The First Woman Executed in the USA

 President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Mary Surratt owned a boarding house and tavern bordering the Washington DC/Maryland border.  The Surratt's were Confederate sympathizers and the tavern was a gathering place for Confederate sympathizers.  It was also known as a safe house for Confederate spies.  In fact, Mary's son, John was a Confederate courier.  

John Wilkes Booth, who shot Lincoln stayed at the Surratt boarding house along with other conspirators.  Booth's plan was to assassinate President Lincoln and George Atzerodt was to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. Lewis Powell was to kill the Secretary of State William Seward.  Atzerodt never even attempted to kill the Vice President and Powell failed to kill the Secretary of State, even though he stabbed him many times.

As these perpetrators fled their crimes, they went to Surratt's tavern for supplies and a wagon. When Mary Surratt was questioned, she lied that she knew anything or deliberately gave false misleading information. She was arrested and charged with abetting, aiding, concealing, counseling, and harboring men plotting to kill the president.

She was convicted and hung.

There is controversy over whether or not she actively plotted to kill the president. Surratt was portrayed by actress Virginia Gregg in the 1956 episode "The Mary Surratt Case," telecast as part of the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show.^[223] She was portrayed by Robin Wright in the 2011 film The Conspirator, which was directed by Robert Redford.^[224]