Something I've Wondered About....

[Linda Anderson]

(06-29-2014 12:02 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  Hi Betty, yes the quote is in "Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man" by Walter Stahr. I thought it interesting that Seward felt this way at the end of his life, even after the Alaska Purchase.

To address your comment about Powell's seeming split personality..I vaguely remember reading somewhere that he had sustained a head injury, a serious one...when he was young. I suspect it's possible that he had some sort of personality disorder as a result. (Didn't he shout "I'm mad! I'm mad!" as he fled the Seward home?)

I struggle to reconcile the idea of this gentle, animal loving boy who wept for his sisters and the rest of his family on the eve of his execution with the robotic killing machine of the night of April 14 1865. It's as I've posted elsewhere...it simply doesn't add up.

Just like the idea of a devout widow, intensely praying her rosary while plotting murder doesn't add up for me either.

Toia, if Mary was involved in the assassination plot, I can very easily see her praying for her intentions that Lincoln be killed! Both the North and the South thought that God was on their side.

You can find the full account of Fanny's diary entry for April 14 in the University of Rochester's website, Lincoln and His Circle: Fanny Seward Diary.

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?p...&Print=436

Seward was devastated by Fanny's death. "He explained to Charlotte Cushman, the actor whom Fanny had so admired, that 'I had during the last ten years dreams which formed themselves into schemes of retirement, of travel, of study at the approaching end of a life which has been active from motives of duty, but as the world will probably insist motives of ambition. Those dreams and schemes were entirely free from all impurity and all selfishness, perhaps so entirely free, because she was associated with them all.' Seward knew that he should 'rejoice that she was withdrawn from me to be reunited with the pure and blessed spirit that formed her own.' But 'I am not spiritual enough to find support in those reflections.'"

Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man.