Our Assassinated Presidents - The True Medical Stories

Story

CASE I

Lincoln

Courtesy National Park Service

The playbill advertised the last performance of Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor, starring Laura Keene.

Booth’s derringer.

Booth aims at Lincoln’s head. The President’s wife is seated beside him; others sharing the box are Major Rathbone and Miss Clara Harris.

Courtesy National Park Service

The Museum of Modern Art Film Library

Scene from Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith, wherein the assassin escapes after the murder of Lincoln.

Diagram of murder setting at Ford’s Theatre.

Courtesy National Park Service

Murder of President Lincoln—The assassin retreating across the stage and Mr. Stewart climbing upon it to pursue him.

Courtesy National Park Service

Courtesy National Park Service

Lincoln being carried from the theater across the street to the Petersen house.

Courtesy National Park Service

The room where Lincoln died.

Courtesy National Park Service

Sketch of the deathbed scene.

Library of Congress

Charles Augustus Leale.

Diagram of the path of the bullet. Doctors disagreed on which of two paths shown was correct. Most evidence points to diagonal path.

Courtesy of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

Pulse chart of Lincoln from 10:55 PM,

April 14, to the time of death, 7:22 AM,

April 15, 1865.

Courtesy Buffalo and Erie Country Historical Society

Lincoln’s hair, cut from around his wound (left), and Lincoln’s blood on Dr. Curtis’ shirt sleeves. Dr. Curtis cut off the cuffs and kept them in the envelope shown.

Lincoln

Lincoln had difficulty in getting together a theater party for that fateful evening, April 14, 1865; and in retrospect, this difficulty seems to have been the final link in a chain of events spelling out the Ides of March. Especially incomprehensible was Secretary of War Stanton’s refusal to send along Major Thomas Eckert, a man whom the President had specifically requested as a bodyguard. And, on the eerie side, there was a certain nightmare, one in which Lincoln heard wailing in the White House and discovered a coffin in the East Room. In the dream, he asked a soldier who was guarding the body, Who is dead? and he received the reply, The President…. He was killed by an assassin. ¹

Ford’s Theatre

IN DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON, ABOUT MIDWAY BETWEEN the Capitol and the White House, stands Ford’s Theatre, and just across the street is the house where Lincoln died. Though the two buildings look the same as they did that terrible Good Friday a century ago, they none the less appear unreal. In essence, one seems to be gazing upon brick monuments dedicated to the imagination.

The new Ford’s Theatre—the first, Ford’s Athenaeum, was destroyed by fire in 1862—opened on the evening of August 27, 1863, and soon became the number one playhouse in the city and, architecturally, one of the finest theaters in the country, seating over 1,500 people, including 400 in the first balcony, or dress circle. Located on either side of the stage were four private boxes, two lower and two upper, the latter adjoining a vestibule leading off from the dress circle.

At 10:30 on the morning of April 14, 1865, a messenger came to the theater ticket office and reserved a state box for the presidential party for that evening’s performance, the party to include President and Mrs. Lincoln, and General and Mrs. Grant. Once the good word reached the office of the acting manager, Harry Clay Ford, no time was lost in adjusting the décor to meet the needs of a very special occasion. Stagehand Edman Spangler was ordered to remove the partition between the two upper boxes (Boxes 7 and 8) located on the south side of the stage, and two American flags, each on a stag, were placed at either end of the now single box. Two additional American flags were draped about the balustrades, a blue regimental flag of the United States Treasury Guards was suspended from the center pillar on a staff, and below this was affixed an engraving of George Washington.

John Wilkes Booth learned of the President’s plans that noon when he passed by to pick up his mail at the box office. Booth felt right at home in Ford’s Theatre and was familiar with every nook and cranny. Moreover, and central to his dramatic scheme, he was on close terms with everybody in the place, from Mr. Ford on down.

Though Booth is said to have developed a passionate love for the South and its institutions, his performance on the night of April the 14th points more to a lust for enduring fame than anything else. His good looks, money, success on the stage, and numerous lady friends were not enough, but killing the man who belongs to the ages would insure his fame. And the appropriate occasion had arrived—an occasion pregnant with every ingredient and embellishment of high drama tooled for an hour of historic madness.

Booth had things to attend to. First, he engaged a small bay mare at Pumphrey’s livery stable at C Street in the rear of the National Hotel. At about 4 o’clock, he came for the horse and rode over to the theater where he left the mare in the stable. Sometime before or shortly thereafter, no one knows for sure, the eager thespian entered the theater and cut a mortise into the brick wall near the vestibule door behind Boxes 7 and 8 and hid a pine bar in the corner behind the door, which had no lock. At the right moment, the bar could be wedged between the door and the mortise to prevent anyone in the dress circle from entering the vestibule. His last chore here entailed boring a peephole through the door of Box 7 for the purpose of viewing the target and the action upon the stage.

During the afternoon, General Grant sent word to the White House that he and his wife would be unable to attend the theater that evening. The President and Mrs. Lincoln then asked several other people, but were unsuccessful until just about curtain time when the invitation was accepted by Miss Clara Harris —the daughter of Senator Ira Harris of New York— and her fiancé Major Henry R. Rathbone.

The President’s carriage left the White House about 8:15 p.m. and arrived at the theater somewhere around 8:30. Curtain time was 7:45. The performance, Tom Taylor’s celebrated comedy, Our American Cousin,, starring Laura Keene, was interrupted by the entrance of the presidential party, and the orchestra leader, William Withers, Jr., signaled for Hail to the Chief.

In the words of Army Surgeon Charles Augustus Leale, the man who was about to make medical history: Suddenly there was a cheering welcome; the acting ceased temporarily out of respect to the entering presidential party. Many in the audience rose to their feet in enthusiasm and vociferously cheered, while looking around. Turning, I saw in the aisle a few feet behind me, President Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln, Major Rathbone and Miss Harris. Mrs. Lincoln smiled very happily in acknowledgment of the loyal greeting, gracefully curtsied several times and seemed to be overflowing with good cheer and thankfulness. I had the best opportunity to distinctly see the full face of the President, as the light shone directly upon him. After he had walked a few feet he stopped for a moment, looked upon the people he loved and acknowledged their salutations with a solemn bow. His face was perfectly stoical his deep-set eyes gave him a pathetically sad appearance. The audience seemed to be enthusiastically cheerful, but he alone looked peculiarly sorrowful, as he slowly walked with bowed head and drooping shoulders toward the box. I was looking at him as he took his last walk. The memory of that scene has never been effaced. The party was preceded by a special usher, who opened the door of the box, stood to one side, and after all had entered closed the door and took a seat outside [the vestibule], where he could guard the entrance… ¹

In the afternoon, Harry Ford had furnished the state box with a settee, a high-backed chair, and a black walnut upholstered rocking chair with its rockers fitted into the angle of Box 7 behind the closed door leading to the vestibule. The President took the rocker, Mrs. Lincoln the chair, and Major Rathbone and Miss Harris the settee. The doors to Boxes 7 and 8 were both closed, but unlocked.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Booth appeared at the back door of the theater and told stagehand Spangler to hold his horse for a couple of minutes, an unusual request for anyone to make except John Wilkes Booth. Spangler, who was needed backstage to shift scenery, quickly passed this task on to handyman Joseph Peanuts Burroughs. Meanwhile, Booth crossed beneath the stage to an exit on Tenth Street and went into Peter Taltavull’s saloon next door, and ordered a whiskey and water instead of his usual brandy. After downing the drink, he returned to the street and in a moment or two entered the main lobby of the theater and chatted with ticket collector John Buckingham, at one point inquiring about the time. Actually, Booth was in and out of the lobby several times, making his final entrance about 10:10, when he went upstairs to the dress circle and unobtrusively made his way over to the door leading to the vestibule behind Boxes 7 and 8.

According to some witnesses, Booth took a card from his pocket and handed it to Charles Forbes, the footman who had been placed in the seat (No. 300) nearest the vestibule door. Doctor Leale’s account, however, has it that …I heard a disturbance at… the Presidential box. With many others I looked in that direction and saw a man endeavoring to persuade the reluctant usher to admit him. At last he succeeded in gaining entrance, after which the door was closed and the usher resumed his place…. ²

John F. Parker of the Washington Police Department, who had been assigned as Lincoln’s bodyguard, was also supposed to keep an eye on the presidential box, but he was apparently next door at Taltavull’s having a drink. This was hardly surprising in view of Parker’s dubious record on the force. Not only had he refused on a number of occasions to carry out orders, but recently had been called on the carpet for drinking while on duty and frequenting houses of prostitution. Though, with the draft and all, the department found it very difficult to secure good men, it does seem that for the evening of the 14th Parker would have been just about the last to be selected. Of course, this possibly might have been the case.

Once inside the vestibule, Booth barricaded the door with the pine bar, went over to the box door with the peephole in it, and peered through. At the moment the lone figure of Harry Hawk appeared on the stage (about 10:15), Booth silently opened the door and entered Box 8. Hugging the wall, he slithered unnoticed behind the presidential party, who were intent upon the action before them, and came upon Lincoln from the right. Just then, Hawk, in the role of Asa Trenchard, spoke the line, Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal— you sockdologizing old mantrap. ³

At this instant, the President, leaning slightly forward, with his hand on the balustrade, turned his head as if to look at something in the audience—and Booth raised the brass-barreled derringer and pulled the trigger. The blast startled everyone in the theater, and all eyes turned upon the presidential box in bewilderment, not knowing if the commotion was a part of the play—or an unthinkable event.

Major Rathbone sprang from the settee just as the assassin drew a seven-inch hunting knife. Booth lunged at Rathbone—inflicting a severe gash in the upper left arm—and then vaulted over the railing as the bleeding officer tried to stop him. But in the leap, the spur of Booth’s right boot caught the fringe of the Treasury Guards’ flag, causing him to land on the stage, 11 feet below, on his left heel—fracturing the fibula two inches above the ankle. Despite this injury, he immediately got to his feet and is asserted to have shouted "Sic semper tyrannis! [Ever thus to tyrants] The South is avenged!"