Civil War author to play woman convicted in Lincoln conspiracy

Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Courtesy photo Nikki Stoddard Schofield portrays Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt in a Sept. 10 program at Poland Chapel.

POLAND – Indianapolis author Nikki Stoddard Schofield will portray Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt in a one-woman show Sunday, Sept. 10, at the Poland Chapel in Clay County.

The 3 p.m. presentation is the fifth annual installment of the Poland Chapel Speaker Series. Tickets are $10 the day of the event and $8 prior to that day. Tickets can be ordered by calling 812-986-2301.

Mary Surratt, a boardinghouse keeper in Washington, D.C., was convicted and executed as a co-conspirator in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, along with three others.

Surratt was among eight people implicated in conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Lincoln. A military tribunal considered their cases, with four receiving the death sentence and four getting prison terms. Surratt was the first woman executed by the federal government, and her case was considered the most controversial.

Modern audiences may be familiar with her story from the 2011 movie “The Conspirator,” starring Robin Wright and directed by Robert Redford.

Schofield, the woman portraying Surratt at Poland Chapel, is a Civil War scholar who has written six historical romance novels set in that era. She has served three terms as president of the Indianapolis Civil War Round Table and has been staff genealogist at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.

Besides assuming the role of Surratt, Schofield has also portrayed American Red Cross founder Clara Barton; Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, the second wife of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson; Helen Pitts Douglass, the second wife of abolitionist Frederick Douglass; and Lucinda Morton, the wife of Indiana’s Civil War governor, Oliver P. Morton.

At the close of the presentation, Schofield will sign copies of her books, including “Treason Afoot,” “Bondage and Freedom,” “Savannah Bound,” “Alas Richmond,” “Washington City Citadel” and “Confederates in Canada.”

The Poland Chapel is located in the village of Poland, along Indiana 42 in eastern Clay County.

The building was constructed in 1869 and originally housed a Presbyterian congregation. After the congregation disbanded in 1929, the building was given to the Poland Chapel Cemetery Trustees and was renamed Poland Chapel.

It was repaired in the 1960s and 1980s, and after vandals set fire to the building in 2009, the community repaired it again and rededicated it in 2011. The chapel is open for weddings, funerals and special programs throughout the year.

Previous Poland Chapel Speaker Series installments have featured authors Philip Gulley, Mike Lunsford and James Alexander Thom as well as Winston Churchill portrayer Kevin Radaker.

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