Civil War Service
On May 30, 1861 at age 17, Lewis left home and enlisted in the 2nd Florida Infantry, Company I in Jasper, Florida. Sometime in November, 1862, he was hospitalized for "sickness" at General Hospital No. 11 in Richmond, Virginia. He went on to fight at numerous battles unscathed before being wounded in the wrist on the second day of fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, from where he was captured and sent to a POW hospital at Pennsylvania College. Powell stayed at Pennsylvania College until September, when he was transferred to West Buildings Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. It was at West Buildings where Powell met and developed a relationship with a volunteer nurse named Margaret "Maggie" Branson. It was believed that it was with the help of Branson that Lewis was able to escape from the hospital within a week of his arrival, fleeing to Alexandria, Virginia.
Back in Virginia, he located Colonel John Singleton Mosby and his cavalry in late fall 1863 and rode with the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry. After leaving the company, he returned to Baltimore on January 13, 1865, crossing the lines at Alexandria. Powell returned to the boarding house of Maggie Branson. During his time with the Rangers, in 1864, Powell became involved in the Confederate Secret Service. It was in Baltimore that he was arrested for severely beating a black servant at the Branson house. He was arrested and held in jail 2 days on charges of being a "spy". Required to sign an Oath of Allegiance, he did so, under the name Lewis Paine. It was also in Baltimore that he met fellow CSS operative John Surratt through a man named David Preston Parr, also with the CSS.
Read more about this topic: Lewis Powell (conspirator)
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or service:
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“Let not the tie be mercenary, though the service is measured in money. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)