Frank Ford, the son of Harry Clay Ford, has refuted the commonly held assumption that Booth had drilled an observation hole in the inner door during the afternoon. In a letter concerning the planned restoration of the theater in 1962, Mr. Ford wrote: “The hole was bored by my father, Harry Clay Ford, or rather on his orders, and was bored for the very simple reason it would allow the guard, one Parker, easy opportunity whenever he so desired to look into the box rather than open the inner door to check on the presidential party.”8
Whether Booth drilled the hole or whether a member of Ford’s staff did, it served Booth’s purpose. Using the hole, he was able to catch a glimpse of the interior of the box to make certain Lincoln was seated in the rocker directly beyond the door and not somewhere else in the box. Booth would have only a brief moment to act if he was to catch those in the box by complete surprise. Rising to his feet he drew the small derringer from his vest pocket and set the hammer at full cock. The moment had arrived.
On the stage was a lone actor, Harry Hawk. The play in progress, Our American Cousin, was a spoof on British aristocracy and American “coarseness.” Just the type of humor Lincoln especially enjoyed. After all, he was characterized for most of his political life as the crude, rough-edged westerner who lacked the social graces necessary to be president. Hawk played an American backwoodsman who was visiting his English cousins. Hawk’s character was that of a coarse, uneducated bumpkin whose English host, Mrs. Mountchessington, had mistaken him for a wealthy suitor for her daughter. His part was filled with comic lines that showed his farcical nature. Lincoln could well identify with Hawk’s character, having spent his early years among the bumpkins of the prairie.
Mrs. Mountchessington had been carefully scheming to unite Hawk’s character, Asa Trenchard, with her daughter Augusta. As the end of scene 2, act 3, approached, Mrs. Mountchessington discovers that Asa is not the wealthy cousin she had thought but rather an uncouth American with nothing to offer her own ambitions but “hisself.” She indignantly upbraids Asa after sending her daughter offstage, “I am aware, Mr. Trenchard, you are not used to the manners of good society, and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence of which you are guilty.” Not quite the fool portrayed, Asa calls after her as she exits the stage, “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 man-trap.” It was a carefully placed laugh line meant to bring a burst of laughter from the audience. It always worked that way. The audience roared with laughter.
Booth grasped the knob and, turning it slowly, pushed the door open, stepped forward, raised the derringer, and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle, not more than two feet from the president’s head, erupted with a loud explosion as the small sphere of lead shot from its throat. The ball, not larger than the tip of a little finger smashed into the base of the president’s skull. It passed diagonally from left to right, plowing through the gelatinous substance of the president’s brain before lodging behind his right eye. The concussive force fractured the orbital socket. The numbing effect was instantaneous. The president’s body went limp as he slumped in the rocker, his head dropping forward with his chin pressed against his chest.
After a few seconds, the laughter fell away. Harry Hawk instinctively looked up at the box. A small puff of bluish smoke floated over the balustrade and hovered in midair over the stage. A shrill scream coming from inside the box startled the audience. A loud thump, another scream, and the body of a man swinging his legs over the flag-draped balustrade fell onto the stage. In sliding over the balustrade Booth’s spur became entangled in one of the flags, causing him to land off balance on the hard stage below. The awkward fall resulted in his breaking the small bone in his left leg a few inches above the ankle.
Landing in a crouch, Booth quickly rose, turned toward the stunned audience, and thrust both of his arms in the air. The consummate thesspian, Booth yelled to the audience, “Sic semper tyrannis.” Standing center stage was a confused Harry Hawk. His humorous lines had drawn loud laughter from the audience; not loud enough, however, to disguise the sharp report of the gunshot. Hawk stood frozen as the man he recognized as his friend turned and, pushing past, ran stage right, disappearing behind the set.
Booth lunged toward the rear door, bumping into another figure standing in his path. Slashing with his knife, he pushed the figure aside. The door swung open before him and he rushed through it. Not ten feet away was his horse, its reins still held by the young Burroughs lying on a wooden carpenter’s bench. Startled, the boy jumped to his feet only to feel a sharp pain to his head as the butt end of a bowie knife crashed down on his skull. Grabbing the reins, Booth swung himself up into the saddle. Young Peanuts Burroughs crouched on the ground clutching his head in pain. Booth pulled hard on the reins, dug his spurs deep into the animal’s side, and galloped down the dark alley. He turned his horse to the left and, passing through an open gate, galloped up the narrow alleyway emerging onto F Street. He turned to his right and headed east for the Navy Yard Bridge and Maryland.
The deed was done. The tyrant was killed. Abraham Lincoln could burn in hell. Sic semper tyrannis!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Wound Is Mortal
He committed a monstrous crime in making war upon us, and his death was no more than just punishment for the crime.
William Starr Basinger, Savannah Volunteer Guards
The young officer told the ward master he would be absent for a few hours this evening. As army surgeon he was in charge of the commissioned officers’ ward at the hospital at Armory Square in Washington. The demands of his duties gave him little time to enjoy the pleasures that were available in the wartime capital. Charles Leale had been an admirer of President Lincoln for some time, and after hearing the president give one of his impromptu speeches, he became even more enamored with him. When he read in the afternoon paper that Lincoln would attend Ford’s Theatre that evening, Leale decided to take the evening off and go to the theater for no other reason than to catch a glimpse of his commander in chief.1
A general order was still in effect that all men in uniform must carry a pass authorizing their presence in the District of Columbia. Since uniformed soldiers were frequently challenged as they moved about the city, officers found it more convenient to change into civilian clothes before embarking on any social activity. In this way they avoided the overzealous challenges by the provost marshal’s staff. Leale hurried back to his room and changed into a suit before proceeding to the theater.2
Word of Lincoln’s scheduled visit had spurred ticket sales, and Leale could get a seat only in the dress circle, or “first balcony,” not far from the outer door leading to the president’s box. He tried to get a seat in the orchestra section where he could get a better view of the box and hopefully see the president. However, the orchestra was already sold out by the time he arrived. Still, he was happy with his balcony seat. It proved to be ideally situated.
The audience was in an upbeat mood. The play had many humorous lines, and the audience was generous in its laughter. Midway through the opening act the crowd began cheering and clapping their hands in a thunderous ovation. Only a few rows behind Leale, the president and Mrs. Lincoln were making their way toward the box. Leale turned to find himself looking directly at the president. “I had the best opportunity to distinctly see the full face of the president, as the light shone directly upon him,” Leale wrote, and then added sadly, “I was looking at him as he took his last walk.”3
President Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln, along with their two guests, Major Henry Rathbone and Miss Clara Harris, slowly made their way across the back of the dress circle to the far side of the theater. Leale described what happened next: “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, where he could guard the entrance to the box.”4 The “usher” mentioned by Leale was not really an usher, nor was he associated with Ford�
�s Theatre or the president’s security. He was Charles Forbes, the president’s personal valet and messenger.
After a few minutes the audience sat down, and the actors returned to their performance. Leale kept looking over at the box hoping for glimpses of the president. At one point he noticed a disturbance at the outer door of the box. A man was talking with the “usher,” persuading him to allow him to enter the box. After a brief moment the man was allowed to enter.5 A minute later the sharp report of a gunshot was heard. Suddenly a man dropped from the front of the balustrade and landed on the stage amid screams from the box. Righting himself, the man shouted to the audience and ran across the stage, disappearing behind the scenes. It all happened in a matter of seconds.
Most of the audience seemed confused at what had taken place. Leale, however, reacted immediately. Hearing the screams from the box, he started to make his way toward the outer door that was only a few feet from where he had been seated. Forcing his way through the crowd he reached the door and tried to open it by pushing inward. The door would not move. It was rigid as if it had been nailed shut. Leale heard someone yelling on the other side to stop pushing against the door. His attempt to force the door open only served to fix the wooden brace more firmly in the wall notch that Booth had cut earlier in the day. Rathbone was struggling to remove the brace but Leale’s weight against the door made his efforts impossible. Finally, when Leale stepped back, Rathbone was able to remove the brace and open the door. Forbes was still standing by the door but let Leale pass once he explained that he was an army surgeon.6 Following close on the heels of Leale was Dr. Albert F.A. King, a Washington doctor who was also sitting in the dress circle near the outer door to the box, and a third man, William Kent, a government employee who had been sitting beside King.
Leale found Rathbone standing inside the door clutching his arm. Rathbone asked Leale to attend to it, but Leale quickly evaluated the situation and put Rathbone in the “treatment later” category. Clara Harris, Rathbone’s fiancée and companion that night, described the scene in a letter to a close friend eleven days later: “Henry has been suffering a great deal with his arm, but it is now doing well,—the knife went from the elbow nearly to the shoulder, inside, cutting an artery, nerves & veins—He bled so profusely as to make him very weak—My whole clothing as I sat in the box was saturated literally with blood, & my hands and face—you can imagine what a scene—Poor Mrs. Lincoln all through that dreadful night would look at me with horror and scream, Oh! My husband’s blood—My Dear Husband’s blood—which it was not, though I did not know it at the time. The president’s wound did not bleed externally at all—the brain was instantly suffused.”7
Reaching the inner box, Leale approached the rocker where Lincoln sat slumped; his wife holding him upright so he wouldn’t fall forward onto the floor: “As I looked at Lincoln he appeared dead. His eyes were closed and his head had fallen forward. He was being held upright in his chair by Mrs. Lincoln who was weeping bitterly.”8 Leale felt for a pulse. There was none. He then moved Lincoln to a recumbent position on the floor and, removing his hands from the president’s head, noticed traces of blood. Leale thought Lincoln had been stabbed in the neck or back.
Dr. Charles Taft, another army surgeon, was seated in the orchestra below. He had come onto the stage directly beneath the box. Announcing that he was a doctor, he was lifted from the floor and boosted up to the level of the balustrade by Thomas Bradford Sanders. Grabbing onto the flag draped over the balustrade, he climbed into the box. Following directly behind Taft was Lieutenant James Bolton, a member of the District’s provost marshal’s guard.9 Counting the four original occupants, there were now ten individuals in the confined area of the double box.
Taft immediately began to assist Leale, who was leaning over the wounded man’s body. Using a borrowed pen knife, Leale cut Lincoln’s collar off and then split his shirt and coat open from his neck to his elbow. Leale quickly examined the exposed area. There was no knife wound, no cut artery, no blood. Lifting one of Lincoln’s eyelids Leale noted the left eye was dilated, indicating neurological damage. He next ran his fingers through Lincoln’s thick hair. He found the wound. A small entry hole on the back part of the head behind the left ear. A small clot of blood plugged the hole. Leale carefully removed the coagulated material and Lincoln began to breathe more rhythmically. Removing the clot had relieved the pressure that was suppressing the president’s respiration.
Leale suddenly became aware of another person kneeling beside the prostrate body of the president. It was Laura Keene, the actress for whom the evening benefit had been scheduled.10 Someone in the box had called for water, and Keene, who was standing in the wings looking up at the box, grabbed a pitcher of water from the special green room just offstage. She asked Thomas Gourlay, the stage manager, to lead her to the box. It was impossible to maneuver through the large crowd still milling about the downstairs area. The lobby staircase was completely blocked by people. Gourlay led Keene through a rear passage that exited through a backstage door into the alleyway that separated the Star saloon from the theater. Here the two climbed a staircase that led up to the lounge area on the second floor. From this point, Gourlay and Keene passed through a door that opened onto the dress circle near the entrance to the box. Gourlay had to clear only a short pathway to the outer door.
Keene asked Leale if it would be all right to hold Lincoln’s head in her lap. Leale explained: “While we were waiting for Mr. Lincoln to regain strength, Laura Keene appealed to me to allow her to hold the President’s head. I granted the request, and she sat on the floor of the box and held his head in her lap.”11
William Kent, a government employee, also remarked about the incident, “Laura Keene came up in the meantime, and the President’s head was raised to rest in her lap.”12 Laura Keene preserved the dress with the president’s blood on it. However, several persons raised doubts about the stains, stating that the president’s head wound did not bleed. Taft seemed emphatic, “At that time there was no blood oozing from it.” However, it is clear that the head wound did bleed. Leale described running his separated fingers through the president’s hair matted with his blood. Each time Leale removed the clot that formed in the entry wound blood oozed out.
Someone asked Leale if the president should now be moved to the White House, where he could be made more comfortable. The three doctors conferred. They were in agreement. It would be too dangerous to move the president the seven blocks over rough Washington streets. All three felt he should be moved from the theater. A closer place would have to be found. Someone suggested Taltavul’s saloon next door. According to Taltavul, he said it would not be right for the president to die in a saloon.13 It is easy to see that Taltavul was not an entrepreneur.
Leale said that as soon as the president gained sufficient strength he should be taken “to the nearest house on the opposite side of the street.”14 The doctors conferred again and decided the president was strong enough to move. Leale explained: “We decided that the President could now be moved from the possibility of danger in the theater to a house where we might place him on a bed in safety. To assist in this duty I assigned Dr. Taft to carry his right shoulder, Dr. King to carry his left shoulder and detailed a sufficient number of others, whose names I have never discovered, to assist in carrying the body, while I carried the head going first.”15
The “others” whose names Leale never discovered were four soldiers from Thompson’s Battery C, Independent Pennsylvania Artillery. Stationed at Camp Barry on the outskirts of the city, the four soldiers decided to visit the city and take in a play. They were sitting in the dress circle at the time the president was shot. Their names were Jacob J. Soles, John Corey, Jake Griffiths, and William Sample.16 With the three doctors at the head and shoulder area, the four soldiers gently picked up the president’s torso and legs.
With Leale in the lead, the body of President Lincoln was “borne on loving hands” through the balcony area to the lobby stairs. At this
point they were joined by two soldiers who had been helping to manage the large crowd of stunned people filling the dress circle. Years later they would step forward and add their names to those of their four comrades. They were William McPeck and John Weaver. At the head of the stairs the men reversed the body and took it down the steps feet first. Emerging from the theater into the darkness they were greeted by a solemn crowd standing still in shock. As the body of the president slowly made its way into the street the multitude parted, opening a path to the other side. The bearers were joined at this point by ten members of the Union Light Guard, who had been notified to report to the theater immediately. They had been assigned to serve as escort duty at the White House but were used as mounted orderlies.17 The soldiers formed a corridor through which the president’s body was carried.
As the group slowly made its way into the street, Leale began to look around for a house where they could safely lay the president in bed. The house directly across the street from the theater was dark, no one was at home. Then a dim light appeared on the steps of a brick house diagonally across the street from the theater’s main entrance. A man stood at the top of the stairs holding a small candle. Young Henry S. Safford had been reading in the front room of William Petersen’s house when he heard a commotion outside shortly after 10:30 P.M. Going to the front door, he heard someone say that the president had been shot. Just then he noticed a group of men carrying the body of the president out from the theater. Safford described the scene: “Suddenly those carrying him seemed in doubt as to where they would take him.” Safford, “realizing the cause of their hesitation,” cried out, “Bring him in here, bring him in here.”18 Leale nodded to the others and they carried the president’s body up the steps and into the front door of 453 (now 516) Tenth Street. Safford directed the group into a small bedroom located at the far end of the narrow hallway.
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