ebel Underground in the winter of 1863.'(Kimmel, p.68) He smuggled bandages and medicine to the southern troops. 'John blamed the country's problems on the president; he hated Lincoln and everything he stood for.'(Stern, p.96)
             In the late summer of 1864, Booth began making plans to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln. The president would be captured, taken to Richmond, and held in exchange for confederate soldiers in Union prison camps. 'This would be a way to strengthen the confederate's weakening armies.'(Wilson, p.85) Booth recruited a gang of conspirators. Within three months, he had Michael O'Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, John Suratt, David Herold, George Atzerodt, and the immensely strong Lewis Powell alias Lewis Paine. The conspirators would meet at John Suratt's mother Mary Suratt's tavern. Daniel Gleason, who was a discharged army officer, was a clerk at the war department and friends with one of Mary Suratt's boarders, Lewis Weichmann. One day Weichmann told Gleason that he had found an arsenal of guns and knives at the tavern and asked Suratt about it. Suratt told Weichmann that Booth and the others were planning to kidnap the President on Inauguration Day. Gleason and Weichmann found the situation to be serious and decided that the best thing to do would be to tell Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. 'Gleason states that he arranged through his roommate the assistant provost marshal to General Augur the Washington Commander to inform Stanton of the plot.' (Hanchett, p.196-197) Secretary Stanton did not take much action into investigating the conspiracy at the Suratt tavern but did increase the guard on Lincoln. No effort was made to arrest the conspirators.
             Booth learned that Lincoln would be attending a play at the Campbell Hospital just outside of Washington. This seemed to Booth a good time to kidnap Lincoln. However, at the last minute, Booth lea...