The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-08-18
SAVED SCENARIOS LIFE.
MAJOR ROBlNSON'S DETAILED &C.
COUNT OF THE ATTACK.

IL N1SHt u WV oh-
slaught-Three Stabbed Besides Seward
Major G.. F. Robinson, the only
person on the Pacific Coast who has
had a vote of thanks from Congress
for q meritorious act, one of the very
few persons who has a gold medal
given by Congress for bravery, and
one of but two men who were ever
promoted at once from private to
Major in the United States Army, lives
at Pomona, Cal, with his family
among the orange groves and on an
avenu of palms.
At the same moment that Abraham
Lincoln was shot to death in Ford's
Theatre in Washington, on April IA,
1865, and when, but for a change of
plans, General U. S. Grant would
doubtless also have been killed, Major
Robinson, unarmed and unprepared,
grappled with the armed and desperate
assassin, Lewis Payne, in the darkened
sick room of Secretary Seward.
Major Robinson has studiously
avoided through some thirty years
interviews by newspaper and magazine
writers. Last week, however, says a
correspondent of the Boston Advertiser,
he permitted an interview by a fellow
townsman and q personal friend. 81
have never KNOWN" said Major Robin
son, chow I came to be detailed to act
as nurse at the home of Secretary
Seward in April, 1865. I had been
confined to the hospital for several
months by a gunshot wound in my
leg.
"The evening of April IA was beauti-
full and clear. At q little before 10 p.
M, when the Secretary was sleeping
easily, the house was closed for the
night. Mrs. Seward had gone to her
sleeping room. Frederick Seward,
second sol of the Secretary, had re-
tired. Miss Fannie Seward, a daugh-
tor, and I sat in the sick chamber on
the third floor. Miss Seward was near
the bed. Her father lay propped up
in bed. Just before ten the sound of
q man was heard down in the hall. It
was afterward learned that the porter
saw O tall young man on horseback
dash up to the stone curbing. He
claimed to be DR.. Verdis's assistant,
and pushed his way into the house.
The first that I knew of the assassin
i'll the house was when the front. door
closed. Miss Seward heard the sound
of some one coming heavily up the
front stairs, and remarked upon the
carelessness of any one who would so
noisly approach a sick chamber. At
the top of the stairway Frederick
Seward met the supposed messenger.
What is it| asked Mr.. Seward, in
q low tone.
DIR. Verdis sent me with this
medicine for Secretary Seward, was
the mans reply. 1T must be taken
Immediately. I EN- the doctors stu
dent, and must tell Nj. Seward how
and when to take the medicine
"Frederick answered that he would
see if his father was awake. Then he
opened the door of the Secretary's
r room and tiptoed over to the bed where
his father lay. He went back and re-
marked that he would not disturb the
patient at that hour. As he spoke he
closed the door behind him. In a
trice there came the sound of blows,
as if n had been struck by a rattan.
Not a word vas spoken. I sprang
from my chair, threw open the hall
door in time to see a very tall, power
full beardless man about to open it
himself, and back of him Frederick
Seward, covered with blood from
wounds on his head.
"The stranger jumped through the
door at me. I saw a knife fash in
the feeble gaslight. He dealt me an
awful blow on the scalp and forehead.
I fell backward, while blood started
down my face and beard. The stranger,
wearing a long light-covered overcoat,
a SLOUGH hat and cavalry boots, gave
Miss Seward (who had taken alarm
and started to call for help a thrust
that threw her aside. He pounced
upon the bedside. The assassin had
his now broken navy pistol in his left
hand and a long heavy knife in his
right. He leaned over and across the
bed, and, placing his pistol on Secre-
tary Stewards chest, struck madly and
frantically at the head and neck. I
saw, a thousand times quicker than it
takes to tell it, the assassin strike at
the Secretary's head, and lay open o
cash in his right cheek and in the side
of his neck. I leaped upon the bed
beside the stranger from the rear,
caught his arm as his right hand
gripped the knife for a surer and more
powerful stroke, and thus diverted the
blade. The knife went into the Sec
retary's neck on the side nearest to US
as I pulled him from the bed.
; "Then began a terrific hand-to-hand
! grapple. The assassin gave me a deep
kcut in the right shoulder as 1 pulled
him backward from the bed. A second
later he gave me another cut. In a
twinkling he turned on me with the
ferocity of an enragedtiger, while Sec
rotary Seward rolled off the further
side of the bed. The assassin struck
at me several times, once giving me a
slash in the left shoulder. l clinched
my arms about him with my utmost
strength, while he was trying to force
me away so that he could use his ans
either to TRUST his bloody knife ITO
me or to beat me into insensibility by
blows with his big pistol. Meanwhile
Miss Seward had pushed up the win
dow in the sick and had screamed
Murder! Murner!' Although weak