attendant nurse to Mr. Seward, was in an adjoining room,
and on hearing the noise in the hall opened the door, where he
found Payne close up to it. As soon as the door was opened, he
struck Robinson in the forehead with a knife, knocking him
partially down, and pressed past him to the bed of Mr. Seward,
where he leaned over it and struck him three times in the neck
with his dagger.

Mr. Seward had been out riding shortly before the fatal day,
and had been thrown from his carriage with great violence,
breaking an arm and fracturing his jaw. The physician had
fixed up a steel mask or frame to hold the broken bones in
place while setting. The assassin's dagger cut his face from
the right cheek down to the neck, and but for this steel
bandage, which deflected two of the stabs, the assassin might
have accomplished his purpose.

The carriage disaster was after this night almost considered a
blessing in disguise. Frederick Seward suffered intensely from
a fracture of the cranium. The nurse attempted to haul Payne
off the bed, when he turned and attacked him the second time.
During this scuffle Major Augustus H. Seward, son of Secretary
Seward, entered the room and clinched Payne, and between the
two they succeeded in getting him to the door, when he broke
away and ran downstairs and outdoors.

The colored doorkeeper ran after the police or guards when
Frederick Seward was knocked down, and returned and reported
that he saw the man riding a horse and followed him to I
Street, where he was lost sight of.

In some way Payne's horse got away from him, for a little
after one o'clock on the morning of the 15th Lieutenant John
F. Toffey, on going to the Lincoln Hospital, East Capitol and
Fifteenth Streets, where he was on duty, found a dark bay
horse, with saddle and bridle on, standing at Lincoln Branch
Barracks. The horse no doubt came in on a sort of byroad that
led to Camp Barry, which turned north from the Branch Barracks
towards the Bladensburg road. The sweat pouring from the
animal had made a regular puddle on the ground. A sentinel at
the hospital had stopped the horse. Lieutenant Toffey and
Captain Lansing, of the 13th New York Cavalry, took the horse
to the headquarters of the picket at the Old Capitol Prison,
and from there