Lewis Powell
Lewis Powell, the son of a Baptist preacher, signed up for the army early in the war as part of the 2nd Florida Infantry. Along with many other Confederate soldiers, Powell was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. Captured by Union troops, and his injury relatively minor, upon his recovery Powell was consigned to serve as a Prisoner of War nurse in Baltimore.
Within a week of his stint as a nurse, however, Powell escaped, staying for a while in a boarding house owned by the family of a nurse (Margaret Branson) who is believed to have assisted in Powell’s escape. The boarding house was a secret gathering place for the Confederate Secret Service.
Eventually making his way behind Union lines in Virginia, Powell returned to military duty, this time with Mosby’s Rangers, a Confederate cavalry outfit.
For reasons not entirely known, in January 1865, with the Confederate cause seemingly lost, the two-time Confederate fighter crossed back inside Union lines and, using an alias, presented himself as a civilian refugee. In Baltimore he returned to the Branson boarding house and soon became entangled in a highly secretive plot to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
Led by John Wilkes Booth, the conspirators this day plan on killing Lincoln, but the president changes his announced itinerary, thus unknowingly thwarting the plan of the conspirators and living to see another day.
Meanwhile, this month three new African American regiments arrive in Savannah to help keep the peace in the city captured by the Union three months prior. Many Baptists are among the soldiers of the 33rd, 54th and 102nd Negro Massachusetts. The Black Baptist community of Savannah, excited of the new possibilities afforded by emancipation, is grateful for the presence, encouragement and assistance of the soldiers of freedom who have come from afar.
Sources: Lewis Powell, including image (link); Mighty Like a River: The Black Church and Social Reform, p. 47 (link)
