Upstate Life of Abraham Lincoln Confidant Detailed in New Book

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Upstate New Yorker William H. Seward purchased Alaska, miraculously survived an assassination attempt, led the Republican Party in its formative years, personally housed fugitive slaves as part of the Underground Railroad, and helped guide the Union to victory in the Civil War as President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State. 

Yet, the details of the almost-president’s life have been mostly overlooked. Seward, it seems, is always a supporting character in someone else’s story.

A new book that draws upon 25,000 pages of Seward’s never-before-seen private correspondence hopes to change that.

“The Sewards of New York” by Thomas P. Slaughter is the result of a more than 12-year-long project to digitize and archive Seward’s papers that were discovered inside baskets and trunks. The letters shed light on many aspects of the Sewards, revealing them to be one of the most important political families of the 19th century.

The tome includes countless references to the Capital Region (Seward served as both governor of New York and as a member of the state Senate in Albany). It also provides intimate glimpses into the lives of a family rocked by war and violence (an injured and bedridden Seward was viciously stabbed by one of John Wilkes Booth’s co-conspirators; three of Seward’s children were present during the attempted murder).

The book also explores the Seward family’s close ties to Auburn, a small city in the Finger Lakes region that today is the site of the William H. Seward House Museum.

“The Sewards of New York” is currently available via Cornell University Press.