New Eyewitness Account?

[Susan Higginbotham]

(05-24-2018 04:30 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  One reason why I still am on the fence regarding Laura Keene's presence is that in an 1865 report Dr. Leale made no mention of Keene. It wasn't until 1909 when Dr. Leale added Keene to the story. Some people feel Dr. Leale did some embellishing in 1909.

This is from his 1865 report. He mentions several people by name but no mention of Laura Keene.


"I immediately ran to the Presidents box and as soon as the door was opened was admitted and introduced to Mrs. Lincoln when she exclaimed several times, “O Doctor, do what you can for him, do what you can”! I told her we would do all that we possibly could.

When I entered the box the ladies were very much excited. Mr. Lincoln was seated in a high backed arm-chair with his head leaning towards his right side supported by Mrs. Lincoln who was weeping bitterly. Miss Harris was near her left and behind the President.

While approaching the President I sent a gentleman for brandy and another for water.

When I reached the President he was in a state of general paralysis, his eyes were closed and he was in a profoundly comatose condition, while his breathing was intermittent and exceedingly stertorous. I placed my finger on his right radial pulse but could perceive no movement of the artery. As two gentlemen now arrived, I requested them to assist me to place him in a recumbent position, and as I held his head and shoulders, while doing this my hand came in contact with a clot of blood near his left shoulder.

Supposing that he had been stabbed there I asked a gentleman to cut his coat and shirt off from that part, to enable me if possible to check the hemorrhage which I supposed took place from the subclavian artery or some of its branches.

Before they had proceeded as far as the elbow I commenced to examine his head (as no wound near the shoulder was found) and soon passed my fingers over a large firm clot of blood situated about one inch below the superior curved line of the occipital bone.

The coagula I easily removed and passed the little finger of my left hand through the perfectly smooth opening made by the ball, and found that it had entered the encephalon.

As soon as I removed my finger a slight oozing of blood followed and his breathing became more regular and less stertorous. The brandy and water now arrived and a small quantity was placed in his mouth, which passed into his stomach where it was retained.

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."

It could be that since he was writing for an official audience, he deemed it imprudent to mention the presence of an actress in the box. I find his use of "The brandy and water now arrived" to be interesting. Either he didn't remember who brought them or deemed it unimportant, or he decided not to mention that Keene had been the water-toter.

What strikes me as more strange in the 1865 report is his failure to mention his efforts at artificial respiration (I was reading another thread on this last night) that appear in the 1909 recollection. Surely those would have been of interest to the officials he addressed in 1865.