Michael O'Laughlen was charged with stalking General Ulysses S. Grant, who commanded all the armies of the Union (the United States side in the Civil War); the prosecution could not prove it, and he still got life and died in prison.
Michael O'Laughlen, born in Baltimore in 1840, grew up across the street from the Booth family and was one of the earliest friends of John Wilkes Booth, the actor who later shot President Abraham Lincoln; he briefly served in the army of the Confederacy, the Southern states that broke away from the United States in the Civil War [1].
He agreed in August 1864 to join Booth's plan to kidnap Lincoln. A military court (a panel of officers of the Union Army, the army of the United States side in the Civil War, acting as judge and jury) sentenced him to life in prison. He died of yellow fever at Fort Jefferson, a prison on the Dry Tortugas islands off Key West, Florida, on 23 September 1867. The three other plotters held there with him, Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold and Edman Spangler, were pardoned in 1869; he was not.
Booth put the kidnap plan to him and Samuel Arnold at Barnum's Hotel in Baltimore; both agreed, but later balked at Booth's improvised plan to seize Lincoln in a theatre. After the shooting he gave himself up (one 1940 history says he was arrested in Baltimore). At trial the government tried to prove he had stalked Grant on 13 and 14 April, intending to kill him, but failed; the only evidence of any plan to harm Grant was indirect and pointed to Booth, not O'Laughlen.
His lawyer argued he was only ever part of the kidnap plan, not the murder. He is the one convicted plotter who died in prison.
[Report #200] WHO. 'Michael O’Laughlen Jr. was born on 3 June 1840, in Baltimore, Maryland.' (
history.army.mil) 'Because the O’Laughlen family lived across the street from the Booth family, O’Laughlen became one of John Wilkes Booth’s earliest friends.' (
history.army.mil) 'At the beginning of the Civil War, O’Laughlen joined the Confederate army, but he was discharged because of poor health.' (
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THE KIDNAP PLOT. 'He suggested the plan to Arnold and O’Laughlen during a meeting at Barnum’s Hotel in Baltimore in August, and both readily agreed to take part.' (
history.army.mil) Of the January 1865 theatre plan: 'Arnold and O’Laughlen were particularly taken aback, and they worried that Booth was throwing out months of careful planning in favor of this improvised plot.' (
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ARREST. Army guide: 'Michael O’Laughlen gave himself up to authorities that same day.' (
history.army.mil) Bryan: 'O'Laughlin was arrested in Balti-more' (
archive.org). Both held.
THE TRIAL. 'In the end, only eight individuals would stand trial as apprehended conspirators, accused of conspiracy to murder Lincoln, Johnson, Seward, and Grant.' (
history.army.mil) 'The trial began 10 May 1865, three weeks after Lincoln’s assassination, and ended on 30 June.' (
history.army.mil) Under its rules 'only a majority vote was needed to gain a conviction, although a two-thirds vote was necessary to give the death penalty' (
history.army.mil). 'In O’Laughlen’s case, government prosecutors sought to prove that he had stalked General Grant on the nights of 13 and 14 April with the intent to kill him, but they were unsuccessful in this endeavor.' (
history.army.mil) 'The only evidence of any malicious intent against Grant was circumstantial and pointed to Booth, not O’Laughlen.' (
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VERDICT AND SENTENCE. 'For the same crime, the commission sentenced Arnold, Mudd, and O’Laughlen to life imprisonment.' (
history.army.mil) Bryan: 'Samuel Arnold, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, and Michael O'Laughlin were to be imprisoned at hard labor for life; Edman Spangler was to be imprisoned at hard labor for six years.' (
archive.org) 'Their accomplices—Arnold, Mudd, O’Laughlen, and Spangler—were sent to prison at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas near Key West, Florida.' (
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DEATH. 'Michael O'Laughlin did not return-he had died in Fort Jefferson on September 23rd, 1867, during an epidemic of yellow fever.' (
archive.org) 'Michael O’Laughlen had died of yellow fever in 1867 and was not pardoned.' (
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HELD. 'Uncertainties remain over the veracity of the evidence, the witness statements, and the degree of guilt of those who were tried by the commission.' (
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