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'Frederick William Seward' (July 8, 1830 – April 25, 1915) was the Assistant Secretary of State during the American Civil War, serving in Abraham Lincoln's administration as well as under Andrew Johnson during Reconstruction and for over two years under Rutherford B. Hayes.

Contents

Early life and career

Civil War

Lewis Paine Incident

Later life and career

Early life and career

Seward was born in Auburn, New York, the son of United States Secretary of State William Henry Seward, Sr. and Frances Adeline Seward and older brother of General William Henry Seward, Jr..
He attended Union College and graduated in 1849 and was admitted to the bar in Rochester, New York in 1851. He served as a secretary to his father from 1849 to 1857 along with working the as associate editor of the ''Albany Evening Journal'' from 1851 to 1861.

Civil War

When his father was appointed Secretary of State in 1861, Seward became Assistant Secretary of State in charge of consular service under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. He served this position until 1869.

Lewis Paine Incident

Main articles: Abraham Lincoln assassination#William H. Seward, Abraham Lincoln assassination: William H. Seward


On April 14, 1865, Fred Seward and several others were injured when Lewis Powell a.k.a. "Lewis Paine" attempted to kill his father William Seward in his father's home. Powell was an associate of John Wilkes Booth and had been assigned to kill Secretary of State Seward to put the government into chaos since Vice President Andrew Johnson and President Lincoln were also to be killed that same evening. Powell entered the house by telling Seward's servant William Bell that he was there to deliver medicine. Fred Seward tried to get Powell to leave, suspecting that he was up to no good, but the assassin was determined to serve his duty and tried to shoot Frederick in the head. However, the gun failed to fire when the trigger was pulled and Powell quickly smashed the pistol over Seward's head, causing several skull injuries. Seward collapsed and fell to the floor at the top of the stairs.
Powell then burst into William Seward's room and stabbed him several times in the face and neck. Powell also injured a number of other bystanders, including Fred's sister Fanny, his brother Augustus, his father's nurse Sergeant George F. Robinson and messenger Emerick Hansell, but no one was killed. Seward's mother was sure that he was going to die; instead, she died on June 21, 1865 of a heart attack. His sister, Fanny, too died the next year in October, 1866.
Powell was hanged on the gallows on July 7, 1865, along with David Herold, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt, who were also involved in the conspiracy.

Later life and career

Frederick's father died on October 10, 1872. In 1874, Seward was elected to the New York State Assembly and once again served as Assistant Secretary of State under William M. Evarts from 1877 to 1879 during Rutherford B. Hayes' presidency. Frederick also edited and published his father's autobiography and letters. He married Anna Wharton of Albany, New York and spent the latter part of his life in a house he built in Montrose, New York. Mostly, his life after 1881 was devoted to the practice of his legal profession and to lecturing and writing.
Seward died at the age of 85. He was intered with his family in Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York. In 1916, a year after his death, his book ''Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, 1830-1915'', a five-hundred page book about the Civil War and politics, was published.