Booth's Escape Route

[Gene C]

(02-07-2013 02:23 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Obviously, i can only speak for myself, but to me the answer would be no. War is completely barbaric, but that's why there are rules which both sides follow, and for which people have been and continue to be charged with violating. Call if naive, but when one side would resort to violating that en masse, that side has lost any moral high ground it may have had.

Perhaps this is why President Lincoln's terms of surrender were considered so generous and forgiving. Had they been harsh, he would not have earned the place in history he has, or be as revered and respected as a leader.

[MaddieM]

(02-07-2013 11:05 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  

(02-07-2013 10:36 AM)J. Beckert Wrote:  I'm willing to bet if Powell's pistol hadn't misfired and he walked in and shot Seward, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I think it's evolved into an emotional issue because of the viciousness of the knife attack. Whether or not Powell was bamboozled by Booth into believing he would be acting under Confederate orders can't be proven, but I'm inclined to believe so. He tried to kill someone. If he was acting as a soldier, in his mind, Seward was just the enemy. It's no different to me than a sniper today killing the enemy from 1000 yards. Is that murder in wartime?

Just as I'm inclined to disagree, Joe. And actually, it is different from a sniper. A soldier in the field has the expectation that something like that can happen, and can guard against it. A man lying in his bed has no such defense. What was in Powell's mind or Booth's mind is irrelevant to the criminality, brutality and lawlessness of the act as it would have been if Dahlgren had succeeded in his raid, and it could be proven that it was approved at the highest levels of the Union government. Murder is murder, even in wartime.

Best
Rob

Was Seward a civilian? Truly.

[Linda Anderson]

Seward was aware of threats upon his life but, according to one of his nurses, George Vocke, Seward did not expect to be assaulted in his sickbed.

"Half an hour after receiving his own wound, Mr. SEWARD heard of the attack on the President, which his sharp ear gathered from the bystanders, and of the President's death he was at once informed, on Saturday morning. As during the catastrophe, so immediately thereafter, SEWARD displayed the composure of the philosopher. When he learned the death of the President, he remarked to the physicians around his bedside, that he had warned the President, and also had taken precautions as to his own safety, but had neglected these after his accident, because he never dreamed that they would assail a severely wounded man in his bed."

New York Times - "THE SEWARD FAMILY.; Interesting Facts and Reminiscences of Mrs. Seward by Mrs. Swisshelm. MR. SEWARD DURING HIS ILLNESS, AS DESCRIBED BY HIS NURSE INTERESTING REVELATIONS." July 20, 1865

[L Verge]

And Mr. Seward did not think that political assassination was the American way...

[Linda Anderson]

(02-07-2013 08:30 PM)L Verge Wrote:  And Mr. Seward did not think that political assassination was the American way...

Seward wrote that in 1862. He was an optimist.

[Bill Richter]

Back to instruments, we forgot the bones (I am ashamed I left out the banjo)

Try the website for the Carolina Chocolate Drops for instruments

[Linda Anderson]

(02-07-2013 09:34 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  

(02-07-2013 08:30 PM)L Verge Wrote:  And Mr. Seward did not think that political assassination was the American way...

Seward wrote that in 1862. He was an optimist.

They Killed Papa Dead cites a New York Times article published May 12, 1865 that reflects how Seward's attitude towards political assassination had changed. However, after reading this article, it seems likely that Seward believed that the President and his cabinet were in danger all along.

"Mr. SEWARD talks freely of the assassination and of all its circumstances and antecedents. I do not think he was in the least surprised at it. Indeed, he has more than once within the last two years told me in conversation that we should never emerge from this great war without political assassinations. They might be attempted in the hope of aiding the rebellion, or for the purpose of revenging its defeat; but they were morally certain to come. For his own part, I know that he had made his personal arrangements with a view to the possibility of such a close of his own career. He was never insensible of the extent to which the great body of the slaveholding oligarchy held him responsible for the political and moral changes which prompted the rebellion."

[Laurie Verge]

No one ever mentions that Seward received death threats throughout the war. Is there any evidence of it? I would think that he had to have received some. He was likely hated by some as much as Lincoln was.

[J. Beckert]

I can't see Seward, Stanton, Welles, etc. not being threatened. Lincoln had an envelope in his desk marked "Assassination" and it contained 80 - 100 threatening letters. I think by 1865 the suspicion that they may be targeted for assassination was very real to all of them.

[Linda Anderson]

(02-11-2013 01:57 PM)Laurie Verge Wrote:  No one ever mentions that Seward received death threats throughout the war. Is there any evidence of it? I would think that he had to have received some. He was likely hated by some as much as Lincoln was.

Last year Betty sent me an article from the Springfield Republican dated 4/20/1865.

"On the day before he was thrown from his carriage and disabled, Mr. Seward received letters from Canada, warning him of a plot, then nearly ripe for execution, to assassinate all the leading members of the government, and stating it was got up by the leading emissaries in Canada, and was to be carried out under their direction. He consulted another member of the cabinet on the subject, and although previous warnings of a similar tenor had proven groundless, it was decided that certain measures of precaution should be taken. Mr. Seward's accident alone prevented the fulfillment of their intention."

[L Verge]

Very interesting article that I don't ever recall seeing any author use in their books. Some strong statements to point the fingers at the "Canadian Cabinet" theories on Confederate ties to the plot. I like it!

[Jim Garrett]

I would think that Seward's outspoken support of abolishonists would certainly have made him a target.

[L Verge]

What was the comment that he supposedly said about being able to ring a bell on his desk and have anyone thrown in jail? That would have to infuriate people.

[Linda Anderson]

(02-11-2013 09:27 PM)L Verge Wrote:  What was the comment that he supposedly said about being able to ring a bell on his desk and have anyone thrown in jail? That would have to infuriate people.

This is from Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man by Walter Stahr:

"He reportedly boasted to Lord Lyons in late 1861 that 'I can touch a bell on my right hand, and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio; I can touch a bell again, and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power on earth, except that of the President, can release them. Can the Queen of England do so much?' In all likelihood Seward never said this to Lyons: there is no trace of the remark in the detailed reports of Lyons to the British foreign minister, and at a dinner party in early 1864 Lyons told an interlocutor that he remembered no such conversation. The quote first appeared in anti-administration newspapers in 1863, and it has been repeated regularly since then. Some historians have agreed with the sentiment if not the wording; one wrote that, "during the first few months of the war, 'Seward had more arbitrary power over the freedom if individual American citizens all over the country than any other man has ever had, before or since.'"

[Jim Garrett]

Whether Seward boasted such power or not, I think it's probably something that did cross his mind. Three cheers for David Strathairn who did an extraordinary job of bring Seward to life.