Dark Union - Questions - Attack on Seward

[Gene C]

In Chpt 20, page 167..."...a resourceful newspaperman dodged guards at Douglas Hospital to reach the bedside of George Robinson, the army nurse stabbed during the attack. Robinson recalled the attacker as tall, heavy-set, "with light sandy hair, whiskers and moustache." ...Given Private Robinsons first-hand impressions of a bewhiskered assailant, the man admitted to the Seward's house with "medicine" and the knife-weilder on the third floor must have been two different persons.....Robinson's description too aptly fitted Augustus Seward....Robinson's earlier account had appeared in a single newspaper edition. It was never repeated"

Unfortunately in his chapter notes, Ray Neff fails to mention any resources for the above statements.

Anyone know anything about this, the newspaper man or his paper?

[LincolnMan]

Wow Gene-that's interesting. You would think he would know what his attacker looked like. To say he had whiskers is a detail that would have left an impression in his mind. What to think?

[Gene C]

Here are some more interesting comments from Dark Union...p168, "Doctor Verdi took her (Fanny Seward) to the Saugus. He later recorded that when the prisoner (Payne) stood before her, she "could not identify the man"....

"When Private George Robinson left Douglas Hospital, the War Department announced that he was taken to the Saugus and had identified Payne as the man who tried to kill Secretary Sewerd. A month later, in a courtroom with Payne before him, the soldier's testimony was less than forthright, ending with, 'Yet I am not sure." (the chapter notes.."Yet I am not sure", ventured Pvt. Robinson, May 19, 1865, Peterson, Alleged Assassins. Fanny Seward's failure to identify Payne as her father's attacker is from Dr. Verdi's article in the Republic 1 (July 1973)

"Emerick Hansell, the State Department messanger on protective duty at the Sewards' home and knifed on the third floor...Many years would pass before the State Department's messenger, then in pensioned retirement following a resumed career on the federal payroll, would give his story under strict guarantees of confidentiality. His recollecton then was that he had been the third man on the landing, rushing to Private Robinson's aid, convinced that the man he and the soldier grappled with was Major Augustus Seward, the secretary's troubled son." (the chapter notes... "Also see Andrew Potter's interview with Emerick Hansell, Potter Papers.")

On page 169..."When he testified at both the conspiracy trial of 1865 and the Surratt trial in 1867, Augustus Seward claimed to have heard the attacker dash downstairs and out the front door shouting, 'I'm mad! I'm mad!" No one else testified to having heard such words. Seward (Augustus) died, age fifty, as a result, wrote his medical officer, of a "diseased condition of the brain." (No chapter notes or resources mentioned for this)

Ray Neff strongly insinuates, Augustus Seward was not in his right mind and was the one who attacked his father. Is their any evidence that Augustus Seward had mental health problems, or evidence to support (or discredit) any of the other statements quoted above?

[Jim Garrett]

The tough issue is to be able to take away anything from "Dark Union".