GEORGE FOSTER ROBINSON.
[Heroic Conduct.]
TO GEORGE F. ROBINSON. AWARDED BY THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 1. 1871. Bust of Robinson, facing the left; on the coat, four clubs, the badge[124] of the eighteenth army corps, in which he served during the Civil War; above, two crowns, one of laurel and one of oak; on each side, the following: FOR HIS HEROIC CONDUCT ON THE 14. DAY OF APRIL 1865, IN SAVING THE LIFE OF THE HONORABLE WM. H. (William Henry) SEWARD THEN SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
Secretary Seward lying in his bed, with curtains half drawn; standing at its side, Robinson struggling with Payne, who holds an uplifted dagger in his right hand. G. Y. COFFIN. DES. (designavit.) PAQUET. F. (fecit).
George Foster Robinson was born at Hartford, Oxford County, Maine, August 13, 1832. In 1863, he enlisted in the 8th regiment of Maine Volunteers, and was severely wounded at Bermuda Hundred, May 20, 1864. On the night of April 14, 1865, while acting as sick nurse to the Honorable William H. Seward, then secretary of State, at the imminent peril of his life, and at the cost of serious wounds, he saved Mr. Seward from the knife of the assassin Payne. For his heroic conduct on this occasion, Congress voted him five thousand dollars and a gold medal. He was clerk in the Treasury Department, from June, 1865, to August, 1866, when he resigned. He was appointed in December, 1868, to a similar position in the quartermaster-general's office, Washington.