A Different Viewpoint of Lew Powell's Character

[BettyO]

(07-24-2012 08:37 AM)KLarson Wrote:  I read Powell's defense of Mary not as a man declaring her innocence, but rather a man defending a woman because he was being chivalrous. Reading what he said - that she might have known something was going on, but perhaps not completely - doesn't sound like he was saying she was innocent. He apparently said, too, that men shouldn't make war on women. His arrival at her home that Monday night after the assassination says a lot about what he thought she knew and that she would help him.

I also believe that Powell was mercilessly pressured into making his statement about Mary. In spite of his ability to actions the night of the murder, and as Betty reminds us, he was still a very young man. He probably looked at Mrs. Surratt as a mother first, co- conspirator second.

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Sorry, IPad typing malfunction. I meant to type "in spite of his actions the night of....."

Bingo, Kate! You've hit the nail right on the head!

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(07-24-2012 08:47 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  Betty: Thank you for taking the time out to give such a detailed answer. Yes, it was Jim Bishop's book The Day Lincoln Was Shot where I had first heard about Powell and the skull. I had forgotten over the years where I had heard it. If the account of Powell if true as you have laid it out, he becomes much more of a sympathetic character for me. Thanks for your great input!

No problem, Bill! I love "talking" about Powell. Bishop's book is a good one - but it's fiction. Apparently Bishop picked up on part of Doster's argument where he reiterates that "he [Powell] was one of a group of soldiers who made ash trays out of the skulls of Union dead...." I think Doster was talking about Confederate soldiers in general - a rather derogatory statement (although I've never heard of any one making an ash tray out of a skull - short of possibly Ed Gein!) HA!