George Robinson and his Family

[Linda Anderson]

(02-09-2014 04:19 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Maybe because Seward was anyway always "prepared for sudden death"?

New York Times Editor Henry J. Raymond wrote: "Free from the faintest impulse of revenge himself, he could not appreciate its desperate intensity in the hearts of others. Mr. Seward, with his larger experience and more practical knowledge of human nature, had repeatedly told him that so great a contest could never close without passing through an era of assassination - that if it did not come as a means of aiding the rebel cause, it would follow, and seek to avenge its downfall, and that it was the duty of all who were responsibly and conspicuously connected with the Government, to be prepared for this supreme test of their courage and patriotic devotion. Mr. Seward himself, had acted upon this conviction, and had stood at his post always prepared for sudden death."

That's probably one reason why Seward recovered and Mrs. Seward didn't. She wrote to Mr. Alward on May 11:

"It will yet be a long time, if our dear ones recover, before we can leave here. I make no calculations for the future. This baptism of blood seems to have obliterated much of my previous existence."