Lewis Thornton Powell was hanged for his role in the conspiracy to kill President Abraham Lincoln on this date in 1865. Powell was not a native Floridian, but he had lived in Live Oak since 1859 with his family, joining the 2nd Florida Infantry in Jasper in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War. He fought in a number of battles with the 2nd Florida, including Gettysburg, before being injured and captured. He later escaped and worked with the Confederate Secret Service until the end of the war. His part in the assassination conspiracy was to kill U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, while John Wilkes Booth was tasked with assassinating the president, and George Atzerodt was to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson. Booth was successful in his attempt, while Powell and Atzerodt were not. After Powell’s expeditious trial and execution, his body was moved several times. His skull ended up in the Smithsonian Institute, only to be rediscovered in 1992 and finally laid to rest in Geneva, Florida.
