activity. Richard Montgomery, a Confederate spy, said that he saw Powell meet with Jacob Thompson and Clement Claiborne Clay, the two heads of the Confederate Secret Service, in Toronto. On March 23, Booth sent a coded telegram to Louis Weichmann, which John Surratt understood to mean that Powell should stay at the Herndon House after he returned to Washington. Powell returned to the capital on the night of March 27, and checked into the Herndon House using the alias "Kensler". Powell joined Booth that night to watch a performance of the opera La Forza del Destino at Ford's Theatre. On April 11, President Lincoln addressed a crowd from the balcony on the north side of the White House. In this speech, Lincoln discussed his plans for accepting the rebellious states back into the Union, and singled out Louisiana as the first he would like to see do so. Lincoln announced that he also wanted to see African Americans given the right to vote. Booth and Powell stood on the White House lawn listening to the speech. Booth seethed at the idea of giving blacks political power, and told Powell, "That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I will put him through. That will be the last speech he will ever make." Lincoln assassination plot It is unclear just when Powell learned that the kidnap plot had turned to an assassination. There is testimony from the nurse attending the Secretary of State indicating that Powell may have learned of his role to assassinate Seward on Thursday, April 13. A man fitting Powell's description appeared at the Seward home that day to inquire about the Secretary's health. Powell himself was inconsistent. He once said he learned he was to kill Seward on the morning of Friday, April 14, but later claimed he did not know until the evening of April 14. On the afternoon of April 14, Booth learned that Abraham Lincoln would be attending a play at Ford's Theatre that night. Booth decided that the time had come to kill Lincoln. Booth sent David Herold to tell Powell the news. Booth and Powell probably spent the afternoon and early evening at the Canterbury Music Hall on Pennsylvania Avenue, where Powell met and possibly had a tryst with Mary Gardner, a performer there. At 8:45 p.m. that night, Booth, Atzerodt, Herold, and Powell met in Powell's room at the Herndon House in