On Friday, July 7, 1865, four conspirators tied to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were executed in Washington, D.C. The four included Mary Surratt, the first woman executed in the U.S. Also among them was Lewis Powell, and that’s where the Alabama connection comes in.
Lewis Powell was born in Randolph County on April 22, 1844, to a Baptist minister. His family moved to Florida, where Lewis joined the Confederate Army at 17. He later joined the Confederate Secret Service where he met John Surratt, who would later be involved in the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln. Surratt was the one who introduced Powell to Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Powell was assigned to take co-conspirator David Herold to help kill Secretary of State William Seward. George Atzerodt was assigned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Booth was to assassinate Lincoln.
Powell and Herold were unsuccessful in their mission to assassinate Seward, though they did badly injure his son and Seward himself. After hiding out for several days, Lewis fled back to Mary Surratt’s boardinghouse where he was eventually arrested for his part in the plot.
Lewis, 21, was eventually found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and treason and sentenced to death by hanging. His final words to a Washington minister reflect his regret for his actions:
“My course is run,” Lewis said. “I know now how foolish, vain and wholly useless it is and must have been, and were I set at liberty this morning, I should hope to be dead by sunset, as all men must hereafter point at me as a murderer.”
