Montreal's Cathedral, 2011]

 [Ford's Theater]
—was a Catholic and had discerned and decided against a vocation to the priesthood. Another accomplice, David Herold, had studied at Catholic colleges including Georgetown. Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth’s broken leg, was a Catholic. One of the main witnesses for the prosecution, Louis J. Weichmann, was a former seminary classmate of John Surratt. Several of the witnesses for the defense were Catholic priests, testifying to Mary Surratt’s Christian character and charity. Another Catholic boarder, Honora Fitzpatrick, was a witness for both the prosecution and the defense at the military tribunal that condemned the conspirators in May and June, 1865....

"The fact that the Surratts and other conspirators were Catholic — his family managed to hide indications that John Wilkes Booth was a convert too — just added fuel to...fiery denunciations of Catholics" (National Catholic Register, 4/26/17).

Mary Surratt was one of four executed for their roles in the Lincoln assassination.  Especially in an era of Maria Monk and virulent anti-Catholicism, how was her son able to evade authorities by going to North America's most Catholic city (of that time) and then to the Vatican?  Such questions fed longstanding rumors.  Had American Catholics of the era been known for absolute opposition to slavery, such questions could have been easily quashed.