Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents (6 page)

But the spur on Booth’s boot caught on the corner of a framed portrait of George Washington, and he landed awkwardly, breaking his left leg just above the ankle.

Booth managed to rise to his feet and then triumphantly shouted the state motto of Virginia, “Sic semper tyrannis!” which in Latin means, “Thus always to tyrants!”

“The South is avenged!” he added before running backstage, swinging wildly with his knife at anyone in his way. “I have done it!” Booth was heard to say as he made his escape.

Meanwhile, two of Booth’s accomplices, the burly, tall, young veteran Confederate soldier, Lewis Powell, and a local assistant pharmacist named David Herold, were outside the home of Secretary of State William Seward.

Seward was already gravely injured from a near-fatal carriage accident just nine days earlier. With a metal apparatus holding his broken jaw in place, he lay recuperating in a bedroom on the third floor, attended to by his daughter Fanny and military nurse George Robinson.

Herold waited outside to guide their escape, but had prepared for Powell an authentic-looking medical delivery package. Powell told the young servant William Bell, who answered the front door, that he had come from Seward’s doctor with medicine he must deliver to the secretary.

Though Bell repeatedly insisted that Powell leave the package with him, Powell pushed past him to the stairs, claiming it must be delivered in person. Minutes of bickering ensued, with Powell repeatedly saying, “I must go up.”

At the top of the stairs, the Seward’s son Frederick, who was his assistant secretary of state, confronted the stranger and told him to hand over the medicine or leave.

Powell relented, turning to leave, with Bell leading him toward the door.

But suddenly, turning back toward Frederick Seward, Powell removed a revolver from his coat, aimed, and pulled the trigger. A click was heard, but the gun had misfired.

Powell then smashed his gun over Frederick Seward’s head, managing to both break the gun and crack the younger Seward’s skull in two places.

At this point William Bell ran out into the street for help, screaming, “Murder! Murder!” Fearing the plan was botched, Herold panicked and fled on his horse, leaving Powell to his own devices.

Powell took a knife from his coat and burst into the secretary of state’s darkened bedroom, pushing his frail daughter Fanny out of the way, and hitting nurse Robinson in the forehead with his knife.