Lincoln Letters

April 26th [1865] [continued]

prescriptions for Mr. Seward from the Surgeon General’s and that he must see him. He mounted to his room, where finding his son, he knocked him senseless and then stabbed Seward in several places,, occurring that same evening as the murder of Lincoln. It would seem that there was a regular conspiracy to make away with the leaders of the party in power. Lincoln in his first inauguration was deathly fearful of assassination as his ludicrous entrance into Washington City at that time in disguise—the approach to the Capitol palisaded for his protection would indicate—so what commenced as farce has ended in tragedy. [4]

Footnotes

[4] Lewis Thornton Powell, one of John Wilkes Booth’s co-conspirators, was the attacker who almost murdered Secretary of State Seward. Powell was a former Confederate soldier from Florida.