This photo of Lewis Powell, a Lincoln assassination conspirator, was taken after his capture on the ironclad USS Saugus, while awaiting trial for his unsuccessful attack of the Secretary of State. The Alabaman doesn’t look guilty in this shot, but he swung by the rope along with the members of John Boothe’s murderous cabal.
My family of the Yankee side never resided in Alabama.
We were New Englanders to the core.
The Great State of Maine to be exact, however after seeing my Boston Hackney Cab license from the early 1970s my friend, David McSurley, said, “You look like Lewis Powell.”
“I do.”
“Yes, he was so hot. But you’re not.”
McSurley had nothing good to say about me.
“Not at 62.”
The photo in the taxi license had been shot in 1972. I was twenty that year.
A year younger than Lewis Powell in 1865.
He never made it to twenty-two.
Better him than me.
My long-lost twin.
