page_title: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
section_title: Powell attacks Seward
hierarchical_section_title: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln / Powell attacks Seward
caption_attribution_description: English: Black-and-white photographic portrait of William H. Seward and his daughter Fanny. William sits with hand in shirt. Fanny stands with hand on back of his chair.
context_page_description: Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
  Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 am, in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated, with his funeral and burial marking an extended period of national mourning.
  Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government.
  Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson.
  Beyond Lincoln's death, the plot failed: Seward was only wounded and Johnson's would-be attacker lost his nerve. After a dramatic initial escape, Booth was killed at the climax of a 12-day manhunt. Powell, Herold, Atzerodt and Mary Surratt were later hanged for their roles in the conspiracy.
context_section_description: Booth had assigned Lewis Powell to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. On April 5 Seward had been thrown from his carriage, suffering a concussion, a broken jaw, and a broken arm. On the night of the assassination he was confined to bed at his home in Lafayette Park. Herold guided Powell to Seward's house. Powell carried an 1858 Whitney revolver (a large, heavy and popular gun during the Civil War) and a Bowie knife.
  William Bell, Seward's African American maître d’, answered the door when Powell knocked 10 minutes after 10 pm, as John Wilkes Booth made his way to the presidential box at Ford’s Theater. Powell told Bell that he had medicine from Seward's physician, and that his instructions were to personally show Seward how to take it. Overcoming Bell's skepticism, Powell made his way up the stairs to Seward's third-floor bedroom. At the top of the staircase he was stopped by Seward's son, Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward, to whom he repeated the medicine story; Frederick, suspicious, said his father was asleep.
  Hearing voices, Seward's daughter Fanny emerged from Seward's room and said, "Fred, Father is awake now" – thus revealing to Powell where Seward was. Powell turned as if to start downstairs, but suddenly turned again and drew his revolver. He aimed at Frederick's forehead and pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired so he bludgeoned Frederick unconscious with it. Bell, yelling "Murder! Murder!", ran outside for help.
  Fanny opened the door again and Powell shoved past her to Seward's bed. He stabbed at Seward's face and neck, slicing open his cheek, but the splint doctors had fitted to Seward's broken jaw (often mistakenly described as a neck brace) prevented the blade from penetrating his jugular vein. He eventually recovered, though with serious scars on his face.
  Seward's son Augustus and Sergeant George F. Robinson, a soldier assigned to Seward, were alerted by Fanny's screams and received stab wounds in struggling with Powell.
  As Augustus went for a pistol, Powell ran downstairs toward the door, where he encountered Emerick Hansell, a State Department messenger. Powell stabbed Hansell in the back, then ran outside exclaiming "I'm mad! I'm mad!". Screams from the house had frightened Herold, who ran off, leaving Powell to find his own way in an unfamiliar city.
caption: William and Fanny Seward in 1861
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