Frederick Augustus Aiken (20 September 1832-23 December 1878) was an American lawyer and Union Army colonel who served as one of the defense attorneys for Mary Surratt, a conspirator in the Abraham Lincoln assassination.
Biography[]
Aiken laying wounded at Williamsburg, 1862
Frederick Augustus Aiken was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of a minister. He was raised in Hardwick, Vermont from the age of ten, and he became the editor of the Burlington Sentinel before practicing law in Vermont and in Washington DC. Aiken served as secretary to the Democratic National Committee in 1860 and supported the presidential candidacy of John C. Breckinridge; he also offered his services to the Confederacy as a reporter at the beginning of the American Civil War.
Despite his initial Confederate sympathies, Aiken served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He served as an acting aide-de-camp to General Winfield Scott Hancock and as an aide to William Farrar Smith before being wounded at the Battle of Williamsburg; in another battle, he had two horses shot from under him. Aiken returned to Washington on the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, reuniting with his girlfriend Sarah Weston and mentor and US Senator Reverdy Johnson, and he witnessed the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theatre on the night of 14 April 1865. Johnson persuaded to enlist Aiken's help with defending Mary Surratt, who was accused of collaborating with John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators, before a military tribunal. Johnson was forced to step back due to his previous objection to requiring loyalty oaths from voters during the 1864 presidential election, leaving much of the defense to Aiken. Aiken's attempts to discredit prosecution witnesses John M. Lloyd and Louis J. Weichmann instead made the accused assassination conspirators appear even more guilty, and the Surratt and three other co-conspirators were hanged at the Washington Arsenal on 7 July 1865.
Aiken's law practice dissolved in 1866 as a result of the backlash of the trial, and Aiken was arrested in June 1866 for cashing a bad check. He was also tapped to serve as former Confederate president Jefferson Davis' defnse counsel, but Davis was eventually released without trial. aiken returned to journalism in 1868 to serve as the first city editor of the Washington Post, and he died in Washington in 1878 from heath illness.
