and, of course, mary surratt was the first woman to ever be executed by the federal government. and to this day, there's a lot of controversy over how guilty or innocent she was. so after the assassination of abraham lincoln, mary had a long and difficult journey before she finally made it to springfield, illinois, where she lived with her sister until her death. initially she stayed in the white house, actually longer than she should have. she just wasn't ready to move. and andrew johnson was very understanding and forgiving of this and just waited until she was ready to move out of the white house. she was very worried about not having enough money to live on and so she tried to sell some of her dresses, which led to a lot of public criticism. and it was a while before the money that was due to her from lincoln's presidency as a leader was given to her. but eventually she lived in chicago for a while. she and tad went to europe shortly after she sort of moved out of the white house. they went to europe for a while and spent several years over there. unfortunately, it was a per