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Just as Brutus had been honored for slaying the tyrant Julius Caesar, Booth believed he would be exalted for killing an even “greater tyrant.” Assassinating Lincoln would not be enough. “Booth knew,” his biographer observes, “that in the end, the Brutus conspiracy was foiled by Marc Antony, whose famous oration made outlaws of the assassins and a martyr of Caesar.” William Henry Seward, Lincoln’s Mark Antony, must not live. Finally, to throw the entire North into disarray, the vice president must die as well. The triple assassinations were set for 10:15 p.m.

STILL BEDRIDDEN, Seward had enjoyed his best day since his nearly fatal carriage accident nine days earlier. Fanny Seward noted in her diary that he had slept well the previous night and had taken “solid food for the first time.” In the afternoon, he had “listened with a look of pleasure to the narrative of the events of the Cabinet meeting,” which Fred, as assistant secretary, had attended in his father’s stead. Later in the afternoon, he had listened to Fanny’s reading of “Enoch Arden” and remarked on how much he enjoyed it.

The three-story house was full of people. The entire family, except Will and Jenny, were there—Frances, Augustus, Fred, Anna, and Fanny. In addition to the half-dozen household servants and the State Department messenger rooming on the third floor, two soldiers had been assigned by Stanton to stay with Seward. In the early evening, Edwin Stanton had stopped by to check on his friend and colleague. He stayed for a while, chatting with other visitors until martial music in the air reminded him that War Department employees had planned on serenading him that night at his home six blocks away.

After all the guests left, “the quiet arrangements for the night” began. To ensure that Seward was never left alone, the family members had taken turns sitting by his bed. That night Fanny was scheduled to stay with him until 11 p.m., when her brother Gus would relieve her. George Robinson, one of the soldiers whom Stanton had detailed to the household, was standing by. Shortly after 10 p.m., Fanny noticed that her father was falling asleep. She closed the pages of the Legends of Charlemagne, turned down the gas lamps, and took a seat on the opposite side of the bed.

Fred Seward later wrote that “there seemed nothing unusual in the occurrence, when a tall, well dressed, but unknown man presented himself” at the door. Powell told the servant who answered the bell that he had some medicine for Mr. Seward and had been instructed by his physician to deliver it in person. “I told him he could not go up,” the servant later testified, “that if he would give me the medicine, I would tell Mr. Seward how to take it.” Powell was so insistent that the boy stepped aside. When he reached the landing, Fred Seward stopped him. “My father is asleep; give me the medicine and the directions; I will take them to him.” Powell argued that he must deliver it in person, but Fred refused.

At this point, Fred recalled, the intruder “stood apparently irresolute.” He began to head down the stairs, then “suddenly turning again, he sprang up and forward, having drawn a Navy revolver, which he levelled, with a muttered oath, at my head, and pulled the trigger.” This was the last memory Fred would have of that night. The pistol misfired, but Powell brought it down so savagely that Fred’s skull was crushed in two places, exposing his brain and rendering him unconscious.

Hearing the disturbance, Private Robinson ran to the door from Seward’s bedside. The moment the door was opened, Powell rushed inside, brandishing his now broken pistol in one hand and a large knife in the other. He slashed Robinson in the forehead with his knife, knocking him “partially down,” and headed toward Seward. Fanny ran beside Powell, begging him not to kill her father. When Seward heard the word “kill,” he awakened, affording him “one glimpse of the assassin’s face bending over” before the large bowie knife plunged into his neck and face, severing his cheek so