Lewis Powell attempts to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward in Washington, DC

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.
How to Cite This Page: "Lewis Powell attempts to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward in Washington, DC," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/25139.