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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep116: Lewis Powell and the Confederate Secret Service Plot to Kidnap Lincoln — Patrick K. O'Donnell — Lewis Powell, a Mosby Ranger, was identified as a Lincoln conspirator working with John Wilkes Booth. Powell's trip to Richmond ostensibly to deliver prisoner

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2025

⏱️ 4 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lewis Powell and the Confederate Secret Service Plot to Kidnap LincolnPatrick K. O'DonnellLewis Powell, a Mosby Ranger, was identified as a Lincoln conspirator working with John Wilkes Booth. Powell's trip to Richmond ostensibly to deliver prisoner Blazer actually served as cover to coordinate with the Confederate Secret Service. This was part of a large, well-funded special operation involving hundreds of conspirators designed to kidnap President Lincoln. Mosby later positioned hundreds of his men near the intended escape route.


Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm John Batchel with Patrick Hay O'Donnell, the Unvanquished, the untold story of Lincoln's

0:09.7

Special Forces, the manhunt for Mosby's Rangers and the Shadow War that forged America's special

0:14.9

operations. Patrick's here, and he's just introduced us to one of Mosby's Rangers. His name is

0:20.6

Louis Powell. He's called

0:21.5

Terrible Powell by his colleagues. And he now escorts Blazer, the commander of the scouts,

0:28.0

to Richmond who's a prisoner of war. Quickly, Louis Powell, the keen-eared among our audience,

0:35.2

recognize that name. Who is he, Patrick?

0:41.9

He's one of the Lincoln conspirators who works with Booth.

0:49.4

And what happens is in December after Powell returns from Richmond, he went down to Richmond to not only deliver Richard Blazer to prison down there, but it was also a cover for him to work

0:56.9

with his handlers in the Confederate Secret Service. And they are basically have devised one of the

1:03.4

most daring missions of the Civil War, a mission to capture and bring back President Abraham Lincoln.

1:12.0

And Powell returns to Mosby's Confederacy where he doesn't go on any more raids after that.

1:18.1

He's operating outside of Warrington.

1:20.9

And then suddenly what we find is Powell decides to that the war, this is the cover story, that the war is too hard for him and he just goes to union lines and becomes a civilian and he takes the oath.

1:34.7

And then suddenly he finds himself back in Baltimore with the Confederate Secret Service under their safe house and protection.

1:41.3

And they immediately communicate with John Wilkes Booth and his group.

1:45.4

And this isn't – what you see is there's an extremely large organization that's well-funded

1:51.0

to kidnap the president. It's not just Booth and a couple guys, you know, trying to come up

1:56.7

with a plan to kidnap the president's hundreds of people that are involved with safe houses

2:02.0

with communication between the secret service uh you know there's even a mysterious woman the

2:07.5

frenchman that moves in and out that provides career service and instructions to the group and

2:13.1

in gold and um there's a lot of financing going on here and And it's, it's an open secret. I have evidence

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