Ben 00:01-00:02

Gil, welcome back to Crime Capsule.

Gil 00:04-00:10

Thank you very much, Ben. This has been such fun, and thank you very much for having me back again.

Ben 00:11-01:13

It is our pleasure. You know, it is so interesting looking at the history of this unique location in American political drama. What intrigues me about our story today is that if last week we were watching a soap opera, shall we say, and it was the soapiest of soap operas, This week we turn our attention to a different genre of television. We are looking actually at a sort of grand political epic, sort of uprising, revolution, rebellion, and culmination in violence, which is deeply formative in the American psyche. And we have a fascinating character who is the subject of this chapter. William Seward, his key figure. in Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. Can you just give us a quick refresher on who William Seward was and how he came to be in that particular position?

Gil 01:14-02:32

Certainly. Seward was one of the founders of the Republican Party. He had been a senator from New York and had run against Lincoln for the nomination. And it was assumed that he would get the nomination. And sometimes it's hard to imagine just how unusual it was for Lincoln to get this nomination. He was up against the stalwarts of the new Republican Party like Seward and Salmon Chase who had extensive Washington experience and Lincoln had only served one term in Congress in the 1840s. But the convention was held in Chicago where Lincoln had a lot of friends and he did get the nomination and Seward thought he was totally inadequate for what was about to happen. And Lincoln appointed several of his rivals for the nomination to be in his cabinet, including Seward. And Seward was made Secretary of State, and he thought that in that position he would control Lincoln and actually be the president while Lincoln held the title.

Ben 02:34-02:48

Which is not an uncommon arrangement in some other constitutional republics. You have president and prime minister, so to speak, and there's delegation of powers. I mean, obviously our republic was still young at the time, but it was not an unknown model, shall we say.

Gil 02:48-04:43

That's right, that's right. So Seward rented a large mansion on the east side of Lafayette Square. which people who were with us last week will remember, it had been the Washington Club, where our poor departed friend Philip Barton Key's body was hauled into. The Washington Club did not survive that incident, plus the coming of the Civil War. And Seward rented it, it was a huge place, and he could host parties there that served their own diplomatic and political purposes. Now, Lincoln and Seward got to be very close. Lincoln often walked to Seward's house to swap stories and discuss strategy with Seward, whom he could trust. You have to think about, when you think about Lafayette Square, just how small Washington was. Seward lived inside of the White House, where Lincoln could walk across to see him. And then just a couple of houses down the street, on the corner of 8th Street, was the headquarters for General George McClelland, who had his home there. And then around the corner from that was the home of Rose Greenhow, the notorious Confederate spy, who used her charms to wheedle all kinds of secret information out of Union officers and politicians and send it on to Richmond. So just right here within, you know, spitting distance of each other were these, all this happening.

Ben 04:44-05:42

You know, I want to, we'll come back to Rose in a moment, but I wanted to ask you before we do so, I was struck by your account of Lincoln's and Seward's friendship, partly because You know, it's often been said that the presidency of the United States is the loneliest job in the world, right? And someone is always out to either make a deal with you or to use your position against you or to take your job or to leverage something some way. And when you wrote that they had a very special relationship and one deeply rooted in trust, I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about that, because it was almost like a kind of an oasis in the desert of what Lincoln must have been feeling, you know? I mean, he's surrounded by sort of enemies and rivals, you know, everywhere he looks, and yet here is this one individual, and here's this one man with whom he can actually have a genuine relationship.

Gil 05:42-06:40

That's right, and Lincoln didn't drink and Seward did, so the… Right, right. I don't even think Lincoln smoked when Seward loved his cigars. But they developed this companionship, and one of the things that I thought was particularly interesting was that they were the only cabinet members who loved the theater. Think about that. And in March 1865, Edwin Booth, who was a great actor, one of the great actors of his time, and the brother of John Wilkes Booth, he performed in Washington and both Lincoln and Seward attended several of his performances. And on March 11th, Seward entertained Booth at his home, and Lincoln was disappointed he could not attend. Think about that, the juxtaposition of these people all getting together at the same time.

Ben 06:40-06:55

It's incredibly just small, this society, and close-knit, and it makes you wonder if they ever felt like they could escape, or if they had felt like they had found their true calling and community. It's sort of an interesting tension of which you described there.

Gil 06:56-07:18

I certainly would recommend that you read the book Seward Lincoln's Indispensable Man by Walter Starr, which I'm sure gets deeply into this. And unfortunately, I didn't pull up all that stuff to get deeper into what you're asking about, but I'll bet it's in that book. It's a terrific book.

Ben 07:19-08:10

No, I appreciate the recommendation. Absolutely. Now, we spoke briefly about a lady named Rose Greenhill, and you have an interesting claim in this chapter of your book, Gil. You suggest that to understand William Seward at this point in his life, the war has broken out, right? To understand William Seward's commitments, his allegiances, the difficulties of doing his job, it is actually not possible to understand him fully unless we take a look first at Rose Greenhough and about what she was doing at the time and her efforts in this small Washington circle as a Confederate spy. Can you just give us a little bit of a sense of who she was, how she came to be so prominent in these circles?

Gil 08:12-08:59

Yes, I think I can. Growing up, she had become a good friend of John C. Calhoun, who pretty much led the secession movement. Before he died, he was the leading proponent of secession. So she became an ardent secessionist. And the, so she, Washington at the time, you remember, it was a southern city. It was between two slave states. It was only by dint of Lincoln's personality and commitment that Maryland did not secede.

Ben 09:01-09:34

I think we think, if I can just say real quick, I think there's a little bit of a popular imagination that all the secessionists were in the South and the South only, and particularly in the Deep South, when in fact, as you write, people with secessionist tendencies were just traipsing through the halls of Washington on a regular basis. They were cheek by jowl. They were attending the same parties. It was an open debate in the 1850s before the actual conflict broke out. And here she was being heavily influenced by those who were espousing secessionist ideas. And she bought them, Hochlein and Sinker.

Gil 09:41-10:41

So, I mean, even New York City was threatening to secede. The mayor of New York was a supporter of the South. So, Fernando Wood. So, as the war started, Rose had this whole of fellow spies who would give her information. Plus she was extraordinarily good at getting information out of people. Even, since I don't have it in front of me, I won't say his name, but one of Lincoln's cabinet members might have given her information. And she knew and was able to get to the south the exact date of when the Battle of Bull Run would start.

Ben 10:41-10:42

Manassas, absolutely.

Gil 10:42-11:01

Manassas. And so when Jefferson Davis got that information, he was able to start sending troops, amassing them at Manassas to confront the Union invasion.

Ben 11:01-12:05

Well, and any student of the Civil War knows that the hopes for the Union Army were to crush this thing as soon as possible. They thought that if there was to be, you know, an insurrection, a rebellion, that their best hope was to just completely dispense with it in its first few months and get back to the business of you know, sort of running the nation, so forth. And because of, partly because of this Confederate spies activity in bolstering the Confederate troops at Manassas, that hope was quashed. And in fact, we realized that we were settling in for a string of early Confederate victories that would set the tone for the first two years. And this was going to be a much longer conflict than anyone had previously thought. It's remarkable to think that her efforts, you know, we think about tipping points and butterfly effects, right? Her efforts in helping this battle sort of go towards the Confederacy may have changed the entire shape of the war. That's not an overstatement. If you look at the sort of the cause and effect as it played out.

Gil 12:05-13:12

It's true. That is true. And the story in the book, though, and how she finally got caught was Alan Pinkerton, who was the detective that Lincoln and to try to figure out what was going on with spying and all. And he got on to this. he was outside of a greenhouse home at night and he saw a union officer go in and he peered in through the window and saw him exchange information with her and then go into the back room for whatever people do in the back room. I wonder. And when he left Pinkerton chased after this guy and to much of his chagrin he chased him right into the I think the the headquarters for the Washington garrison and realized this was the guy who was running the defense of Washington.

Ben 13:13-13:41

You know, she has this great line when she's finally caught. I love this moment in your book. She says, you know, she's sort of being held before a military commission, and she says, they ask her, what are her sources? And she has this sort of very innocent reply. I mean, she says, if Mr. Lincoln's friends were to pour into my ears such important information, am I to be held responsible? Playing the Uno reverse card, you know, right there.

Gil 13:43-13:53

Even after she was arrested and put in prison on Capitol Hill, she kept getting information out. through the wires.

Ben 13:54-13:54

Yeah.

Ben 13:54-14:35

And we'll come back to why that complicated Seward's life, you know, in a second. But I have to ask you, before we do so, she meets a horrible end. I mean, it is – I was actually surprised when I read your book, Gil, when – because it was the first I'd ever read deeply into her life. I'd never spent much time with her before. But certainly the way that she died was was ghastly, and I don't believe in karma, you know, in the sort of strict sense, but it did make me wonder. I mean, she did not get to live out peacefully with her ill-gotten gains like some others. She didn't get a cushy appointment to Spain, if you know what I mean, like last week.

Gil 14:36-15:00

She literally went down with the ship. She was, I believe, she was coming back She was a blockade runner coming back with some gold, I believe, for the South and the ship went down and she had the gold on her, I think, and she went down and drowned.

Ben 15:01-15:10

And it was the gold that was literally woven into her clothes or her belt or something and that's what weighed her down so that she couldn't swim when the boat capsized.

Gil 15:10-15:10

That's right.

Ben 15:12-15:14

Talk about a metaphor for greed, right?

Gil 15:15-15:26

You know, was it greed or was it that she was delivering gold to the Confederacy that desperately needed hard currency? I don't know.

Ben 15:27-15:47

Yeah, no, it's a great question. It is a great question. But at this time, I mean, the war is Changing shape rapidly and Seward is trying he's struggling to keep up with you know the different developments and so forth and Unbeknownst to anybody as as you write there's a conspiracy That's being formed.

Gil 15:47-20:23

That's right. So we're going to get to the To the conspiracy now. Yeah so We're getting, as you know, John Wilkes Booth was the instigator of this conspiracy. His first plan was to kidnap Lincoln. Spirit him to the south and hold him for ransom to end the war on southern terms. Then the war ended. So he had this group of conspirators with him and he came up with a new plan, which was to assassinate Lincoln and Vice President Andrew Johnson and Seward. So he thought he would decapitate the whole head of the northern government. So when, as things were progressing here, the war was ending and there was a lot going on in Lafayette Square in these final days. Lincoln went down to Richmond right after the city had been, the Confederates had evacuated the city. He gave an oration from the, from the second floor of the White House to the big crowd, cheering crowd, when he talked about black suffrages, suffrage, and John Willis Booth was in that crowd and he said, that's it, he's gonna die. Now, so, the, Just trying to get the sequence of events here. While Lincoln was visiting Richmond, Seward and his son Frederick and his sister Fanny and a friend set out for a carriage ride. When the carriage door kept opening, Seward asked the driver to get out and fix it. That startled the horses and they began to run. Frederick jumped out to try to stop him and he fell to the ground. Seward jumped out next and he fell on his right side, breaking his arm close to his shoulder and fracturing his jaw on both sides.

A cast was put on his arm and his jaw was wired shut. He was close to death. When Lincoln returned to Washington from Richmond, he rested C. Seward in his third floor bedroom, and he was shocked to see his condition, and lay down with him in his bed to tell him what had happened in Richmond. When Seward fell asleep, Lincoln quietly left. So that gives you an idea of their relationship.

They were very close. That gets us to who was Lewis Powell. He was a fellow conspirator and he had enlisted in the Confederate Army at the start of the war and he was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. After recovering from his wounds, he escaped and he headed south back to join Mosby's Rangers. But when it became clear the war was lost, he deserted. And he met Booth in Baltimore. And the actor was impressed with Powell's size, strength, and determination, and thought he would fit in well with his plan to kidnap Lincoln. But as we said, the plans had changed. And so they were changed so that they would, as we said, that Powell would be in charge of murdering Seward. And that night Lincoln made his last stop on Lafayette Square to pick up Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee who would accompany him and Mary to the theater. So that was the last stop that Lincoln made was in Lafayette Square.

Ben 20:24-20:45

It was interesting to me, Gil, I mean, as we get to this sort of pivotal moment of Lincoln's assassination, it was interesting to me that the three conspirators that you described, you know, Booth and Axel and Powell, once they part ways, none of them are going to be able to know whether the other was successful.

Gil 20:45-20:46

That's right.

Ben 20:46-21:00

You know, and it's sort of like, there's this interesting triply braided story there, which the effects of which are all unknown to all of the participants until the aftermath. So, it's kind of a neat narrative moment.

Gil 21:01-21:02

Yes, no cell phones.

Ben 21:03-21:04

No, none of those.

Gil 21:06-21:11

What's also kind of interesting is there's very little light, so you think about how dark Lafayette Square was.

Ben 21:12-21:12

Absolutely.

Gil 21:15-23:56

So that evening Powell waited in the shadows on Lafayette Square. with his fellow conspirator David Harold and they knew about Lincoln's accident and so they knew he would be home. So at 10 p.m. the time that he was told that Booth was going to shoot Lincoln, Powell knocked on Seward's door and told the servant that they were sent by Seward's doctor to deliver medicine. And he'd hold up a small bag as a prop. He insisted he had to deliver it personally. And when the servant protested, Powell pushed him aside and headed up the stairs. But which room?

This was a big mansion. So Powell met Seward's son, Frederick, and again insisted he deliver the packets personally. And Fannie, who was in the room with Seward, along with a male nurse named George Robinson, they heard the commotion and thought maybe Lincoln could be visiting. She came out of the room. And Pal asked, is the secretary asleep? And Fannie turned around and looked back at the room and said, almost. And now Pal knew exactly where Seward was. He turned as though he was leaving, but then he pulled out his Navy revolver and pulled the trigger at Frederick. When the gun misfired, he bashed Frederick over the head and headed up the stairs and rushed into Seward's room with the revolver in one hand and a Bowie knife in the other. Robinson, the nurse, grabbed Powell who pushed him aside and slashed him with a knife. Seward awoke with a start and tried feebly to defend Fanny. Powell jumped on top of him, pressing him into the bed with one arm and stabbing him over and over with the other, slashing his face and neck. Robinson tackled Powell and was joined in the fight by Seward's other son, Augustus. Pal looked into Augustus's eyes and yelled, I'm mad, I'm mad. Then he rushed down the stairs and out of the house. Fanny ran back at the room and found her father in a mass of bloody sheets. Oh my God, father's dead, she screamed. But Seward was not dead. While badly disfigured, he may have been saved by the cast on his arm and the wire holding his jaws together. And Powell was hanged with the other conspirators. And Seward stayed on as Secretary of State. And he pushed through the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $5 million.

Ben 23:58-24:11

It is remarkable to think that a stroke of such bad luck, this accident in a carriage, could have become the stroke of good luck which saved his life down the road. That's just remarkable.

Gil 24:11-24:36

That's right. And another stroke of good luck was he was still there to do the deal with Russia. And think if that had not happened, Russians would have been right up against Canada and the United States throughout the Cold War and today with an aggressive Vladimir Putin. That's right. That was an unusual turn of events that we're still talking about today.

Ben 24:38-25:01

You know, he had two legacies there. It was called Seward's Folly, but we now understand it to be anything but a folly. It was an incredibly strategic acquisition, both for, you know, control of the territory, but also control of, you know, whatever resources and minerals and North Sea passage, right, is available to us now.

Gil 25:01-25:02

A lot of gold.

Ben 25:03-25:11

Lot of gold, lot of gold. I'm very hopeful that, you know, historians of the future will cease to call it Seward's Folly because it has proven to be anything but.

Gil 25:11-25:46

That's right. So, but I want to say one of the amazing things I learned that after Seward left as Secretary of State, he returned to his home in Auburn, New York. And when I visited there just a few years ago, I was told that the Seward family kept everything. including the bloody sheets. You could go and, you know, I didn't ask them to get them out, but they are stored away in the house. We would keep them, but they kept everything.

Ben 25:47-27:04

remarkable. And Powell was hanged, as we know. He was executed, you know, with the other conspirators, but remarkable story. And, you know, sometimes I think we, in all of the drama surrounding Lincoln, we often gloss over those around him. It's very easy to just sort of focus on him and not pay attention to all those in the rest of his cabinet who made the successful, you know, winning of the Civil War possible, and Seward absolutely was right in that number. Now, it's so funny, Gil, because Seward, his other legacy, which many folks are not aware of, has just come back up in the news very recently, as we are recording here. It turns out that of all people, William Seward was the first to commission a study for the surveying and assessment of the island of Greenland for potential acquisition by the United States in due course. And as you know, Greenland's been back in the news. For a very familiar reason.

Gil 27:07-27:25

That is interesting. They just raised that. I was thinking back then these territories were traded around among the colonial powers. I was thinking about, I believe Denmark sold the Virgin Islands to the United States in 1914. I believe that story.

Ben 27:29-27:51

Yep. Lots of acquisitions over those later decades. The Marianas and Guam and so many different little island chains. But just so funny that Greenland is on everybody's mind right now and we have William Seward to thank for getting the ball rolling 150, 60, 70 years ago. That's a great story.

Gil 27:51-27:53

I had not heard that. That is fantastic.

Ben 27:54-28:17

Maybe that'll be the subject of your next freelance piece is that the way that history rhymes with respect to William Seward there. But let me ask you this, as far as legacies go, what would you say, just taking a step back and kind of looking at Lafayette Square broadly, what would you say is the legacy that Lafayette Square has left for the nation at this point?

Gil 28:19-29:54

Well, that's a good question. As we say, it has changed so much. It's now just office buildings surrounding a wonderful green space. For a long time, it was just a place where people would go and relax. There were tables set up where you could play chess or checkers. And people would have their lunch there. But it's also a place where protest has been going on, starting, oddly enough, with the women's suffrage movement, which is a whole other story. They started the concept of the White House protest, which is going on today. And there's one small group who have been carrying on a round-the-clock protest on Lafayette Square right across from the White House against nuclear war and they've been doing it 24 hours a day seven days a week every since 1981 Wow, and they're still there and as some of you know, the the statue of Lafayette is often one corner of the park but as one Washington Post reporter said you could take Lafayette's statue out of the park and no one would notice. But if you took this protest out, everybody would say, what happened? Because it's such an institution. But there's always somebody with a megalhorn. It's a little bit obnoxious.

Ben 29:54-30:01

A little bit like Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park in London, almost. Someone has the right to protest there at all times.

Gil 30:01-31:23

Of course, after the Oklahoma City bombing they closed Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House because they figured out that you could put a Fertilizer truck and blow it up there and it would really cause a lot of damage to the White House so it's It's no longer a thoroughfare. So you got people sometimes rollerblading and bicycling through there walking But it's a But recently, more and more, it's shut down out of security. As you know, in 2020, May, June 2020, there was a big protest there in which Trump ordered his police and guards to push the protesters out. And the park is often closed to people coming through it now. So this wonderful park sometimes is not available to people walking through it. which is very sad. And the fence is all set up ready to block it off at a moment's notice if something's going on.

Ben 31:25-31:57

Well, it certainly stands in a long history of witnessing great changes in our country's history. makeup and So long as we have even though the park may have shifted slightly in its access and and so forth today I mean the fact that it has seen all these things stands as lasting testament and it's been so interesting to read about such a unique place in our nation's capital through through your book and Such a truly iconic place. It's been great. I

Gil 31:58-32:36

When you think about it, there's the St. John's Episcopal Church there. It was the first building built on Lafayette Square in 1816. And it chimes the hour now, and it's been doing that since 1816. And then the movie about Lincoln, that recent one, They made a big deal about the sound of the bells because that was such a big part of the legacy of the park and what's been around it.

Ben 32:36-33:13

Yeah, I was very grateful that you mentioned that this is this anniversary year of its naming. We're 200 anniversary, 200th year anniversary of its naming. And it just reminds me, Gil, that, you know, there is much to be grateful for, but much to be watchful for as well. And it seems like such a fitting, fitting tribute to its first two centuries. And we certainly hope for an equally exciting and fascinating next two centuries to come. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about it and to share some of these remarkable encounters and episodes. If folks wanted to pick up a copy of your book, what would be the best place for them to do so?

Gil 33:14-33:35

Well, of course, you can get it through the History Press. It is on Amazon. Both of my books are on Amazon. If you just type in Gil Klein, K-L-E-I-N, both books will pop up on Amazon. And if you stop by the National Press Club, you can get the book on the Press Club at the front counter.

Ben 33:36-33:48

Even better. Get it in person and maybe they'll be lucky enough to get it signed. Thank you so much, Gil. This has been such a pleasure. I've enjoyed traveling to the nation's capital with you and we will look forward to doing it again soon.

Gil 33:49-33:50

Good. Thank you so much.