Tragic Anniversary - April 14, 1865

Published by Dick Schaefer, Part-time Contributing Writer; Amateur Investigative Reporter; Aspiring Photo-Journalist, Creator of "Ralphie's Buffalo Chips" Column and Loyal Mizzou Fan

Date: 4/14/2011
Post: 2,092

April 14th is the anniversary of Lincoln being shot by John Wilkes Booth. April 14th, 1865 was Good Friday.

Lee had surrendered on April 9th so it seemed the Civil War was over. The prevailing feeling was jubilant. The night before the shooting, April 13th, candles burned in the windows of most public buildings and private homes. Newspapers described Washington. D.C. as "all ablaze with glory."

The shooting happened around 10 PM April 14th and Lincoln died April 15th around 7:22 AM.

Booth's first plan, set for March, 1865 was to kidnap Lincoln as he returned from a play at Campbell Hospital, take him to Richmond, and ransom him back to the Union in return for ending the Civil War. Booth with a half-dozen fellow conspirators were ready to act on that plan but Lincoln's plans changed and he never appeared where they waited in ambush.

Booth's next hope was to buy the South some time to rally by throwing the Government into disarray. This plan actually called for three simultaneous assassinations. Booth assigned Lincoln to himself, Gearge A. Atzerodt was to eliminate Vice President Johnson, and Lewis T. Powell was to murder Secretary of State Seward.

Atzerodt took a room in the hotel where Johnson was staying but lost his nerve and never attcked the Vice President.

Powell entered Seward's home on the pretext of having medicine for him and seriously wounded Seward (and others) but is forced to flee without killing Seward.

Seward survived and is best remembered today for an exceptionally good deal he made in 1867 while serving under Andrew Johnson. Seward's deal was so unappreciated in his day that it was called Seward's Folly--but today we regard the purchase of Alaska from Russia (for $7.2 Million or about 2 cents per acre) as a masterstroke.

Booth is cornered in a barn and dies of a gun shot wound on April 26th. Atzerodt, Powell, and others were hanged on July 7, 1865. Atzerodt's last words were "May we meet in another world."

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Seward

On April 14, 1865, Lewis Powell, an associate of John Wilkes Booth, attempted to assassinate Seward, the same night that Abraham Lincoln was shot. Powell gained access to Seward's home by telling a servant, William Bell, that he was delivering medicine for Seward, who was recovering from a recent carriage accident on April 5, 1865. Powell started up the stairs when then confronted by one of Seward's sons, Frederick. He told the intruder that his father was asleep and Powell began to start down the stairs, but suddenly swung around and pointed a gun at Frederick's head. After the gun jammed, Powell panicked, then repeatedly struck Frederick over the head with the pistol, leaving Frederick in critical condition on the floor.

Powell then burst into William Seward's bedroom with a knife and stabbed him several times in the face and neck. Powell also attacked and injured another son (Augustus), a soldier and nurse (Sgt. George Robinson) who had been assigned to stay with Seward, and a messenger (Emerick Hansell) who arrived just as Powell was escaping.[19] Luckily all five men that were injured that night survived, although Seward Sr. would carry the facial scars from the attack through his remaining life. The events of that night took their toll on his wife, Frances, who died June 1865 from the stress of almost losing her husband. Then his daughter Fanny died of tuberculosis in October 1866.

Powell was captured the next day and was executed on July 7, 1865, along with David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt, three other conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.

Although it took Seward several months to recover from his wounds, he emerged as a major force in the administration of the new president, Andrew Johnson, frequently defending his more moderate reconciliation policies towards the South, to the point of enraging Radical Republicans who had once regarded Seward as their ally.

In the fall of 1866, Seward joined Johnson, as well as Ulysses S. Grant and the young General George Armstrong Custer, along with several other administration figures, on the president's ill-fated "Swing Around the Circle" campaign trip.

At one point Seward became so ill, probably from cholera, that he was sent back to Washington in a special car. Both Johnson and Grant, as well as several members of the Seward family, thought the Secretary was near death. But as with his April 1865 stabbing, Seward surprised many by making a good recovery.

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