No inquiry
whatever was made as to the cause of arrest. Mr. R. C. Morgan,
in the service of the War Department, made his appearance at
the Surratt house a few minutes later, sent under orders to
superintend the seizure of papers and the arrest of the
inmates. While the officers were in the house a knock and ring
were heard at the door, and Mr. Morgan and Captain
Wermerskirch stepped forward and opened the door, and Lewis
Payne stepped in with a pickax over his shoulder, dressed in a
gray coat and vest and black trousers. As he had left his hat
in the house of Secretary Seward, he had made one out of the
sleeve of a shirt or the leg of a drawers, pulling it over his
head like a turban. He said he wished to see Mrs. Surratt, and
when asked what he came that time of night for, he replied he
came to dig a gutter, as Mrs. Surratt had sent for him in the
morning. When asked where he boarded, he said he had no
boarding house, that he was a poor man, who got his living
with the pick. Mr. Morgan asked him why he came at that hour
of the night to go to work? He said he simply called to find
out what time he should go to work in the morning. When asked
if he had any previous acquaintance with Mrs Surratt, he
answered, "No," but said that she knew he was working around
the neighborhood and was a poor man, and came to him. He gave
his age as twenty, and was from Fauquier County, Virginia, and
pulled out an oath of allegiance, and on it was "Lewis Payne,
Fauquier County, Virginia." Mrs. Surratt was asked whether she
knew him, and she declared in the presence of Payne, holding
up her hands: "Before God, I have never seen that man before;
I have not hired him; I do not know anything about him." Mrs.
Surratt said to Mr. Morgan: "I am so glad you officers came
here to-night, for this man came here with a pickax to kill
us."

From Mrs. Surratt's house Payne was taken to the provost
marshal's office. Mrs. Surratt was informed that the carriage
was ready to take her to the provost marshal's office, and
she, with her daughter Annie, Miss Honora Fitzpatrick, and
Miss Olivia Jenkins (the latter two boarded at the house),
were driven away.

The telegram received on Saturday morning the 15th, giving a description
of the person who tried to kill Secretary Sewa