A large fixed blade knife with a bone handle and leather sheath. Stamped on the blade: Rio Grand Camp Knife. At the base of the blade is stamped: Wm. Jackson & Co. / Sheaf Island Works / Sheffield. This is the bowie knife used by Lewis Payne in the assassination attempt on Secretary of State William Seward. On the night of April 14, 1865, George Foster Robinson, Sergeant of Co. B of the 8th Regiment of Maine Infantry, was detailed as an attending nurse to Seward who had been injured in a riding accident. When Lewis Payne (a.k.a. Powell) burst into the bedroom of the Secretary of State armed with a large Bowie knife, Robinson tackled and disarmed the assassin, thus successfully thwarting the assassination attempt. The knife was used as evidence in the trial of conspirators. After the trial, Robinson asked the War Department to give him the knife as a souvenir, which he received from the War Department in 1866 in recognition of his valor.
Type
physical object
Extent
1 knife : steel blade, bone handle and leather sheath ; blade, 20.6 cm (8 1/8" in.), overall 31.7 cm (12 1/2 in.)
Seward, William Henry, 1801-1872--Assassination attempt, 1865 Payne, Lewis, 1845-1865 Robinson, George Foster--Archives United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865 Bowie knife Bowie knives United States 19th century. (aat)
Source
George Foster Robinson papers, 1865-1947 (bulk 1865-1885) United States Civil War, Huntington Digital Library
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