Lincoln's 1865 Autopsy Report and Death Certificate

[Eva Elisabeth]

I've said it before (to no avail I'm aware) - old scrapbooks and clippings may be an interesting read but also contain a lot of mere fabulations and embellishments. You "believe it says" means you aren't even sure about that.

This article (or your belief) is wrong about the autopsy as well as the timing of the handshaking story/stories.

Roger has an excellent site on the autopsy here:
http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln60.html

As I expect this link not to work for you either I quote from Roger's excellent site:


"Dr. Curtis and Dr. Woodward did the actual work of the autopsy. Dr. Curtis' informal description of the autopsy (in a letter to his mother) is as follows (Dr. Woodward's formal report follows Dr. Curtis' description):

'The room...contained but little furniture: a large, heavily curtained bed, a sofa or two, bureau, wardrobe, and chairs comprised all there was. Seated around the room were several general officers and some civilians, silent or conversing in whispers, and to one side, stretched upon a rough framework of boards and covered only with sheets and towels, lay - cold and immovable - what but a few hours before was the soul of a great nation. The Surgeon General was walking up and down the room when I arrived and detailed me the history of the case. He said that the president showed most wonderful tenacity of life, and, had not his wound been necessarily mortal, might have survived an injury to which most men would succumb...Dr. Woodward and I proceeded to open the head and remove the brain down to the track of the ball. The latter had entered a little to the left of the median line at the back of the head, had passed almost directly forwards through the center of the brain and lodged. Not finding it readily, we proceeded to remove the entire brain, when, as I was lifting the latter from the cavity of the skull, suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger - dull, motionless and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world's history as we may perhaps never realize....silently, in one corner of the room, I prepared the brain for weighing. As I looked at the mass of soft gray and white substance that I was carefully washing, it was impossible to realize that it was that mere clay upon whose workings, but the day before, rested the hopes of the nation. I felt more profoundly impressed than ever with the mystery of that unknown something which may be named 'vital spark' as well as anything else, whose absence or presence makes all the immeasurable difference between an inert mass of matter owning obedience to no laws but those covering the physical and chemical forces of the universe, and on the other hand, a living brain by whose silent, subtle machinery a world may be ruled.
The weighing of the brain... gave approximate results only, since there had been some loss of brain substance, in consequence of the wound, during the hours of life after the shooting. But the figures, as they were, seemed to show that the brain weight was not above the ordinary for a man of Lincoln's size.'

Dr. Woodward's formal report of the autopsy, written to the Surgeon General, is as follows:

Surgeon General's Office
Washington City D.C.
April 15, 1865
Brigadier General J.K. Barnes
Surgeon General U.S.A.
General:

I have the honor to report that in obedience to your orders and aided by Assistant Surgeon E. Curtis, U.S.A., I made in your presence at 12 o'clock this morning an autopsy on the body of President Abraham Lincoln, with the following results: The eyelids and surrounding parts of the face were greatly ecchymosed and the eyes somewhat protuberant from effusion of blood into the orbits.
There was a gunshot wound of the head around which the scalp was greatly thickened by hemorrhage into its tissue. The ball entered through the occipital bone about one inch to the left of the median line and just above the left lateral sinus, which it opened. It then penetrated the dura matter, passed through the left posterior lobe of the cerebrum, entered the left lateral ventricle and lodged in the white matter of the cerebrum just above the anterior portion of the left corpus striatum, where it was found.
The wound in the occipital bone was quite smooth, circular in shape, with bevelled edges. The opening through the internal table being larger than that through the external table. The track of the ball was full of clotted blood and contained several little fragments of bone with small pieces of the ball near its external orifice. The brain around the track was pultaceous and livid from capillary hemorrhage into its substance. The ventricles of the brain were full of clotted blood. A thick clot beneath the dura matter coated the right cerebral lobe.
There was a smaller clot under the dura matter of the left side. But little blood was found at the base of the brain. Both the orbital plates of the frontal bone were fractured and the fragments pushed upwards toward the brain. The dura matter over these fractures was uninjured. The orbits were gorged with blood. I have the honor of being very respectfully your obedient servant.
J.J. Woodward
Assistant Surgeon
U.S.A."

Dr. Curtis also wrote, "I was simply astonished at the showing of the nude remains, where well-rounded muscles built upon strong bones told the powerful athlete. Now did I understand the deeds of prowess recorded of the President's early days."

I think you may be mistaken by the incident of the casts of Lincoln’s hands made by Leonard Volk on May 20, 1860, two days after the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. Lincoln’s right hand was still swollen from shaking hands with supporters, and Volk noted that “the right hand appeared swollen as compared to the left,” and that “this difference is distinctly shown in the cast.”

The closest event to the assassination at which Lincoln shook "thousands of hands" was to my memory the public reception after the second inaugural, and Elizabeth Keckley in her book tells of "the right–hand glove that the President wears" at this event "bearing the marks of the thousands of hands that grasped the honest hand of Mr. Lincoln on that eventful night" being gifted to and cherished by her.

That this however couldn't still have had effected Lincoln on April 14 in a way you speculate shows the ax incident at City Point of April 8.
http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/200...08_a.shtml
(Let me know if the link doesn't work for you...)

Despite it wouldn't have made a difference as he was cowardly* shot from the back while, unarmed, unaware, enjoying and focussing on a play in front of him, sitting. (*I am applying the definition of "cowardly" here you repeatedly apply to Boston Corbett. Btw, Abraham Lincoln was assasinated, not executed.)