At the same time that President Lincoln was being shot, a further attempt to decapitate the federal government was made when Lewis Powell, a former Confederate soldier from Florida gained entry to William Henry Seward's and attempted to stab the Secretary of State to death. Seward was bedridden from a carriage accident nine days before. His son Frederick resisted Powell at his father's sickroom door but the would-be-assassin was able to stab the older Seward several times before being driven off and making his escape. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Thomas Goodrich, The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Booth, and the Great American Tragedy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 91-93.
Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America (Hartford, CT:: T. Belknap, 1868), III: 569.
Record Data
Type
Crime/Disasters
Relevance
General
