Surratt ran the boarding house where the conspirators, including her son, met, the film informs us. But there is no evidence that she knew anything about what the assassins, including John Wilkes Booth, were up to. Although a civilian she was tried by a military court in an atmosphere in which revenge for the murder of Lincoln was the overriding mood. Furthermore, the film reveals that the military tribunal had at first voted against the death penalty, but then succumbed to pressure from above to change the decision and impose the penalty of hanging. The one way she might avoid the gallows is by telling the location of her son, who is in hiding. Her son might also save his mother by coming forward to reveal that she had nothing to do with the conspiracy. He doesn’t.

Tension builds amid preparation for the execution. James McAvoy has a pivotal role as Frederick Aiken, the young, inexperienced lawyer given the case to handle by his mentor, Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), a former Attorney General. Aiken fights hard to save Surratt’s life, but Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline) and others feel it is more important to show no mercy and get the case behind the country, partly to assuage anger, but also to help stamp out any residue of Southern holdouts from the Civil War.

Redford succeeds in keeping the drama taut while also giving us a strong sense of period through location, costuming and the general atmosphere he creates by attention to detail. While all of this is history, the execution of a woman, the first ever by the federal government, may make one think of the fight to save the life of Ethel Rosenberg in the 1950s on the disputed charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. Her brother has since admitted false testimony against her, and while her husband Julius apparently committed some level of espionage, it is recognized that there was no proof against Ethel, who was basically arrested and charged to pressure her husband to confess.

Just as the film shows higher ups pressuring to go through with Surratt’s execution, the U.S. Supreme Court, after adjourning for the summer, was called back into special session under pressure to reverse a stay of execution that had been granted by Justice William O. Douglas, and Ethel Rosenberg was electrocuted, along with her husband, the same night a the reversal was ordered.