we
trust, be spared at this crisis to the Union, he may by
gentle measures restore tranquillity, and perhaps, before his
term of office expires, calm in some degree the animosities
which have been raised by these years of war[1290]."

Nor was this insincere, for Seward had, first in the estimate of British
statesmen, more slowly in the press and with the public, come to be
regarded in an aspect far different from that with which he was
generally viewed in 1861. There was real anxiety at the reports of
Seward's accident, but when, in less than a week, there was received
also the news of the assassination of Lincoln and of the brutal attack
on Seward, all England united in expressions of sympathy and horror.
"Few events of the present century," wrote Adams, "have created such
general consternation and indignation[1291]."

In Ford's Theatre on the evening of April 14, Lincoln was shot by Booth,
a fanatical Southerner, who had gained entrance to the box where the
President was sitting. Lincoln died early the next morning. On the same
evening, at about ten o'clock, an unknown man was admitted to Seward's
house on the plea that he had a message from the physician, passed
upstairs, but was stopped by Seward's son at the door of the sick room.
Beating the son into semi-unconsciousness with a revolver which had
missed fire, the stranger burst open the door, attacked the Secretary as
he lay in bed with a bowie-knife, slashing at his throat, until Seward
rolled off the bed to the floor. Seward's throat was "cut on both sides,
his right cheek nearly severed from his face"; his life was saved,
probably, because of an iron frame worn to support the jaw fractured in
the runaway accident nine days before[1292]. The assailant fought his
way out of the house and escaped. For some days Seward's life was
despaired of, whether from his injuries or from shock.

These tragic occurrences were the outcome of a revengeful spirit in the
hearts of a few extreme Southerners, and in no sense represented the
feeling of the South. It was inevitable, however, that abroad so
horrible a crime should react both to the detriment of the Confederacy
and to the advantage of the North. Sympathy with the North took the form
of a sudden exaltation of the personality of Lincoln, bringing out
characterizations of the man far different from those which had been his
earlier in the war. The presence of a "rural attorney" in the
Presidential off