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Frederick Hatch · (This post was last modified: 10-22-2013 01:55 PM by Frederick Hatch.)

(10-22-2013 05:21 AM)RJNorton Wrote:
(10-21-2013 07:31 PM)L Verge Wrote: This account appears to have O'Beirne on the streets of D.C. while the President lay dying.

Laurie, this is also what I have thought. The reason I am so interested in this topic is that I receive questions about the deathbed through my website, and for 17 years I have been giving out wrong information if O'Beirne were there.

I think my best source has been W. Emerson Reck's A. Lincoln: His Last 24 Hours." The only mention of O'Beirne is in conjunction with Johnson's very brief visit around 1:30 A.M. Reck has a very detailed account of the last few hours prior to the president's death, and he mentions many names being there, but absolutely no mention of O'Beirne.

In looking at the Rubber Room booklet by Harold Holzer and Frank Williams I cannot find a single mention of O'Beirne in any of various deathbed drawings. This includes Chappel's lithograph that includes an incredible 47 people (many of whom were really not there). O'Beirne is not one of the 47.

As I mentioned before Fred Hatch does not include O'Beirne in his list of people at the deathbed.

I would love to see a definitive answer to this so I can correct my files if need be. Was O'Beirne the type of person who would embellish things many years after the fact? I do not know, but I think I would at least like to see evidence that another mourner at the deathbed saw him there. As far as I can tell, that evidence is lacking. For example, Gideon Welles mentions people he saw there in his diary but O'Beirne is not listed.

If Jim Garrett sees this maybe he will know if Ford's Theatre keeps a list of those folks present at the deathbed.

On the night of the assassination, Stanton sent the following order to O'Beirne: "You are relieved from all other duty at this time and directed to employ yourself and your detective force in the detection and arrest of the murderers of the President and the assassin who attempted to murder Mr. Seward, and make report from time to time." O'Beirne personally escorted Vice President Johnson to the Petersen House, in company with Leonard James Farwell. In view of his orders, O'Beirne would not have been expected to stay around the Petersen House, but would be out in the city pursuing leads for the capture of the assassins. O'Beirne eventually received $2,000 of reward money, one of the larger awards, and Stanton praised him, saying: "You have done your duty nobly and you have the satisfaction of knowing that if you did not succeed in capturing Booth, it was, at all events, certainly the information which you gave that led to it." (Stanton to Major O'Beirne, April 16, 1865, in RG 110, National Archives.) I probably should have included O'Beirne in my list of those present at Petersen House, but it appears that he spent very little time there and may not even have seen Lincoln. As for Stanton's often quoted remark, there are several versions of what he is supposed to have said. We will probably never know exactly what, if anything, he did say. James Tanner, who was present at Lincoln's death, could not note down the actual words, as in pulling his pencil out of his pocket, the point broke off.