The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-11-14
TIE GREAT ASSASSINATION.
Payne's Attack on Secretary Seward-Graph-
ic and Thrilling Story of the Awful Crime.

heroiu nau rldden with Payne TO the door or
the Secretary of State. in an old tall brick house.
on secluded side of the Presidents green
square. At the next corner below. in a brick
dwelling. was the headquarters of the com
mander of the city of Washington where gen
orally orderlies and horses were to be found
ready to take dispatches; but these murderers
had chosen late hour of the night when the
military business was done. and while peace
was so far insured that discipline was much re-
laxed
Leaping from his horse, Payne handed the
bride to Herold, who sat there with foolish
smirk of dread.
The tall brigand, with perfectly beardless face,
and something of an Indian in bearing and in
straight black hair, and with powerful columnar
neck and broad chest, walked up to the bell and
rang it.
He wore the heaviest cast-off boots of Wilkes
Booth, black cloth trousers, an overcoat
of white and brown, conspicuous in
the night, a dark-gray undercoat and a
slouched brown hat He was familiar
with saber and knife exercise, and had been
kept sober until Just before this essay, when he
toned up to his bloody work by drink.
He had disappeared within the hallway, per.
haps five to seven minutes, when Herold. sitting
on the horse in morbid apprehension, heard
cries and shouts within the old gloomy house,
and the sound of blows and of falling bodies
The horses raised their ears aud moved
around their haters uueasily.
Murder! Murder! Murder!' cane in half
sti1ed outburst from the mysterious interior,
and was followed by the same terrible word in a
piercing scream from lifted window at the
caves
Herold let GO of the halter of the other horse
and stuck his spurs into his own fleet roam.
'Ticka-tock-a, tick "a tockaw came the sim
gle footed racking echoes out of the old cobble-
stones, and the horse turned the military head
quarters and skipped down the softer avenue,
until, at Wizards Hotel corner, a man rushed
out at Herold, crying:
Here, now. Get off that horse [ didn't
hire him to you to ride all night"
Seeing the livery-man but not recognizing
him in the terror of the moment, Herold wheeled
up Fourteenth street, past the newspaper cor
respondents offices, and, turning down street,
had barely paused at the outlet of the alley,
when Booth burst out, and they joined in fierce
wild fight.
The Secretary of State was a man almost
sixty-four, of slight and delicate structure, and
without any personal enemies except those
whose unjust interests felt the silver arrows of
his argument In youth he had been tutor in
a slave State and formed the opinion that the
systems of free and slave labor
irreconcilable. AS Governor and Senator of
the most powerful State in the Union, he
nurtured freedom among the young men and
made it captivating, and now was trlumDhantly
closing the greatest career of any Foreign
Secretary from the New World. The same hand
which sealed the proclamation OF emancipation
had foiled Europe in its attempts to divide the
raiment of the Republic, and was yet to settle
with the crowned puppet in Mexico, and also to
terminate Russian rule in America
Ten days previous to this Good Friday Mr..
Seward had been thrown from his carriage and
his jaw and arm broken, and he was now lying
HELPLESS in his bed With cruel indifference,
Booth considered that these disabilities made it
the easier to dispatch him, and used the package
of medicine TO procure for Payne admlttance to
his chamber of sickness.
The rufian entered and was dressed as neatly
as Booth could afford He stated to colored
boy in the hall that the doctor had sent verbal
instructions by him about taking the medicine,
and spoke awhile pausibly in soft, fine voice
through his thin lips but, as the black boy pro-
tested that Payne could not go up stairs, Payne
thrust his right hand in his whiteovercoat pocket
and said he should go up, with menacing air,
somewhat considering whether he should not dis
patch the door-keeper on the spot
Finally he started up the stairs alone, the
uncertain boy preceding him, and at the top of
the house-the third story-the eldest son of the
invalid, who was the Assistant Secretary of
State came out to see what was the matter.
The man. holding up the package, repeated
that the doctor had sent him to make personal
communication to Mr. Seward.
At this the son unwittingly entered his faith
er's room, thus laying bare its location to the
murderer; bat, coming back IL an instant, he
said:
''Father is asleep now; give me the medicine,
and l will repeat the doctors Instructions to
him."
Payne said that would not do. and kept in
sisting with rising aggressiveness, that he must
90 in until peremptorily told to retire. He NUT
tered an assent Of disappointment, turned 6 step
down the stairway, and then leaped back with
his heavy pistol in his hand. and proceeded,
cavalrym fashion, to beat in young Mr. Sew
ards skull, merely saying in a low, vengeful tone
I'm mad I'm mad"
His temper was fierce paroxysm indiscrimi-
nate, and bent on massacre
house had been for some time a
kind of hospital; the aged secretary's wife also
lying manned and i'll in an adjacent room, and
she was to expire, her death accelerated by this
nights events within few weeks The Sew
ards were an affectionately domestic family, and
their daughter Fanny-who also died before many
months-and their eldest sons wife, occupied this
remote upper floor. with two sons-the Assistant
Secretary aforesaid and Major Seward-and a
wounded soldier nurse detailed from one of the
hospitals
The helpless statesman had been unable to
sleep all day, with fever and deblitaton, and had
Just dropped into repose when the solid, decisive
tread of man was heard on the stairs, and Fanny
Seward said to the sodier--a lad from the forests
of Maine, named Robinson: 81 wonder who that
isl Some one not used to approaching sick rooms.
should Think
The same tread called Assistant Secretary
Frederick Seward from his wifes room, in the
front of the house; and he, confronting this
stranger with the package, only observed that
the man was rather dull in understanding, and
imputed his obstinacy to his fidelity to the doc
tor.
Payne, indeed, was of low order of intei-
gence approximating to the family slaves he had
been overseer of, and his mental organization
was both inharmonious and deficient; his eyes
without the radiance of mind, the two sides of
his head unsymmetrical, his memory slow, and
his moral distinctions weak. Education might
have disciplined and aroused his mind,
but the instructive habits of
the Alabama plantation, and the school of war;
had made him only machine of his savage tenn
per. The obstacles he encountered aroused this
to the highest pitch before he had struck blow
Booth had set his mechanism like clock to
this hour, and the alarm-spring was now re-