The “rubber box” or did Laura Keene indeed held Lincoln’s head?

[STS Lincolnite]

(09-13-2014 03:10 PM)SSlater Wrote:  Are we concerned with WHEN were all these people "in the box"? Some may have looked in, saw the gore, and left. Truly, they were there. Others may have visited after Lincoln was removed, and saw the results of the shooting. They could claim to have "been there". If some were outside, and talked to people as they came out - they could reconstruct the scene inside. I doubt that "Who was there" will never be determined. Anyone who was in the theater, that night, would claim, to be a witness.
(Would you admit, that you were in the Theater, and "didn't see nuttin' ") If I watched from across the street - I was there!

I have been on vacation and am trying to catch up on my “Symposium reading”.

In doing so, I have been reading this thread with interest. As I have been progressing through this thread, my thoughts have echoed what John posted above. In reading about people who claimed to be in the box that night, I never envisioned them all there at exactly the same time. I always thought of them as sort of moving in and out and milling about outside in the passage way.

In Dr. Leale’s 1865 statement (that is the version I have immediate access to), there are a couple of passages that may be pertinent to this point.

“Dr. C. F. Taft and Dr. A. F. A. King now arrived and after a moments consultation we agreed to have him removed to the nearest house, which we immediately did, the above named with others assisting. When we arrived at the door of the box, the passage was found to be densly crowded by those who were rushing towards that part of the theatre. I called out twice “Guards clear the passage,” which was so soon done that we proceeded without a moments delay with the President and were not in the slightest interrupted until he was placed in bed in the house of Mr. Peterson, opposite the theatre, in less than 20 minutes from the time he was assassinated.”

I think that if the passage way was “densely crowded”, as Leale described it, is very likely that there were people ducking in and out of the box (or at least immediately outside into the vestibule). Some of those people to help, some just to say they were there and get a look and probably some hunting souvenirs. I would suspect the attention of the physicians and most others directly present/involved would have been focused on Lincoln and not necessarily taking note of everyone that came in and out.

The other part of Leale’s above statement that is of interest to me is his assertion that the elapsed time from the moment Lincoln was shot until his placement on the bed at the Peterson House was less than 20 minutes. I am curious as to how he came to this assessment. I doubt he had the presence of mind (or the inclination considering the immediacy of the circumstances) to look at his watch regularly until reaching the Peterson house. It seems to me that I have read in the past that people involved in similar situations have a severely impaired sense of the passage of time. Only 20 minutes elapsed from the moment he was shot until he was placed on the bed at the Peterson house seems pretty fast to me but I do find Leale to be a generally credible source.

Earlier in the 1865 statement Leale reported:
“The theatre was well filled and the play of “Our American Cousin” progressed very pleasantly until about half past ten, when the report of a pistol was distinctly heard and about a minute after a man of low stature with black hair and eyes was seen leaping to the stage beneath, holding in his hand a drawn dagger.”

From what I have read, the typical assignment for the time Lincoln was shot was 10:13 pm. If I assign “about half past ten” as 10:30 that leaves a discrepancy of 17 minutes when comparing Leale’s account to what is generally accepted as the time of the shot. I concede that “about half past ten” is a vagary that probably could be anywhere from 10:20 to 10:40.

If the length of time between Lincoln being shot and his removal to the Peterson house was in fact longer than the 20 minutes he described, that might make it more likely that a greater number of people would have had the opportunity to come in and out of the presidential box.

Has anyone besides Leale actually reported a time frame from the moment of the shot to Lincoln’s arrival and placement on the bed at the Peterson house?