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Lewis Powell [alias Lewis Payne]

Alexander Gardner American, Scottish
April 27, 1865
Not on view
At roughly the same time that John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln, Lewis Paine attempted unsuccessfully to murder Secretary of State William Seward. The son of a Baptist minister from Alabama, Paine (alias Wood, alias Hall, alias Powell) was one of at least five conspirators who planned with Booth the simultaneous assassinations of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Seward. A tall, powerful man, Paine broke into the secretary's house, struck his son Frederick with the butt of his jammed pistol, brutally stabbed the bedridden politician, and then escaped after stabbing Seward's other son, Augustus.

Four days later, Paine was caught in a sophisticated police dragnet and arrested at the H Street boarding house of fellow conspirator Mary Surratt. Detained aboard two iron-clad monitors docked together on the Potomac, Paine and seven other presumed conspirators were photographed by Alexander Gardner on April 27. Gardner made full-length, profile, and full-face portraits of each of the men, presaging the pictorial formula later adopted by law-enforcement photographers. Of the ten known photographs of Paine, six show him against a canvas awning on the monitor's deck, the others against the dented gun turret. In this portrait, Paine, towering more than a head above the deck officer, appears menacingly free of handcuffs. He was twenty years old.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Lewis Powell [alias Lewis Payne]
  • Artist: Alexander Gardner (American, Glasgow, Scotland 1821–1882 Washington, D.C.)
  • Date: April 27, 1865
  • Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
  • Dimensions: 22.4 × 17.4 cm (8 13/16 × 6 7/8 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005
  • Object Number: 2005.100.97
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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Naval Blockade
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Indians with Government Agents, Alexander Gardner American, Scottish, Albumen silver print from glass negative
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Queen Emma of Hawaii and Her Entourage, Alexander Gardner American, Scottish, Albumen silver print from glass negative
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Mill, Richmond, Virginia, Alexander Gardner American, Scottish, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Mill, Richmond, Virginia
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ca. 1865

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