Abraham Lincoln

by William Eleroy Curtis

JOHN WILKES BOOTH

From a photograph by Brady

After dinner that evening Mr. Colfax and Mr. Ashmun, of the House of Representatives, who were about to leave Washington for the summer, came to inquire if the President intended to call an extra session of Congress. He assured them that he did not; and, as they were leaving the White House, Ward Lamon, the United States Marshal of the District of Columbia, and one of his oldest friends, called to ask a pardon for an old soldier who had been convicted of violating the army regulations. According to the recollection of Mr. Pendel, one of the President's messengers, Lincoln told his last story at that time. As he was about to sign the pardon, he turned to Lamon, saying,—

"Lamon, do you know how the Patagonians eat oysters?"

"No, I do not, Mr. Lincoln," was the reply.

"It is their habit to open them as fast as they can and throw the shells out of the window, and when the pile of shells grows to be higher than the house, why, they pick up stakes and move. Now, Lamon, I felt like beginning a new pile of pardons, and I guess this is a good one to begin on."

The President, Mrs. Lincoln, and General and Mrs. Grant had accepted a box at Ford's Theatre that evening, and, the fact having been announced in the newspapers, there was a large attendance. Providentially General Grant changed his mind at the last moment and took a train for New York instead. Mrs. Lincoln invited Miss Harris and Major Rathbone, the daughter and step-son of Senator Ira Harris, of New York, to take the vacant places, and the party arrived at the theatre shortly after the curtain rose. About ten o'clock John Wilkes Booth, a dissipated young actor and fanatical sympathizer of the South, pushed his way through the crowd to the President's box, showed a card to the usher who had been placed at the door to keep out inquisitive people, and was allowed to enter. The eyes of the President and his companions were fixed upon the stage, so that his entrance was unnoticed. Carrying a knife in his left hand, Booth approached within arm's length of the President and fired a pistol; dropping that weapon, he took the knife in his right hand and struck savagely at Major Rathbone, who caught the blow upon his left arm, receiving a deep wound. Booth then vaulted over the railing of the box upon the stage, but his spur caught in the folds of the drapery and he fell, breaking his leg. Staggering to the footlights, he brandished his dripping knife, shouted in a tragic manner "Sic semper tyrannis," the State motto of Virginia, and disappeared between the flies.

Major Rathbone shouted "Stop him!" The actors upon the stage were stupefied by fright and surprise, and it was several seconds before the audience realized what had happened. They were brought to their senses by some one who shouted, "He has shot the President!" Several men jumped upon the stage in pursuit of the assassin, while three army surgeons who happened to be present forced their way through the crowd to the President's box. As soon as a passage could be cleared, the President was carried across the street and laid upon a bed in a small house, where Mrs. Lincoln followed him almost overcome by the shock from which she never recovered. Major Rathbone, exhausted by the loss of blood, was carried home. Messengers were sent for the Cabinet, for the President's family physician, and for the Surgeon-General of the army. Robert Lincoln and John Hay learned the news from the shouts of a frantic crowd which soon poured through the gates of the White House, and hurried at once to the little house on Tenth Street. On their way they were told that most of the Cabinet had been murdered.

The physicians who surrounded the President's bed pronounced the wound fatal. The assassin's bullet entered the back of his head on the left side, passed through the brain, and lodged behind the left ear. But for his powerful physique and his abundant vitality, it would have brought instant death. He never recovered consciousness, but lingered through the night and died at twenty-two minutes past seven in the morning. Dr. Gurley, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, which the President attended, was kneeling in prayer by his bedside; Surgeon-General Barnes, of the army, had his finger upon the President's pulse; Robert Lincoln, Senator Sumner, and one of the assistant secretaries leaned upon the foot of the bed. Colonel Hay describes the scene as follows: