Abraham Lincoln’s was not initially meant to be the only assassination on the night Booth murdered him. Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were also to kill strategic targets at the same time, with the hope of destabilizing the government. Powell and Herold were to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward and Atzerodt was to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. Powell almost managed to assassinate Seward, who was already bedridden at the time. But he was intercepted before getting to the bedside of Seward and in a subsequent scuffle his gun misfired and it became useless. He then switched to using a knife, but was only able to wound Seward before a scuffle with others in the house resulted in him having to flee. Atzerodt simply lost his courage for the thing and went out and got drunk instead. Atzerodt had initially only signed on to the ordeal when it was planned to simply kidnap the targets. Once the plan changed to murder, he lost his enthusiasm.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 21:10:29 +0000