Lewis Powell And His Role In The Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy

Lewis Powell And His Role In The Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy

Lewis Powell has gone down in history as one of the extremists who conspired to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln and topple the U.S. government in 1865 — but for most of his life, he was known as a quiet, gentle boy.

Raised in Georgia by a Baptist minister, Powell earned the nickname "Doc" as a child because he loved to care for sick and injured animals on his family's farm. At 17, he lied about his age to join the Confederate Army, where he gained a reputation as a "gallant" soldier. However, when he was injured and captured by Union troops at the Battle of Gettysburg, something changed inside Lewis Powell.⁠

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After escaping from the hospital where he was assigned to work as a nurse while being held prisoner, Powell joined up with Mosby's Rangers, a notorious Confederate battalion that terrorized the Union Army with brutal force. Soon after, he met John Wilkes Booth — and became a key part of the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln as well as other key officials in order to overthrow the federal government.⁠

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Click the link in our profile for the full story of the 21-year-old radical who helped conspire to kill Lincoln and stabbed the secretary of state.⁠

Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 – July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Payne and Lewis Paine, was an American Confederate soldier who attempted to assassinate William Henry Seward as part of the Lincoln assassination plot. Wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, he later served in Mosby's Rangers before working with the Confederate Secret Service in Maryland. John Wilkes Booth recruited him into a plot to kidnap Lincoln and turn the president over to the Confederacy, but then decided to assassinate Lincoln, Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson instead, and assigned Powell the task to kill Seward.

Co-conspirator David Herold was to guide Powell to Seward's home, then help him escape, but fled before Powell was able to exit the Seward home. He arrived at the boarding house run by Mary Surratt, mother of co-conspirator John Surratt, three days later while the police were there conducting a search, and was arrested. Powell, Mary Surratt, Herold, and George Atzerodt were sentenced to death by a military tribunal, and executed at the Washington Arsenal.

It is unclear just when Powell learned that the kidnap plot had turned to an assassination. There is testimony from the nurse attending the Secretary of State indicating that Powell may have learned of his role to assassinate Seward on Thursday, April 13. A man fitting Powell's description appeared at the Seward home that day to inquire about the Secretary's health. Powell himself was inconsistent. He once said he learned he was to kill Seward on the morning of Friday, April 14, but later claimed he did not know until the evening of April 14.

On the afternoon of April 14, Booth learned that Abraham Lincoln would be attending a play at Ford's Theatre that night. Booth decided that the time had come to kill Lincoln. Booth sent David Herold to tell Powell the news. Booth and Powell probably spent the afternoon and early evening at the Canterbury Music Hall on Pennsylvania Avenue, where Powell met and possibly had a tryst with Mary Gardner, a performer there.

At 8:45 p.m. that night, Booth, Atzerodt, Herold, and Powell met in Powell's room at the Herndon House in Washington, D.C., where Booth assigned roles. They would strike that very night, Booth said. Powell (accompanied by Herold) was to go to the home of Secretary of State William H. Seward and kill him. Atzerodt was to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson. Booth was to murder Lincoln at Ford's Theatre.

Powell now realized that David Herold had abandoned him. Powell had almost no knowledge of the streets of Washington, D.C., and without Herold he had no way of locating the streets he was to use for his escape route.]

He mounted his horse, and began riding at a relatively slow pace north on 15th Street.

Powell's exact movements from the time he was seen cantering up 15th Street until the time he appeared at the Surratt boarding house three days later are not clear.

It is well-established that he ended up (by riding or walking) in the far northeast part of the District of Columbia near Fort Bunker Hill, where he discarded his overcoat. 

In the overcoat pockets were Powell's riding gloves, a false mustache, and a piece of paper with Mary Gardner's name and hotel room number on it. Sources differ widely on what happened. Historian Ernest B. Furgurson says Powell's horse gave out near Lincoln Hospital (now Lincoln Park), a mile east of the United States Capitol on East Capitol Street. He then hid in "a cemetery" (without specifying which). Ownsbey says Powell hid in a tree for three days.

Historians William C. Edwards and Edward Steers Jr. claim Powell made it to both Fort Bunker Hill and Congressional Cemetery (at 18th and E Streets SE), while Ralph Gary claims that Powell hid out in a marble burial vault at Congressional Cemetery. Andrew Jampoler, however, says Powell just wandered the streets of the city. Whether Powell abandoned his horse, was thrown by it, or both is unclear, and Powell never gave a public or formal statement about what happened.

Powell decided to return to Surratt's boarding house to seek help. His clothes were somewhat bloody from the attack at Seward's home, and he dropped his hat at the Seward home. During much of the Victorian era, it was considered unseemly for any man (even a menial laborer) to be seen in public without a hat, and Powell would have been viewed with suspicion had he tried to enter the city without one. Ripping the sleeve from his undershirt, Powell placed the sleeve on his head in the hope that people would think it was a stocking cap. To complete his disguise as a common laborer, he then stole a pickaxe from a farmyard. Powell then headed for Surratt's.

Members of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia already suspected John Surratt of complicity in Lincoln's murder, and had visited the Surratt boarding house for the first time as early as 2:00 a.m. on April 15, less than four hours after the attacks.

Nothing incriminating was found. Federal authorities decided to make a second visit. Military investigators arrived at about 11:00 p.m. on Monday, April 17, to bring Mrs. Surratt and others in for questioning. As they were about to depart at 11:45 p.m., Powell showed up on the doorstep.

Powell claimed to be a menial laborer who had been hired that morning by Mrs. Surratt to dig a gutter in the street. He explained his arrival at the house by saying that he wanted to know what time he should begin work in the morning. His clothes aroused intense suspicion, as he wore rather good quality boots, pants, dress shirt, vest, and coat.

His pickaxe seemed unused, and his hands were uncalloused and well manicured (unlike those of a common laborer). Mary denied knowing him. She would later claim that her extremely poor eyesight and the darkness of the room prevented her from recognizing Powell. Powell stood under a bright lamp just five feet from her when she made her denial.

Taken into custody, Powell was discovered to have a box of pistol cartridges, a compass, hair pomade, a brush and comb, two fine handkerchiefs, and a copy of his oath of allegiance (signed "L. Paine") in his pockets. These were not the possessions of a menial laborer. Although he claimed he was a poor man who barely earned a dollar a day for ditch-digging, Powell's wallet contained $25.

 About 3:00 a.m. on April 18, William Bell identified Powell as the man who assaulted Seward. Powell was formally arrested, and imprisoned aboard the USS Saugus, a Union monitor then at anchor in the Anacostia River at the Washington Navy Yard. A second identification was made around mid-morning on April 18 when Augustus Seward visited the Saugus and positively identified Powell as the man who attacked him and his father.

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