Booth's comments on Spangler ?

[LincolnToddFan]

(05-15-2014 06:43 AM)BettyO Wrote:  

Quote:Toia, I believe Lewis Powell said Mary Surratt was innocent.

Hello, Toia!

Powell repeatedly expressed to his spiritual advisor, Reverend Gillette as well as to Fathers Walter and Wigit, General Hartranft and Captain Rath that Mrs. Surratt was innocent. The boy stated in the death cell repeatedly that "She may have known something, but he didn't know exactly how much she knew."

It's my opinion that Powell was just displaying chivalry and that he was extremely guilty about being caught at her house; feeling that by being there that he implicated her. He also told Gillette that he would say anything, do anything if Mrs. Surratt could remain together with daughter Annie; "If I had two lives to give, I'd give them both to save that woman. If nothing else, she is a woman and men do not make war on women."

Hi Betty-

I very much want to read your Powell bio, as it's one of the very few books discussed on this Forum(assassination related) that I haven't read yet. I know little about Powell other than that he was(of course) a Confederate sympathizer, tried desperately to save Mrs. Surratt from the gallows, and that he was almost as handsome as JWB in his own way. I also know that he brutally attacked a Black female servant in a fit of rage after he felt she was insolent to him, and of course Seward's wife died of a heart attack a few weeks after Powell's assault on her husband.

So his comment about not making war on women is even more baffling...it's all so sad to me. Maybe if I know more about his life in total I will understand a little better.

Thanks for the info, Roger!