Stanton broke the silence by saying:
"Now he belongs to the ages."
Booth had done his work efficiently. His principal subordinate, Payne,
had acted with equal audacity and cruelty, but not with equally fatal
result. Going to the home of the Secretary of State, who lay ill in bed,
he had forced his way to Mr. Seward's room, on the pretext of being a
messenger from the physician with a packet of medicine to deliver. The
servant at the door tried to prevent him from going up-stairs; the
Secretary's son, Frederick W. Seward, hearing the noise, stepped out
into the hall to check the intruders. Payne rushed upon him with a
pistol which missed fire, then rained blows with it upon his head, and,
grappling and struggling, the two came to the Secretary's room and fell
together through the door. Frederick Seward soon became unconscious, and
remained so for several weeks, being, perhaps, the last man in the
civilized world to learn the strange story of the night. The Secretary's
daughter and a soldier nurse were in the room. Payne struck them right
and left, wounding the nurse with his knife, and then, rushing to the
bed, began striking at the throat of the crippled statesman, inflicting
three terrible wounds on his neck and cheek. The nurse recovered himself
and seized the assassin from behind, while another son, roused by his
sister's screams, came into the room and managed at last to force him
outside the door--not, however, until he and the nurse had been stabbed
repeatedly.
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