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[Linda Anderson]

The book finally came in today and naturally I went to the description of Powell's assassination attempt on Seward. I was happy to see that Ms. Krisher writes that Fred Seward first opened his father's door thereby letting Powell know the location of Seward's room (if Powell didn't know already from the maid), not Fanny as some other authors have mistakenly written.

I was fascinated to learn that Harriet Tubman had a premonition "like a portent straight from Macbeth" [Macbeth again!] of Fanny's death.

"According to Sarah Bradford's biography, at the time of Fanny's death Tubman had reportedly seen 'a chariot in the air, going south, and empty, but soon it returned, and lying in it, cold and stiff, was the body of a young lady of whom Harriet was very fond, whose home was in Auburn, but who had gone to Washington with her father.' Terrified, Tubman 'ran to the house of her minister, crying out: 'Oh, Miss Fanny is dead!' Chillingly, word of Fanny's death has just been received."

I don't see the scene when Fanny refused to identity Powell on the monitor (although Verdi's account is included in the bibliography) so I have included a reference to it here. Ms. Krisher, did you come across any accounts of Fanny's reaction to Powell's execution?

This is Dr. Verdi's account from the article "The Assassination of the Sewards," The Republic, Vol I, from March to December 1873. p. 289. Google Books.

"The scene was a solemn one-too solemn for man to utter a sound; a silence, broken only by the hissing wind and the surging waves, pervaded the whole ship. It was almost a weird transformation from a mysterious power.

"Miss Fanny was hanging on my arm. Did I feel a quiver? Probably I did, for I gently drew her from the painful scene. Conscientious even at this trying moment, she could not identify the man; her identification, she thought, might be his death. She had only seen him by a dim light as if a frightful vision. That is all she said."