Turbulent Times: The Remarkable Life of William H. Seward

By Stephen G. Yanoff

In this magnificent new book, Stephen G. Yanoff offers a fresh and compelling portrait of William Henry Seward, one of the most important Americans of the nineteenth century. Seward, best known for the purchase of Alaska, also served as governor of New York, United States senator, and Lincoln’s secretary of state during the Civil War.
Exhaustively researched, drawing on hundreds of sources, TURBULENT TIMES sheds new light on this complex historical figure and the crucial role he played in shaping the fate of our nation. Most enlightening, the William Henry Seward who comes into focus in this superb narrative is a person of great intellect and curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity in his personal and private life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524685577

Stephen G. Yanoff

Stephen G. Yanoff is a 20-year veteran of the insurance industry and an acknowledged expert in the field of high risk insurance placement. He holds a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree from the Texas A & M University System. In addition to GONE BEFORE GLORY, he is the author of two other highly acclaimed history books, THE SECOND MOURNING and TURBULENT TIMES. All three histories have won numerous awards for “Best U.S. History Book of the Year.” Dr. Yanoff has also written several award-winning mystery novels, including THE GRACELAND GANG, THE PIRATE PATH, DEVIL’S COVE, RANSOM ON THE RHONE, A RUN FOR THE MONEY, and CAPONE ISLAND. A native of Long Island, New York, he currently lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, two daughters, and an ever-growing family. For more information about the author or his books, readers can go to: www.stephengyanoff.com

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© 2017 Stephen G. Yanoff. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/30/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8558-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8556-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8557-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017904742

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This book is dedicated to the

apple of my eye,

Goldie Delilah Zell

What a man does for others,

not what they do for him,

gives him immortality.

Daniel Webster

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1     The Accident

CHAPTER 2     A Willing Assassin

CHAPTER 3     Night of Terror

CHAPTER 4     Early Years

CHAPTER 5     Albany

CHAPTER 6     Abolitionist Fervor

CHAPTER 7     In Sickness and in Health

CHAPTER 8     A Death in the Family

CHAPTER 9     Political Comeback

CHAPTER 10   Governor Seward

CHAPTER 11   Second Term

CHAPTER 12   Private Life

CHAPTER 13   Seward for the Defense

CHAPTER 14   Manifest Destiny

CHAPTER 15   The Hero of Buena Vista

CHAPTER 16   A Higher Law

CHAPTER 17   Peace Over Slavery

CHAPTER 18   Senator Seward

CHAPTER 19   Popular Sovereignty

CHAPTER 20   Buchanan’s Mess

CHAPTER 21   An Irrepressible Conflict

CHAPTER 22   Off With His Head!

CHAPTER 23   Lincoln Nominated

CHAPTER 24   Secretary Seward

CHAPTER 25   Mr. Seward’s Little Bell

CHAPTER 26   Diplomat & Politician

CHAPTER 27   Saving the Union

CHAPTER 28   The Ugliness of War

CHAPTER 29   Lincoln Re-elected

CHAPTER 30   Good Friday

CHAPTER 31   The Man in the Light Overcoat

CHAPTER 32   Standing Trial

CHAPTER 33   Prayers and Punishment

CHAPTER 34   More Sadness

CHAPTER 35   Reconstruction

CHAPTER 36   Seward’s Folly

CHAPTER 37   Stubborn as a Mule

CHAPTER 38   Articles of Impeachment

CHAPTER 39   The Reno Gang

CHAPTER 40   Tragedy and Triumph

CHAPTER ONE

The Accident

William Henry Seward came from good Welsh stock and was reasonably healthy, so the thought of dying suddenly - in a violent fashion - had no specific reason to cross his mind. However, these were turbulent times, and premature death was not uncommon. In 1865, America was still at war with itself, and after four years of fighting, 600,000 soldiers had lost their lives. The odds of dying in combat were 1 in 15.

The odds of dying in a freak accident were much lower.

But in this day and age anything was possible.

On April 5, 1865, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, Secretary of State Seward nearly broke his neck in a freak carriage mishap. Incredibly, it was not the first time that he had fallen off a horse-drawn conveyance, but on this occasion he came very close to death. As his carriage left the State Department, the driver was instructed to travel from Pennsylvania Avenue to the Seward residence on Madison Avenue, adjacent to Lafayette Park.

Seward had intended a family ride, and as usual, he sat outside the carriage body in order to smoke cigars. Upon arrival, he was joined by his son, Frederick, his daughter, Fanny, and a family friend named Mary Titus. The group filed into the carriage one by one, anticipating a long leisurely ride through the city of Washington.

While the coachman, Henry Key, was attempting to close the door with one hand, the horses jerked forward, spooked by his actions. Key held onto the reins, desperately trying to stop them, but their combined force was too much for him.

Sensing danger, Frederick jumped from the carriage and tried to head off the horses.

Fanny Seward, who was sitting in the back seat, later recorded the incident in her diary, writing that the horses turned around with a rapid sweep and went on increasing their speed. Father had some idea of being able to stop them, and sprang from the carriage in spite of my entreaties that he not jump. I could not see whether he reached the ground safely or not.

In fact, Seward landed on his right arm, breaking it just below the shoulder. Knocked senseless, he gradually came to realize that he had also injured his neck and lower jaw, which would prove to be broken. Writhing in pain, he was carried back to his residence, where he was immediately treated by Dr. Joseph K. Barnes, the 12th Surgeon General of the United States Army.

Oddly enough, Seward’s house had established a tragic history long before his accident. Built in 1830 by Commodore John Rogers, it later became a boarding house and then the Washington Club, a social club for movers and shakers of the city. In 1859, Congressman Dan Sickles shot Philip Barton Key as he walked across Lafayette Park to the Club. Sickles correctly believed that Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, was having an affair with his young wife. Key died in one of the club’s first-floor rooms, which now served as the Sewards’ parlor.

By strange coincidence, Sickles had been defended by a lawyer named Edwin M. Stanton, who was currently serving as Lincoln’s Secretary of War. Notably, Sickles was acquitted with the first use of temporary insanity as a legal defense in U.S. history.

Seward gradually regained consciousness, and two hours later, his son and daughter returned to comfort him. Frances, who went by Fanny, recorded the meeting in her diary, describing her father’s condition in graphic terms. He was so disfigured by bruises, his face so swollen, that he had scarcely a trace of resemblance to himself.

The decision to keep Seward at home, rather than move him to a hospital, was questionable, but it was probably based on the belief that it would hasten his recovery. At the time, there were 57 war hospitals in Washington, D.C., many of which were overwhelmed with patients, rat-infested, dirty, and plagued by diseases like smallpox.

For every man killed in battle, two died from disease. Many of these diseases, such as dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, and malaria, were a direct result of the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions found in military hospitals. By the end of the war, some 560,000 soldiers would die from disease.

William A. Hammond, who was the Surgeon General at the start of the war, described American medicine as approaching the end of the Middle Ages. His successor, Dr. Barnes, was well aware of this fact, as an inspection of Union Army hospitals had recently declared a third of them to be in bad or very bad condition. Even worse, many of the doctors working in Washington, D.C. had attended only two years of medical school, and at that time, the second year was simply a repeat of the first.

The thought of these doctors treating the Secretary of State did not sit well with anyone, least of all the patient. Consequently, it was agreed that Seward’s recuperation would take place at home, under the watchful eye of family and friends. Despite its dark past, the Seward residence was quite comfortable, and better yet, it was close to the State Department. The Sewards had moved in shortly after the surrender of Fort Sumter in April 1861. Biographer Glyndon Van Deusen described the home as a spacious red brick, three-stories-plus-a-dormer floor mansion, facing on Lafayette Square just east and north of the White House.

Seward, a lifelong abolitionist, must have been somewhat amused by the fact that his home was built on land that was originally owned by Henry Clay. As Speaker of the House, Clay was the one who had led the effort to forge the Missouri Compromise in 1820 - the first of several such ventures dealing with the expansion of slavery. Clay was himself a slave owner, though he favored the emancipation of slaves and their resettlement in Africa.

Fortunately for Seward, the house had recently been renovated, so in addition to some new paint and wallpaper, it now had city water, gas fixtures, and a furnace. The Secretary was carried upstairs and made comfortable in a second-story room. Meanwhile, Fanny Seward continued to record his progress in her diary. On April 6, she wrote: Father’s face is terribly swollen and he bears no likeness to himself. I sat up till three o’clock in the morning - father was restless and talking constantly in his sleep - holding my hand.

Her entry on April 7 read: Mother and Will came in the evening - on the late train. I told mother before she saw father, something of his appearance - still she was much shocked by it.

Eventually, in order to set the jaw and relieve some of the pain, Seward received a metal jaw splint, which was incorrectly reported as a neck brace. The splint, designed by a dentist, consisted of metal wires that kept Seward’s jaw fragments in alignment while they healed.

Other dental professionals thought that the wire splint was not only ineffective, but also potentially harmful. Dr. Thomas Gunning, who would later design his own device for Seward, chronicled his concern in detail:

Attempts had been made repeatedly to hold the fragments of the jaw together by drawing the teeth up to the roof of the mouth by means of bandages around the chin, face and head… On the principle of making the upper teeth a splint for the broken lower jaw, except that this patient [Seward] had no upper teeth for the lower ones to rest against, consequently, the fragments of the bone and the adjoining soft parts were so distorted as to cause great pain.

Seward described the pain in vivid detail, stating that coals of fire could not have hurt me more, and when I could bear it no longer I would tear the bandages off. Incredibly, Seward would linger in agony for the next four days, tossing and turning day and night, but seldom complaining. On April 9, Fanny Seward observed that the swelling of her father’s face had begun to subside, ushering in a return to a more normal appearance. Seward’s improvement was also noticeable to a frequent visitor named Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War.

Under Stanton’s effective - and occasionally ruthless - management, the North had organized its massive military resources and was now on the verge of victory. He was, like Seward, adamantly opposed to slavery, and was despised in the South for issuing an order on August 8, 1862, to arrest and imprison any person or persons who may be engaged, by act, speech or writing, in discouraging volunteer enlistments, or in any way giving aid or comfort to the enemy, or in any other disloyal practice against the United States.

Regardless of his fierce reputation, Stanton was a constant companion to his fellow Cabinet member, paying Seward frequent visits and treating him with great tenderness. On Sunday, April 9, Fanny Seward wrote that Secretary Stanton had visited her father three times that day. On one occasion, he gently wiped Seward’s face with a damp cloth. On another visit, he brought fruit, sent by Mrs. Stanton.

Edwin Stanton was not the only government official to visit that day. Later that evening, President Lincoln stopped by, unannounced, to pay his respects and offer a few words of condolence and sympathy. The President was also anxious to tell Seward about his recent trip to Richmond, which was now under Union control.

It was in the evening, Frederick Seward recalled. The gas-lights were turned down low, and the house was still, every one moving softly, and speaking in whispers. The Secretary had developed a fever and was having trouble sleeping. To make matters worse, he was swathed in bandages, and the extreme sensitiveness of his wounded arm made even the touch of the bed clothing intolerable. Grave apprehensions were entertained, by his medical attendants, that his system would not survive the injuries and the shock.

When Fanny Seward walked into the room, she found the President sprawled across the foot of the bed, head in hand, cheerfully relaying the details. They shook hands, and Fanny noted that the President - her beloved President - acted in his usual manner - kind, genial, and unaffected. Lincoln stayed for over an hour, and before he left, he told them that one of his last acts in Richmond was going through a Union hospital of seven thousand men, and shaking hands with each one. Incredibly, at this point, neither Lincoln nor Seward knew that earlier in the day, at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War.

The terms of the surrender had been dictated by Stanton himself, and as Lincoln and Seward would soon learn, they were surprisingly generous. After a flurry of notes between the two generals, it was agreed that the written instrument of surrender would address the following points:

Duplicate rolls of all the officers and men were to be made, and the officers to sign paroles for themselves and their men, all agreeing not to bear arms against the United States unless regularly exchanged. The arms, artillery, and public property were to be turned over to an officer appointed to receive them, the officers retaining their side-arms and private horses and baggage.

In addition, General Grant allowed each Confederate soldier who claimed to own a horse or mule to retain it for farming. Newspaper reports would claim that General Lee offered his sword, but those accounts would be swiftly denied by General Grant, who later wrote: The much-talked of surrendering of Lee’s sword and my handing it back, this and much more that has been said about it is the purest romance.

Later that evening, around 10:00 p.m., Secretary Stanton paid Seward a late night visit waking him, knowing that his friend and colleague would want to know immediately of Lee’s surrender. God bless you, Seward whispered when Stanton read the telegram.

Don’t try to speak, Stanton said.

You have made me cry for the first time in my life, Seward replied.

Sadly, it would not be the last time that Seward would cry. Even now, a dark conspiracy was taking shape, and before long, Seward would experience a greater inner agony. However, for the present, he had to concentrate on regaining his health. The next five days were difficult to bear, but as the New York Times reported, steady progress was being made. On April 12, it reported that the Secretary was gradually improving, though he occasionally suffers much pain.

Two days later, on April 14, it stated that "the Evening Star reports that the side of Seward’s face has been placed in wires instead of bandages [since the swelling had reduced] and now he does not suffer as much pain. He is still unable to leave his bed as yet. He uses a slate and pencil to communicate with others."

Reports of Seward’s condition - and the fact that he was bedridden - also appeared in The Evening Star, Harper’s Weekly, and The Sun, a Baltimore newspaper. Some of the articles contained a graphic degree of detail, similar to the details that Mrs. Seward had recently conveyed in a letter to her sister:

I find Henry worse than I anticipated; though all say he is better than he was the first two days. His face is so marred and swollen and discolored that one can hardly persuade themselves of his identity; his voice so changed; utterance almost entirely prevented by the broken jaw and the swollen tongue. It makes my heart ache to look at him.

Mrs. Seward’s heartache would soon be shared by her entire family, and, in a very real sense, by much of the nation. In less than a week, President Lincoln, accompanied by his wife, Mary, and Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris, would attend a play, Our American Cousin, at Ford’s Theatre. Somewhere between 10:15 and 10:30, John Wilkes Booth would shoot the President in the back of the head, almost at point blank range. The assassin would then stab Rathbone with a double-edged Bowie knife, jump onto the stage, and shout, Sic semper tyrannis!

Unaware that Lincoln had been mortally wounded, the Seward household went about its business, preparing for another long night.

They had no idea how long that night would be.

CHAPTER TWO

A Willing Assassin

John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln was part of a larger plot that included two other men, George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell. Atzerodt was supposed to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, but he got drunk and lost his nerve. Powell was given the task of killing Secretary Seward, and he had no intention of backing down. Lewis Thornton Powell, alias Lewis Payne, was a former Confederate soldier who had been wounded and captured at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863. Subsequently, he managed to escape from the military hospital and join Colonel John S. Mosby’s 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion. Mosby’s Rangers, as they were called, were a rebel unit specializing in guerrilla raids on Union supply lines. In later years, some historians would speculate that it was Colonel Mosby who originally recruited Powell, along with five others, to go to Washington and kill President Lincoln.

Betty J. Ownsbey wrote about Powell’s recruitment in her book, Alias Paine, pointing to an article written in 1892 by the son of the Reverend Dr. Abram Dunn Gillette, Powell’s spiritual advisor in the death cell and on the gallows.

Powell admitted to the minister that "for months previous while in the Secret Service of the Confederacy, he had journeyed back and forth from Richmond to Washington and Baltimore in conference with prominent men in the latter city." He did not name the men. According to Gillette, these men kept him in funds and encouraged him with dreams of glory and the lasting gratitude of the Southern people.

The first known meeting between Booth and Powell took place in Richmond, Virginia. While serving as a prison guard, Powell had an opportunity to attend the theater, and he was greatly impressed by what he saw. After the show, he asked to meet one of the cast members, a well known actor named John Wilkes Booth. The actor was happy to oblige. Booth had already begun to formulate a plan to abduct the President of the United States and his Cabinet, and he undoubtedly saw Powell as a malleable subject, eager to help the Southern cause.

One of Powell’s relatives would later claim that Booth infused the venom of his own ambition into the credulous heart of a gawky and impressionable country boy and found him an easy conquest. Whether or not this was the case, Powell always spoke of Booth with great warmth and admiration. More importantly, he listened carefully when Booth told him that Seward is the man; he furnishes the brains. He’s the power behind the throne, mightier than the throne itself.

Booth’s obsession continued to grow, fed by Union victories and Lincoln’s opposition to slavery. Author Jay Winik wrote that The waning of the fortunes of the Confederacy drove him [Booth] into deep depression… He began drinking heavily. Booth also began to envision a new role for himself, something akin to the savior of the Southern cause. A kind of messianic reincarnation, a second coming of the larger-than-life characters whose lines he had so passionately uttered.

In recruiting Powell, Booth had found the perfect man for the job - a man who loved the Confederacy and would be willing to die in its defense. Records indicate that Powell was born on April 22, 1844, in Randolph County, Alabama. When Powell was four years old, his family moved to Georgia, resettling in the southwest portion of the state, in Stewart County, so named in honor of Daniel Stewart, a Revolutionary War veteran, Indian fighter, and great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1850, Stewart County was one of the largest cotton producers in the state, and nearly half of its population were enslaved. Prior to 1850, the Powell family owned a few slaves, but after moving to Georgia they depended on hired help, the result of a meager family income.

The Powells remained in Georgia for the next eleven years, at which time they moved to Florida, settling in the town of Belleville in Hamilton County. This was about the time that Lewis Powell incurred a severe injury that may have caused some lasting mental problems. According to Ownsbey, Powell had a pet mule he had raised and that followed him around like a dog. She went on to write:

One morning, when Lewis was about twelve years old, he was playing outside by the back door and was attempting to do something with the animal when it kicked him. The injury was severe; resulting in a broken left jaw and a lost molar, and quite possibly a broken nose into the bargain. The unconscious child was quickly packed into the family wagon and driven to the nearest doctor.

Apparently, Powell had been tickling the mule with a piece of straw, in an effort to make it quiver. When the animal tired of being teased, it kicked him in the face, prompting his father to remark that it was a dumb thing to do. Powell would not do many other dumb things during his childhood, and his sisters would later describe him as a sweet, lovable, kind young boy.

Somehow, as he grew into a teenager, the pious and tenderhearted young boy became an angry young man. Research suggests that, having been closely associated with the plantation slavery system, he viewed the fast approaching war as a necessary action to preserve his family, his inheritance, and his very way of life. As soon as the news of Fort Sumter reached Florida, Lewis and his two brothers volunteered for the Confederate Army, which was then being mustered in the state. On May 30, 1861, he was accepted for volunteer service, entering the army as a private, and assigned to the Hamilton Blues. On June 4, the company became part of the Second Florida Infantry, and on June 15, the regiment left by rail for Virginia, arriving in Richmond six days later - just as the telegraph wires were spreading the news of the first Confederate victory at Manassas.

The Second Florida regiment had been raised to fill the quota assigned to the state under the first call of President Jefferson Davis. The new enlistees were eager to fight, but they had to spend the next two months guarding Federal prisoners captured at Manassas. It was during this period that Powell is believed to have met John Wilkes Booth, who at the time was a twenty-five-year-old actor, described as polished, graceful, imaginative, and educated. In fact, he was the exact opposite of Powell, who was awkward, rough, frank, and illiterate.

After two months of guard duty, the Second Florida experienced a steady stream of combat, engaging Union forces at Yorktown, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. In June, the regiment became part of the Army of Northern Virginia and fought at Gettyburg in July 1863, taking part in the famous attack on the Union center on day three of the battle.

During the fierce fighting, Powell was shot in the right wrist and taken prisoner. He was brought to the Twelfth Army Corps Field Hospital, and on September 2 he was transferred to the United States Army Hospital in Baltimore. On September 7, he escaped from his quarters and, wearing a Federal uniform, managed to pass through the Union lines and into Virginia. He had intended to rejoin his regiment, but after meeting some men from Mosby’s Rangers, he decided to join with them instead.

Powell’s period of service did not last long. He deserted Mosby’s cavalry in early January 1865, riding into the Union lines and immediately offering to take the oath of allegiance. He received a parole that same month, under the alias of Lewis Payne, which was used to avoid retaliation from Mosby’s men. Dressed in civilian clothes, Powell returned to Baltimore, which was home to a sizeable number of Southern sympathizers - and more than a few would-be assassins.

Four years earlier, on February 21, 1861, Lincoln had been startled to learn of a plot to kill him as his train car was pulled by horses through the streets of Baltimore. Allan Pinkerton, a Chicago detective whose company worked for the railroad, uncovered the plot and devised a plan to protect the President. Ronald C. White, a Lincoln biographer, described the plan in detail:

At dusk, the plans for Lincoln’s secret trip to Washington were put into action. Instead of traveling with his usual stovepipe hat, Lincoln wore a soft Kossuth hat given to him in New York. At Philadelphia, Lincoln boarded a sleeping car, accompanied by only Pinkerton and Ward Hill Lamon, his Illinois lawyer friend and now bodyguard, but no one slept… The train arrived in Baltimore at about 3:30 a.m., and Lincoln’s car was transferred to the Camden Street Station, where he boarded a Baltimore and Ohio train and waited in the dark for thirty minutes before departing at 4:15 a.m. for Washington.

As White noted, Lincoln arrived at the Baltimore and Ohio depot at New Jersey Avenue and C Street at six in the moring, almost ten hours ahead of his scheduled arrival and reception. Incredibly, the President arrived in Washington virtually alone, unannounced, and unrecognized.

At the beginning of the war, Baltimore was a tinderbox in which both sides competed for power, similar to the situation in the rest of Maryland. In general, Union sentiment prevailed among the small farms of western Maryland whereas the eastern shore and southern part of the state clearly favored slavery and secession. By the time Powell returned to Baltimore, it was completely under Union control, and he was very much an outsider. Unable to secure a job, he spent most of his time reading books in the boarding house library. But that all changed one day in February, as he was passing Barnum’s Hotel, and a familiar voice called out to him. Glancing toward the entrance, he saw his old friend, John Wilkes Booth, the Richmond actor who had so impressed him back in 1861.

The chance meeting led to a friendship based upon a mutual hatred of Lincoln and the frustrating realization that the South was slowly losing the war. Booth realized that they would have to act quickly if there was any hope of saving the South. Trial testimony would later reveal that Booth concocted several schemes to kidnap or kill the president, but for various reasons, none were undertaken - until the news of Richmond’s fall on April 3 and the subsequent news of Lee’s surrender on April 9.

Booth is said to have wept over the headlines, and in all likelihood Powell was even more distraught. Unlike Booth, Powell had actually served in the army, been wounded, and taken prisoner. He had also lost a brother, Oliver, who had died from wounds incurred at the battle of Murfreesboro in 1863.

On the morning of April 10, 1865, Secretary of War Stanton ordered the firing of five hundred cannons, signaling the end of the Civil War. Later that afternoon, three thousand jubilant citizens marched to the White House to serenade the President. The crowd was anxious to hear a rousing speech, but Lincoln was unprepared, so he declined to speak at length. Instead, he acknowledged the presence of a military band and said, I see that you have a band of music with you… I have always thought Dixie one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday we fairly captured it. I presented this question to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance.

The request received a polite but muted response from the crowd, but it did little or nothing to quell the anger of John Wilkes Booth. When Lincoln spoke about the possibility of voting rights for African Americans, Booth became livid, telling a friend, that means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I’ll put him through.

Booth was determined to make good on his promise, gathering what was left of his original group, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt. Final preparations were made to carry out the most audacious crime in American history, the assassination of the President of the United States, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State.

The assassins would strike on April 14, 1865.

On, of all days, Good Friday.

CHAPTER THREE

Night of Terror

Early on Thursday morning, the day before the assassinations were to take place, Lewis Powell was seen near Madison Place on Lafayette Square. A Seward maid would later testify that he flirted with her and offered to buy her a gift. Dispite his suspicious behavior - lingering outside the home of Secretary Seward - nobody asked why he was there. This seems odd, in light of the fact that by April 1865 there had been at least eight plots to kidnap or kill Lincoln or members of his cabinet. Still, no special precautions had been taken, and there were no guards posted outside the house.

The very next day, in a bizarre twist of fate, President Lincoln would sign into law a piece of legislation that would create the Secret Service, the very law enforcement agency charged with defending the President from, among other things, assassination attempts.

In the evening, the nation’s capitol celebrated the end of the war with a grand illumination of public buildings and private homes. According to James L. Swanson, these structures glowed from candles, torches, gaslights, and fireworks.

The Evening Star, one of Washington’s leading newspapers, offered a front page account of the festivities:

Last night Washington was all ablaze with glory. The very heavens seemed to have come down, and the stars twinkled in a sort of faded way, as if the solar system was out of order and the earth had become the great luminary… Far as the vision extended were brilliant lights, the rows of illuminated windows at a distance blending into one, and presenting an unbroken wall of flame… high above all towered the Capitol, glowing as if on fire and seeming to stud the city below with gems of reflected glory as stars light upon the sea.

Watching all of this, the grand illumination, the patriotic fervor, the Confederate humiliation, were Booth and his fellow conspirators. One can only imagine how heartsick they were at the sight of so much jubilation. Although Powell and Atzerodt never recorded their thoughts that day, it would be safe to assume that they felt as dejected as Booth, who recorded his feelings in a farewell letter to his mother, Mary Ann Holmes Booth:

Dearest Mother:

I know you expect a letter from me, and am sure you will hardly forgive me. But indeed I have nothing to write about. Everything is dull; that is, has been till last night. (The illumination.)

Everything was bright and splendid. More so in my eyes if it had been a display in a nobler cause. But so goes the world. Might makes right. I only drop you these few lines to let you know I am well, and to say I have not heard from you. Excuse brevity; am in haste. Had one from Rose. With best love to you all, I am your affectionate son ever,

John

In the minds of the conspirators, the time had come for drastic action, so after one final meeting on the afternoon of April 14, they went their separate ways, determined to carry out their murderous assignments. Nobody will ever know what Lewis Powell did from five o’clock to ten o’clock that night, but he was certainly aware of Secretary Seward’s physical condition, and the fact that he was bedridden. Research suggests that it was this knowledge that led Powell to feign being a delivery boy from a physician.

At about the same moment that Booth entered President Lincoln’s box in Ford’s Theatre, another brutal attack was about to begin six blocks away, at the home of the Secretary of State. John M. Taylor noted that Seward had fallen into an uneasy sleep in his third-floor bedroom when the front doorbell rang. One of the servants, nineteen-year-old William Bell, opened the door. A man in a light overcoat said that he had some medicine from Dr. Verdi to deliver to Secretary Seward in person. Bell responded that no one was allowed upstairs, but the stranger insisted.

One month later, Bell would give testimony stating that Powell pushed his way inside and