Why Not Fanny Seward?

[Linda Anderson]

I don't know for sure but I wonder if it was because she didn't identify Lewis Powell on the Saugus where he was imprisoned.

The Sewards' family doctor who accompanied Fanny on the monitor, Tuillo Verdi, gives a moving account of the moment Fanny encountered Powell.

"Conscientious, even at this trying moment, she could not identify the man; her identification, she thought, might be his death. She had only seen him by a dim light as in a frightful vision. That is all she said."

The Republic, A Monthly Magazine, Volume One, page 289, on Google Books.

Also, there may have been pressure from Secretary Seward to not put Fanny through any more pain than what she had already been through. She was not in good health.

There were reports in the newspapers that Secretary Seward himself was set to testify but the idea was nixed by his doctors.