Frederick W. Seward

It is our military's job to protect us, but also to kill our enemies.

If you commit treason or sedition or mutiny or conspire against the government, you can be executed.

You can be executed for betraying the country.

And military punishment is as old as time.

I think as a society, we evolved a little bit.

As a society, we are not open, like we're not at open war.

So any kind of event like this, a sedition, whatever my treason, whatever it is, it's going to go through a martial criminal justice trial.

We're not doing summary executions anymore.

As soon as the confusion and crowd was partially overcome, the form of the president was conveyed from the theatre to the residence of Mr. Peterson, on the opposite side of Tenth Street.

here upon a bed in a little hastily prepared chamber it was laid and attended by surgeon-general barnes and other physicians speedily summoned in the meanwhile the news spread through the capital as if borne on tongues of flame senator sumner hearing at his residence of the affair took a carriage and drove at a gallop to the white house when he heard where it had taken place to find robert lincoln and other members of the household still unaware of it both drove to ford's theatre and were soon at the president's bedside secretary stanton and the other members of the cabinet were at hand almost as soon a vast crowd surging up pennsylvania avenue toward willard's hotel cried the president is shot president lincoln is murdered another crowd sweeping down the avenue met the first with the tidings secretary seward has been assassinated in bed instantly a wild apprehension of an organized conspiracy and of other murders took possession of the people the shout to arms was mingled with the expressions of sorrow and rage that everywhere filled the air where is general grant or where is secretary stanton where are the rest of the cabinet broke from thousands of lips a conflagration of fire is not half so terrible as was the conflagration of passion that rolled through the streets and houses of washington on that awful night the attempt on the life of secretary seward was perhaps as daring if not so dramatic as the assassination of the president At nine-twenty o'clock a man, tall, athletic, and dressed in light-colored clothes, alighted from a horse in front of Mr. Seward's residence in Madison Place, where the secretary was lying, very feeble from his recent injuries.

The house, a solid three-story brick building, was formerly the old Washington Club House.

Leaving his horse standing, the stranger rang at the door, and informed the servant who admitted him that he desired to see Mr. Seward.

the servant responded that mr seward was very ill and that no visitors were admitted but i am a messenger from dr verdi mr seward's physician i have a prescription which i must deliver to him myself the servant still demurring the stranger without further parley pushed him aside and ascended the stairs moving to the right he proceeded toward mr seward's room and was about to enter it when mr frederick seward appeared from an opposite doorway and demanded his business he responded in the same manner as to the servant below but being met with a refusal suddenly closed the controversy by striking mr seward a severe and perhaps mortal blow across the forehead with the butt of a pistol as the first victim fell major seward another and younger son of the secretary emerged from his father's room without a word the man drew a knife and struck the major several blows with it rushing into the chamber as he did so then after dealing the nurse a horrible wound across the bowels he sprang to the bed upon which the secretary lay stabbing him once in the face and neck mr seward arose convulsively and fell from the bed to the floor turning and brandishing his knife anew the assassin fled from the room cleared the prostrate form of frederick seward in the hall descended the stairs in three leaps and was out of the door and upon his horse in an instant it is stated by a person who saw him mount that although he leaped upon his horse with most unseemly haste he trotted around the corner of the block with circumspect deliberation around both the house on tenth street and the residence of secretary seward as the fact of both tragedies became generally known crowds soon gathered so vast and tumultuous that military guards scarcely sufficed to keep them from the doors the room to which the president had been conveyed is on the first floor at the end of the hall it is only fifteen feet square with a brussels carpet papered with brown and hung with a lithograph of rosa bonheur's horse fair an engraved copy of herring's village blacksmith and two smaller ones of the stable and the barnyard from the same artist a table and bureau spread with crochet work eight chairs and the bed were all the furniture upon this bed a low walnut four poster lay the dying president the blood oozing from the frightful wound in his head and staining the pillow.

All that the medical skill of half a dozen accomplished surgeons could do had been done to prolong a life evidently ebbing from a mortal hurt.

Secretary Stanton, just arrived from the bedside of Mr. Seward, asked Surgeon General Barnes what was Mr. Lincoln's condition.

"'I fear, Mr. Stanton, that there is no hope.' oh no