"Alias Paine"

[Linda Anderson]

(01-12-2013 07:56 PM)My Name Is Kate Wrote:  I can't wait for the second edition. The most interesting thing about Lewis, IMO, is the noble, yet contrite way he went to his death (and what a death it was...), even pleading for the life of Mary Surratt to the very end, although she had betrayed him, apparently without any remorse. I find that rather astounding, especially for one so young.

I agree that what makes Powell interesting is his change from a violent assassin to a prisoner who gained respect from his Union guards by accepting his fate and not complaining.

Powell must have felt guilty for implicating Mary Surratt by showing up at her boarding house on the night of April 17. He understood why she betrayed him by denying that she had hired him to dig a ditch. She wanted to live!

He expressed regret for hurting Fred Seward but I haven't read that he expressed regret for assaulting Secretary Seward. Powell believed he was following orders in trying to assassinate Seward.

There is no apology from Powell in Attorney Doster's Argument in Defense of Lewis Payne. Instead, Doster spoke of "the frank and honest way in which he speaks of his crime, as a thing revolting in itself, but due to a cause he thinks holy..."

"We know that slavery made him immoral, that war made him a murderer, and that necessity, revenge, and delusion made him an assassin...We know that, from his point of view, he justifies the murder of the Secretary of State; we know that, from our standpoint, we would have gladly seen, for four years, the death of the Rebel Secretary of State."

Should Doster have said that Powell had realized the errors of his ways and was now contrite for his actions?