Booth's Denial of Foreknowledge of the Attack on Seward

[Dave Taylor]

As far as Booth's "regretting" what had happened at the Seward household, I believe that he was referring to the severe injuries made to other people besides the Secretary of State.

That's a novel interpretation. The logical, plain-sense interpretation is that he was referring to the attack on Seward. Otherwise, we would expect that he would have specified that he was referring only to what was done to the other people in the house.

From David Herold’s statement to Assistant Judge Advocate John Bingham aboard the ironclad warship, Montauk, April 27, 1865:

“We then heard there was a $10,000 reward offered for Booth, and that Secretary Seward was killed. That was on Monday, and I was told so by a negro, who said that Secretary Seward and two of his sons had been killed. Booth then made the remark that he was very sorry for the sons, but he only wished to God Seward had been killed…”