“As I was about to depart, little thinking what history would develop in a few short hours, Peck asked me to accept a couple of tickets to the theater for that night. I was glad to get them, having no money to purchase the same, and knowing that the President would be at the play. Later I found a young man, like myself, broke, and invited him to accompany me to the play. We were on hand early, and, having good reserved seats about the center of the house, were elated over our good luck.
“Suffice it to say that the curtain went up and ‘Our American Cousin’ was introduced. I was intently interested and cannot remember positively what act it was that was on, except what is told in history, when I heard a shot, and immediately a man appeared at the front of the President’s box and, without waiting, jumped to the stage beneath. I, as well as all others in the theater, was astonished. He ran to about the center of the stage and raised his left hand and said something I did not catch, and then disappeared behind the wings. As soon as I saw him I recognized the handsome man I had seen in the saloon that afternoon, and turned to my comrade and said: ‘That’s Wilkes Booth, the actor, and I think he is on a drunk.’ Before I had finished even this a cry went up that the President had been shot, ‘Stop that man!’ and many other exclamations I have forgotten. It was all done so quickly that one had hardly time to think. Immediately the audience rose as one person and cries were heard all over the house, ‘Stop that man!’ ‘The President has been assassinated!’ and many others. The people began to crush each other and try to get out of the theater, but they were quieted to a certain extent and the provost guard on duty there fought to make them keep their places. Soon there was a movement on the side aisle running from the President’s box, and from where I was standing on my seat I could see what appeared to be a party of men carrying some one. Later the rest of the party were conducted out of the theater, and when I managed to get outside I saw a crowd looking up at a house opposite. On asking what it meant, I was told that the President had been carried there and was dying. I lost my comrade in the crowd and have never met him since.
“It is unnecessary to go into any more details of what occurred that night. I was excited, as well as every one else in the city, and got little rest. But that is my experience, told as briefly as possible, without any stretch of imagination. If I had to do with the same again I think it would have been better if I had told the officials what I saw that afternoon, but, as it was, all came out right, and the really guilty ones suffered the penalty of their crime. I met Peck the next year in New York City, but have never heard of or seen him since.”
MARTYRED LINCOLN’S BLOOD.
An interesting and valuable relic, which brings vividly to the mind the historic scene in Ford’s Theater, Washington, on the night of April 14, 1865, is owned by Colonel James S. Case, at one time a resident of Philadelphia, but whose home is now in Brooklyn.
It is only a play bill, but upon it is a discoloration made by a tiny drop of President Lincoln’s blood. It was picked up just after the tragedy by John T. Ford, the manager of the theater. He found it on the floor of the box where it had fallen from the President’s hand when the bullet of Assassin Booth pierced his head. It lay beneath the chair in which the citizen-hero received his death wound. There was a tiny spot of blood, still red as it came from the great heart of Lincoln, on the edge.
Mr. Ford carried the precious paper home, and only parted with it at the request of the late A. K. Browne of Washington, who was a warm personal friend of the manager. It came into Mr. Browne’s possession while the nation was still mourning for its idol, and soon after his assassin had met justly merited fate at the hands of Sergeant Boston Corbett.
The play bill is somewhat yellow from age, but otherwise in an excellent state of preservation. The bloodstain is now a dark brown. The program was of “Our American Cousin,” which was being given for the benefit of Laura Keene. The bloodstain is nearly half way down the program, opposite the names of John Dyott, and Harry Hawk, Miss Keene’s leading support.