Lincoln's embalmment

[Houmes]

(01-05-2015 10:25 AM)Houmes Wrote:  

(01-05-2015 05:11 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-04-2015 10:30 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  In the initial minutes after the shooting, first hand accounts say that the president did not bleed much at all.

Hi Toia. Like you I have read that Lincoln's wound did not really bleed a lot. At the moment I can think of only one eyewitness who maintained her dress was blemished with Lincoln's blood. Seaton Munroe saw Laura Keene afterwords and reported, "Her hair and dress were in disorder, and not only was her gown soaked with Lincoln’s blood, but her hands, ever her cheeks where her fingers had strayed were bedaubed with the sorry stains."

If we are to believe Munroe, then Lincoln bled a lot. But was Monroe confusing Lincoln's blood with Rathbone's? Other than Munroe are there other eyewitness accounts that say Keene's dress was soaked with Lincoln's blood?

Henry Rathbone had a good part of his left upper arm sliced open and he was lucky to have survived. He struggled with Booth while Lincoln was still in his rocking chair, so there was plenty of floor space where Rathbone's blood could have been spilled or sprayed. If Laura Keene truly held Lincoln's head in her lap, she had to either kneel down or sit down on a wet floor--and at some point in her efforts, use either one or both hands to steady herself with that huge dress she was wearing. Her hands, like the dress, could easily have become stained with blood.

I've never read or heard a satisfactory explanation of how Lincoln's gloves, inside the deep pockets of a bulky coat, could become stained with his blood unless the coat was literally soaking wet like a sponge.

Not that I would ever stoop to confuse matters worse, but there was another lady claiming years later to have also cradled Lincoln's head in Ford's Theatre. This was Antonia Ford Willard, wife of Major Joseph C. Willard. Ironically, she had been imprisoned earlier in the war as a Confederate spy. Her descendants attempted in the 1930's to donate or sell the blood-stained opera cloak she wore to Ford's Theatre that night. Perhaps Ms. Willard and Ms. Keene passed Lincoln's head back and forth.

Read about this at: https://archive.org/stream/curiosrelicsclotlinc_11