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Is it spelled "Payne" or "Paine"? Bibliomaniac15 02:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Removed nonsense that his youth, and "physical attractivenees" in photographs, created unique deal of attention towards him, while in custody. No need for citation. Dr. Dan 02:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
On the Mary Surratt page, they say that "The conspirators dropped about five or six feet, which killed Herold and Atzerodt instantly, but failed to kill Powell and Surratt, who both slowly strangled to death over five minutes."
However, this page claims that:
"Mary Surratt died instantly with a broken neck. David Herold gave a brief shudder and urinated. George Atzerodt, whose neck did not break upon impact, also shuddered for several minutes before dying"
Please get the facts Wikipedia! This in unacceptable! Thegargoylevine (talk) 06:12, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Lincoln conspirators execution2.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on July 7, 2011. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2011-07-07. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! howcheng {chat} 08:02, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved to Lewis Powell (conspirator). Favonian (talk) 19:20, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Lewis Powell (assassin) → Lewis Powell (Lincoln conspirator) – Title does not adhere to a WP:NPOV, in this case because it is not a factual or accurate description. Powell made an assassination attempt, as described in the article. By failing to make a kill he failed to become an assassin. Due to an existing disambig page for Lewis Powell and Lewis Powell (attempted assassin) being too long, I motion for Lewis Powell (Lincoln conspirator) to be the new title, as is the case with Samuel Arnold (Lincoln conspirator). Ma®©usBritish[chat] 17:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I am deeply bothered as to why Lewis is listed here as an assassin. He never succeeded in assassinating anyone. Seward didn't die from his wounds. Although he was convicted, he never technically assassinated anyone. His listing should be changed to Conspirator. Fdnybrat (talk) 04:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
The Mary Suratt page states that she denied knowing Lewis Paine (Powell) When I studied this years ago I read that Lewis was infact a boarder in her Boarding House. This article says Paine defended her as innocent. In my studies, there was a connection between her brother and William Stanton, who had every reason to want Lincoln out of the way. I have always felt that she might actually be the most guilty of the group. Suecoon December 1, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suecoon (talk • contribs) 21:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Do we have any clue as to why Powell was the only person who proclaimed Surratt's innocence? Everyone else says she was a chronic liar and guilty as hell. Valetude (talk) 14:27, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
In this article (Lewis Powell (conspirator)) it states that during his execution
There are numerous sources that indicate that this occurred not once but twice; among them:
For the sake of historical accuracy, I would like to change this to read:
or
of course with the appropriate citations. Is there anyone who would object to my making this correction? If so then please indicate why you would object.
Richard27182 (talk) 13:14, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
I'd write it as "Sources differ as to whether he raised his legs into a sitting position once or twice", and then add the existing source and your source at the end of the sentence. - Tim1965 (talk) 14:32, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi Tim1965. This has absolutely nothing to do with what we discussed about the number of Lewis Powell's leg lifts. (That's why I started this new section.) Anyway while reviewing the article (before I made any changes) I noticed that there were some "Invalid <ref> tag; name" errors that appear in the references. Something to do with "FOOTNOTELeonard2004." They first appear with the August 2014 edits. I thought you might want to take a look at it. (And thank you again for your help with the previous matter.)
Richard27182 (talk) 05:57, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
The artificial color in the photo adds nothing to the article. If anything it actually detracts from it by looking weird and out of place. The subject of the article and photo lived in the mid 1800's. They did not take color photos at that time, and having the photo appear in color will be distracting (and possibly even confusing) to the reader.
The original black and white photo would probably benefit from being cropped similar to the colorized version. If anyone wishes to contribute to the article by improving the photo, I would suggest cropping the original black and white photo (and keeping it black and white.)
Richard27182 (talk) 09:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
You guys linked to "mule" but you can't link to Seward, Lincoln or numerous other topics that might actually be useful for the reader? This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine about Wikipedia. 174.108.61.203 (talk) 01:02, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
In this article it is claimed that Powell fired at F. Seward's chest. In the pages on both F. Seward and George Robinson it is stated the gun was pointed at Seward's head. No citations are given anywhere. John Decker NZ (talk) 03:26, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
It is stated at the start (under killings) that there was one victim. Who? John Decker NZ (talk) 03:27, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Hmm, shame I can't delete this.. I presume the victim was Lincoln. I initially assumed the reference to mean that Powell had killed someone. I now presume the victim reference is to the conspiracy, not the conspirator himself. John Decker NZ (talk) 03:34, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
John Surratt's page says "On March 17, 1865, Surratt and Booth, along with their comrades, waited in ambush for Lincoln's carriage to leave the Campbell General Hospital and return to Washington. However, Lincoln had changed his mind and remained in Washington."
Powell's page says "When Booth arrived at the Soldier's Home, he learned that Lincoln had decided to address a group of Indiana soldiers at a downtown hotel instead.[55] Powell and the other conspirators never left the tavern." - John Decker NZ (talk) 03:47, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Link needed for George F Robinson's wiki page John Decker NZ (talk) 03:26, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
Very useful John Decker NZ (talk) 10:17, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Fine, done it. John Decker NZ (talk) 10:45, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
I realize someone's but a lot of effort into this article, but the overall effect is that it's grotesquely overdetailed to the point of being almost completely unreadable. For example:
Construction of the gallows near the northeast corner of the Arsenal courtyard began immediately on July 5 after the execution order was signed. They were 12 feet (3.7 m) high and the platform was about 20 square feet (1.9 m2) in size. Captain Christian Rath, who oversaw the preparations for the executions, made the nooses. He tested the nooses that night by tying them to a tree limb and a bag of buckshot, then tossing the bag to the ground (the ropes held). Government officials decided to have the dead buried on site at the Arsenal, to avoid despoilation of the graves or their transformation into a Confederate shrine. Superstitious civilian workers did not want to dig the graves, so Rath asked for volunteers among the soldiers at the Arsenal and received more help than he needed. The graves, which lay against the east wall of the Arsenal, were 4 feet (1.2 m) deep, 7 feet (2.1 m) long, and 3 feet (0.91 m) wide.
Really? The height of the gallows? Who made the nooses and tested the ropes? (Using buckshot, in case you were wondering.) The dimensions of the graves?
Are you wondering about what happened to the bodies (not just Powell's, but all of them)? You're in luck!
Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred.[180][181][190] The bodies were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes,[181][187][194] and began to be cut down at 1:53 p.m.[180] A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud.[180] He was reprimanded, and the other bodies cut down more gently.[180] Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's.[180] Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 p.m.[180]Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall.[195][180] The manacles and cloth bindings were removed (but not the white execution masks), and the bodies were placed into the gun box coffins.[180][181] The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R.A. Watts,[187] and inserted into a glass vial (which was placed into the coffin).[181] Powell and the other executed co-conspirators (along with that of John Wilkes Booth) were buried against the east wall of the prison yard at the Washington Arsenal, just a few feet from the gallows where they were hanged.[181] A white picket fence marked the burial site.[196]
In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of the executed lay. On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in the basement of Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault.[196][197] In February 1869, after much pleading from the Booths and Surratts, President Johnson agreed to turn the bodies of the co-conspirators over to their families.[196]
There is some dispute about what happened next. Historian Betty Ownsbey says that Powell's family was contacted, and that they wished to reclaim the remains. But no attempt to do so was made.[198] Historian Richard Bak believes that Powell's remains were interred at Graceland Cemetery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. When Graceland Cemetery closed and was sold for housing lots, Powell's remains were disinterred and reburied at Holmead's Burying Ground. According to Powell family legend, Bak says, the family made the trip to Washington in 1871 to retrieve Lewis' remains. The family discovered that the skull was missing, but reclaimed the rest of their son's body. On the way back to Florida, George Powell fell ill with pneumonia in North Carolina. Lewis Powell's remains were temporarily interred on a nearby farm, and remained there for eight years. In 1879, the remains were retrieved and a headless corpse was buried at Geneva Cemetery in Geneva, Florida.[199] Betty Ownsbey relates this story as well, but says it is nothing more than a fanciful story.[196] She argues that the events could not have occurred as related by family members, for the city of Washington, D.C., would have issued a disinterment order as well as issued a receipt for the body—neither of which occurred.[200] There are also other reasons to believe the family legend is inaccurate. Graceland Cemetery (a burial ground primarily for African Americans) did not open until 1872, but Powell was reburied before that. Graceland closed in 1894,[201] a date which does not fit with the date of the Holmead's burial as related by Bak or Ownsbey.[p][202]
Other documents describe an alternative series of events. According to this version, Powell's family declined to retrieve the body, at which point Powell was buried at Holmead's Burying Ground[203] in either June 1869[204] or February 1870.[205] A.H. Gawler of Gawler's Funeral Home handled the reburial. The burial site was unmarked, and only Gawler and a few Army personnel knew where Powell was interred at Holmead's.[205] Holmead's closed in 1874, and for the next decade bodies were disinterred and reburied elsewhere. Family members and friends reclaimed about 1,000 bodies. The remains of 4,200 Caucasians were removed to Rock Creek Cemetery, while several hundred African American remains were reinterred at Graceland Cemetery.[206] According to the Washington Evening Star newspaper, Powell's body was exhumed by Gawler's on December 16, 1884. The identifying glass vial was recovered, but the paper it was supposed to contain was missing.[207] Wesley Pippenger, a historian who has studied Holmead's Burying Ground, asserts that Powell's remains were buried at Graceland Cemetery.[208][q] With unclaimed white remains at Graceland moved to mass graves at Rock Creek Cemetery,[206] Powell's remains may lay there.
Powell biographer Betty Ownsbey suggests a third sequence of events. She argues Powell was interred at Graceland Cemetery, but that his remains were disinterred some time between 1870 and 1884 and moved to Holmead's Burying Ground. Powell's remains were disinterred in 1884, and buried in a mass grave in Section K, Lot 23, at Rock Creek Cemetery.[209]
In 1991, a Smithsonian Institution researcher discovered Powell's skull in the museum's Native American skull collection.[210] After extensive research, Smithsonian and U.S. Army investigators came to believe that A.H. Gawler removed the skull at the time of its 1869/1870 interment. The skull was then donated in 1885 to the Army Medical Museum. At that time, it was stenciled with the accession number 2244 and the capital letter "P". The museum's documentation shows that the skull came from "Payne", a criminal who had been executed by hanging. The Army gave the skull to the Smithsonian on May 7, 1898, and somehow it became mixed with the Native American collection.[211]
The Smithsonian contacted Powell's nearest living relative, his 70-year-old great-niece Helen Alderman, who requested that the skull be turned over to her.[211] Verification of Alderman's relationship took two years. On November 12, 1994, Lewis Powell's skull was buried next to the grave of his mother, Caroline Patience Powell, at Geneva Cemetery.[210]
"The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R.A. Watts" – is including the name of the Acting Assistant Adjutant who wrote the names on the bits of paper some kind of joke? It's unreal. EEng 03:52, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
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There are a number of sentences in this article that are not just cited once, not just twice, not even thrice, but more than that, which is really overkill. Please trim some of these where possible. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 00:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
For unknown reasons the restored albumen print of the execution had been replaced with one of Alexander Gardner's glass plate negatives. The albumen print is a featured picture at Wikipedia and deserved discussion prior to replacement. More to the point, with regard to Lewis Powell in particular that image speaks to a minor disagreement among historians about the conspirators' execution.
The matter at issue was which conspirator survived longest.
There were two ways to die by hanging, one easier than the other. The more humane of the two was by severing the spine. Experienced executioners were expected to place the noose for that purpose. The other way was strangulation. Written accounts assert that Lewis Powell shook the noose out of position after the hangman had set it. Other written accounts claim that Powell struggled several minutes while he was hanging. The only surviving photograph that was taken nearest the moment when the execution was carried out is this albumen print, recorded in the Library of Congress image files as "the drop."
Historians parsing the written accounts have debated whether Lewis Powell or George Atzerodt survived the longest.
It's a delicate line to tread in this regard, but this digitally restored FP (and its source file) address that debate in ways no glass plate negative could hope to.
Mid-nineteenth century photographic technology was a tradeoff between high resolution/slow exposure glass plate negatives, or lower resolution/faster exposure albumen prints.
For that reason Gardner, the official photographer of the execution, kept two cameras ready: one for glass plate negatives and a separate one for faster albumen photography.
This was as close as the tech of the era could get to what we now think of as *the action shot.*
So the key thing, looking in at full resolution, is that in this albumen print Lewis Powell's motion blur minimizes on his center of gravity.
For all three of the other conspirators, that motion blur minimizes on the scaffold itself.
This suggests that at the moment the photograph was taken, Powell was the only one of the four still alive.
One treads lightly on such matters as an encyclopedia editor, since of course Wikipedia is a republisher of information rather than a publisher.
Yet I happen to be the editor of this image (on a new account for archaic password reasons), and happened to notice that this FP image had been supplanted even at the biography where it was most germane.
WP software does not make it obvious when an image has passed FP, or for what reasons.
While it was a delicate matter a decade ago to disclose the full scope of reasons why this image deserved to be featured, it seems best to leave readers to surmise for themselves--either through the restored image itself of through the linked source images--what the merits are about that (entirely text-based) debate. Durova 2 (talk) 23:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
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