Pictorial representations Lincoln’s deathbed

[loetar44]

(08-29-2014 10:51 AM)loetar44 Wrote:  

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In the Chappel painting you can clearly see a print that hung over the bed where Lincoln died. Many printmakers included this print in their depictions of the deathbed scene. And yes, this engraving was actually in the room. I suspect it was an engraving after the painting “The Village Blacksmith”, from John Frederick Herring Sr. (12 September 1795 – 23 September 1865) a British artist. Does anyone know something about the other prints that hung over the bed?

I just found in the Lincoln Lore #523, April 17, 1939 the following:

   

So, my question about the prints that hung over Lincoln's bed is solved.

[RJNorton]

On p. 114 of Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse author James Swanson is critical of Mary and Robert for not going to the White House during the night to comfort Tad. He writes that it was only a five minute carriage ride. Mr. Swanson is also critical of Robert and Mary for not having Tad brought from the White House to be at his father's deathbed.

I am curious how folks feel about this - should Tad have been brought to the Petersen House to be with his dying father?

[Gene C]

No, the young boy had experienced death close hand when Willie died. Given the circumstances, I don't see that it would have served any purpose to bring him to the Peterson House.

[Eva Elisabeth]

In Catholic families it's common that the entire family, if possible, is present at the deathbed, whatever the age.

[loetar44]

Dying and death are natural processes in the circle of life. I think it was wrong to withhold Tad to say his final goodbye to his dying father, he loved so much. In general and historically, children have always been at the bedside of the dying, and in many parts of the world, they still are. Yet, in the West, children often are not involved in the final stages of a parent's (or sibling's) life. One reason for this is the reluctance of many adults to expose children to the process of dying, often out of a concern for their well-being. However, excluding children from the bedside of a dying close relative can have unintended effects. I.e. many children will imagine scenes that are much worse than the reality of seeing the dying. Therefore give children always the chance to witness the dying process first hand, of course in the presence of supportive adults. This experience can go a long way toward helping them understand what is happening and will support them in their grieving process. Tad was not given that and that was in my opinion wrong.

[L Verge]

I agree (in most cases), Kees. I come from a family who has, for generations, included children in the dying process - including funeral homes and burial services. I am reminded of a cousin, however, whose daughter was five years old when her grandmother died suddenly of a heart attack. Amy had been very close to her grandmother, but was not allowed to go through any of the final viewings and services.

Amy was/is the same age as my daughter, so a few months after the funeral, we took her to McDonald's with us one day. My mother was with us. Amy seemed a little depressed, and all of a sudden, she blurted out, "My grandmother went away and never said good-bye." She then started to cry. My mother and I tried to do the "lesson" there in a McDonald's that should have been done by Amy's parents.

My five-year-old daughter had been to the funeral home and the funeral with us, but I was so happy that she kept quiet and didn't tell Amy that she had "said goodbye to your grandma." I think that would have caused more grief.

This is just my opinion, but I think that all those "noble" men who surrounded Lincoln's deathbed, waiting for him to draw his last breath, should have been kind enough to clear the room at some point - perhaps just after the moment of death - and allowed Mary, Tad, and Robert a few minutes of privacy with the man who was the rock of their world. Somehow, I think Mary would have conducted herself appropriately in front of Tad; but if not, both children were certainly used to their mother's hysterics -- and she had good reason for them at that moment!

I often wonder, when I see the public weeping and wailing on television of women (and some men) from all cultures when death strikes their family or their community, how Edwin Stanton and hosts of pompous men and women of that era would react today. I mourn quietly because that is how I was raised, but culture and personal emotions bring out hysterics in some mourners, and that should be respected.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(08-31-2014 11:09 AM)L Verge Wrote:  This is just my opinion, but I think that all those "noble" men who surrounded Lincoln's deathbed, waiting for him to draw his last breath, should have been kind enough to clear the room at some point - perhaps just after the moment of death - and allowed Mary, Tad, and Robert a few minutes of privacy with the man who was the rock of their world. Somehow, I think Mary would have conducted herself appropriately in front of Tad; but if not, both children were certainly used to their mother's hysterics -- and she had good reason for them at that moment!

I absolutely agree on this. Instead of his family (despite Robert), people were admitted some of whom were sure no close friends but rather "event seekers". That's why I wondered who of these persons A. L. would (not) have liked to be in that room. And as Kees said, Tad should at least have been given the choice to say good-bye.

[loetar44]

Today I did some work to decipher the key of the Albert Berghaus print, published in the April 29th, 1865 issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. I was curious who were in the room at the moment AL died, because William T. Clark wrote in a letter to his sister Ida, 4 days after Lincoln’s assassination: “I was engaged nearly all Sunday with one of Frank Leslie’s special artists, aiding him in making a complete drawing of the last moments of Mr. Lincoln, as I know the position of everyone present.” Clark returned April 15 to Petersen’s House, so it is quite possible that he knew who were exactly in the room at Lincoln’s passing. However the key was completely unreadable for my “old eyes”. I used some rendering programs, some IT tricks, and tried to sharpen the picture (I found a 1.5 Mb TIFF at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a09598/ , but no higher resolution, urchh). Lots of thanks to Dave's highly informative article at http://boothiebarn.com/2012/09/23/at-lincolns-deathbed/ (thanks Dave! Great work). I think I have the names, but I’m not 100% sure. So please correct me if I'm wrong.

   

(1) Julius Ulke; (2) Henry Ulke; (3) Gideon Welles; (4) John F. Farnworth; (5) Petersen Jr. (6) Salmon P. Chase; (7) Dr. Robert K. Stone; (8) Schuyler Colfax; (9) William Dennison; (10) Thomas Proctor; (11) William Petersen; (12) Charles Sumner; (13) Robert Todd Lincoln; (14) Dr. Joseph K. Barnes; (15) Dr. Robert K. Stone; (16) Christopher C. Augur; (17) Dr. Charles H. Crane; (18) Henry W. Halleck; (19) Henry Safford; (20) Edwin M. Stanton.

After discussion with Eva, I've made the following changes (see post #27).

(15) NOT Dr. Robert K. Stone BUT Rufus F. Andrews
(16) NOT Gen. Christopher C. Augur BUT Gen. George G. Meade

[Eva Elisabeth]

Wow, Kees! I've once tried this, but less successfully (two ?? were left).
I just spotted Dr. Robert K. Stone is 7.+15 in your list. Don't know if this helps, these are the names on the bottom of the Berghaus engraving as I could figure out:
-left half:
Mr. J. Ulike - Mr. H. Ulike - Mr. G. Welles - Mr. Farnsworth/Mr Farnsworth Jr. - Chief Justice Chase/Surgeon Stone (?) - Mr. Colfax - Postmaster Dennisson (?)

-right half, from the left:
Mr. Proctor - Mr Peterson - Charles Sumner - Robert Lincoln - ...F....(???)/Surgeon General Barnes - ? (General Meigs?) - Surgeon Crane - General Halleck - Mr. Safford - Mr. Stanton

[LincolnToddFan]

(08-31-2014 06:53 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  On p. 114 of Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse author James Swanson is critical of Mary and Robert for not going to the White House during the night to comfort Tad. He writes that it was only a five minute carriage ride. Mr. Swanson is also critical of Robert and Mary for not having Tad brought from the White House to be at his father's deathbed.

I am curious how folks feel about this - should Tad have been brought to the Petersen House to be with his dying father?

Roger,

Only a few paragraphs down from his criticism of Mary and Robert for NOT having Tad brought to Petersen House, James Swanson mentions Mary's famous plea "Fetch Taddie, the president loves him so..." I simply do not know what to make of Swanson for such sloppy and inconsistent writing.

The scene at Petersen House was terrible, chaotic. It was not at all like the rather serene paintings and sketches. Lincoln's face was discolored, his blackened right eye bulging and distorted. He was making horrible grunting noises at one point. The pillows were blood soaked, and there were bloody towels strewn over the floor. Grown men were sobbing, Tad's mother was wailing and hysterical. For Tad to have seen his powerful, adored father laid low like that might have shattered such a sensitive, immature, high strung kid. Bloody, bruised, and struggling for breath should not be any child's final memory of a beloved parent, especially not one with Tad's emotional temperament.

He was so traumatized by the death of his brother Willie he cried for weeks and was only consoled by being permitted to sleep with his father from then on out.

And as for Mary leaving the side of her dying husband to go to the WH and comfort Tad...what???!!

The same historians who rip her for being a lousy wife and First Lady-Swanson is one of them-would have had a FIELD DAY if she'd left Lincoln to return to the WH that night!!

Swanson was very harsh on MTL throughout the "Bloody Crimes" book but I could not believe he was serious for suggesting such a thing.

[loetar44]

(08-31-2014 11:59 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  [quote='RJNorton' pid='37573' dateline='1409482422']

The scene at Petersen House was terrible, chaotic. It was not at all like the rather serene paintings and sketches. Lincoln's face was discolored, his blackened right eye bulging and distorted. He was making horrible grunting noises at one point. The pillows were blood soaked, and there were bloody towels strewn over the floor. Grown men were sobbing, Tad's mother was wailing and hysterical. For Tad to have seen his powerful, adored father laid low like that might have shattered such a sensitive, immature, high strung kid. Bloody, bruised, and struggling for breath should not be any child's final memory of a beloved parent, especially not one with Tad's emotional temperament.

You are probably right. When AL was brought in his dying room he had a severe head injury, with the symptoms you describe, with blood or clear fluid coming from the head wound. Yes there was panic. Doctors were busy, Mary was hysteric, people were crying. At that moment no good place for a 12 year old boy to be. But remember AL didn’t bleed to death. We know from Dr. Charles Taft, who was in constant attendance at the bedside, that ALL bleeding stopped at 5:30 am. Lincoln died of the swelling, which caused the brain stem to herniate down the spinal canal opening at the base of his skull. That caused that AL was already brain dead at 1:00 am, with the loss of all functions of the brain. We know that from Dr. Stone, who said that AL suddenly had spasmodic contractions of his arms at that moment and that he stopped breathing for a few seconds, and that both pupils became widely dilated. At that moment Lincoln was clinically dead. He was not able to move any more, there were no more reactions on pain, there were no reflexes of the eyes any more, also there were no cough and gag reflexes, etc. Lincoln could no longer be saved (even by medical standards today).After brain death a person is lying peacefully, but his heart is still beating and periodic respiration, with cycles of respiration that are increasingly deeper then shallower with possible increasing periods of apnoea. AL was pronounced death at 7:22 am, when his heart and breathing suddenly stopped. In Lincoln’s days was a beating heart and breathing synonymous with life, nowadays brain stem damage is synonymous with death. When Lincoln’s brain (stem) died, Lincoln was dead. Okay, a lot of people find the concept of brain death difficult to accept, but when my twin brother died almost 25 years ago caused by a sudden hemorrhage of the brain stem, he was pronounced dead almost 5 hours before his heartbeat and breathing stopped. My two boys (12 and 14 then, both with very sensitive minds, but they definitely wanted to see their dying / dead uncle) were in that closing hours with me, to say goodbye. Of course there was not any reaction from my brother. Everybody was in a shock, but both my boys always have said that they treasured that moment of saying farewell and they were thankfull that we did not withheld them from my brother’s death bed. Between AL’s brain death and his pronounced death lay 6½ hours. In that period Tad had (in my opinion) been allowed to see his father , to say farewell. Of course he was a very sensitive boy who had experienced a traumatic loss (Willie), but also he had a free will. I think if they had asked him he definitely would have said yes. Especially for extremely sensitive minds (as I think Tad was extremely sensitive) it’s very important, because to him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is an idol, a father is a god and denying to say farewell to his dying father is a cruelty.

[loetar44]

(08-31-2014 04:50 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Wow, Kees! I've once tried this, but less successfully (two ?? were left).
I just spotted Dr. Robert K. Stone is 7.+15 in your list. Don't know if this helps, these are the names on the bottom of the Berghaus engraving as I could figure out:
-left half:
Mr. J. Ulike - Mr. H. Ulike - Mr. G. Welles - Mr. Farnsworth/Mr Farnsworth Jr. - Chief Justice Chase/Surgeon Stone (?) - Mr. Colfax - Postmaster Dennisson (?)

-right half, from the left:
Mr. Proctor - Mr Peterson - Charles Sumner - Robert Lincoln - ...F....(???)/Surgeon General Barnes - ? (General Meigs?) - Surgeon Crane - General Halleck - Mr. Safford - Mr. Stanton

Thanks Eva! 7 and 15 (in my key) ???? Of course that's a mistake, sorry, don't know why I gave two persons the same name. (7) is Dr. Stone and (15) is (I'm sure) Rufus F. Andrews, Surveyor of the port of New York during the Lincoln administration.

(5) Petersen Jr. ---- I'm pretty sure

(16) Augur? That was a difficult one. I've made a new examination by inverting the picture and using blue and red filters. Augur is definitely not right as you suspected. However Meigs is also not right, because there is no "g" in the name. There are 5 letters and the name is beginning with "M" and has an "a" in it. It's Gen. Meade (I'm sure)

[LincolnToddFan]

[a lot of people find the concept of brain death difficult to accept, but when my twin brother died almost 25 years ago caused by a sudden hemorrhage of the brain stem, he was pronounced dead almost 5 hours before his heartbeat and breathing stopped. My two boys (12 and 14 then, both with very sensitive minds, but they definitely wanted to see their dying / dead uncle) were in that closing hours with me, to say goodbye. Of course there was not any reaction from my brother. ]// quote

Kees, I am so sorry and heartbroken for you to have lost not only a brother...but your twin! :(It's very generous and brave of you to share this information with us here..thank you.

The information about AL struggling to move his arms at one point is something that I read long ago, and it haunted me because I wondered if it meant that he was aware somehow of what was happening to him and he was trying to fight his way back. I hope it was, as you say, only the final muscular spasms as his brain and nervous system shut completely off.

I have seen that famous photo of AL's death bed taken only a few minutes after his body was wrapped in sheets and carried back to the White House. Even though the photograph is faded with time and in black/white, you still know something very, very bad has taken place in that room. The blood soaked pillows are still seen very clearly on the bed. I know that your two young sons were able to see their dying uncle and be comforted, but we must remember the type of personality young Tad had in comparison to your boys. At the age of 12 he could neither read nor dress himself. He threw crying tantrums when thwarted. He slept in his father's bed at night. He had a serious speech impediment and some people still believe he was at least mildly retarded. According to several books I have read, most recently "How a Nation Grieves" by Glen Alan Cheney, the child became completely overcome with grief at his father's East Room funeral service and had to be taken away, sobbing.

When Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot behind the ear in 1968 and lay dying at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in L.A., his wife Ethel made the decision to summon the three eldest of their ten children to Los Angeles to say good-bye to their comatose father. (One of them, 14 year old RFK Jr, declined to come) The then 16 year old Joseph later described the experience of seeing his father wrapped up like a mummy with only his bruised and swollen face visible as "hellish", and his younger brother, 12 year old David who had accidentally witnessed the shooting live on TV in his hotel suite, sank into the drug and alcohol addiction that later claimed his life at age 27.("The Kennedys: An American Drama" by Peter Collier and David Horowitz)

I guess I believe in most cases it IS a good idea to bring children to the side of a dying loved one, both to honor their relationship with the dying person and to give them a sense of closure. But there are circumstances that need to be considered...such as the emotional temperament of the child, their age, and most of all the death scene itself. Tad would have seen his father that night or morning not as his beloved "Papa-day" sleeping peacefully. He would have seen a disfigured bloody father who he probably would not have even recognized. Taking all that into effect, it was probably best for Tad not to have been exposed to the stark horror of the Petersen House that night.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(09-01-2014 03:51 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  

(08-31-2014 04:50 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Wow, Kees! I've once tried this, but less successfully (two ?? were left).
I just spotted Dr. Robert K. Stone is 7.+15 in your list. Don't know if this helps, these are the names on the bottom of the Berghaus engraving as I could figure out:
-left half:
Mr. J. Ulike - Mr. H. Ulike - Mr. G. Welles - Mr. Farnsworth/Mr Farnsworth Jr. - Chief Justice Chase/Surgeon Stone (?) - Mr. Colfax - Postmaster Dennisson (?)

-right half, from the left:
Mr. Proctor - Mr Peterson - Charles Sumner - Robert Lincoln - ...F....(???)/Surgeon General Barnes - ? (General Meigs?) - Surgeon Crane - General Halleck - Mr. Safford - Mr. Stanton

Thanks Eva! 7 and 15 (in my key) ???? Of course that's a mistake, sorry, don't know why I gave two persons the same name. (7) is Dr. Stone and (15) is (I'm sure) Rufus F. Andrews, Surveyor of the port of New York during the Lincoln administration.

(5) Petersen Jr. ---- I'm pretty sure

(16) Augur? That was a difficult one. I've made a new examination by inverting the picture and using blue and red filters. Augur is definitely not right as you suspected. However Meigs is also not right, because there is no "g" in the name. There are 5 letters and the name is beginning with "M" and has an "a" in it. It's Gen. Meade (I'm sure)

Thanks, Kees - I remember being on the fence between Meigs and Meade, too. I think I decided for Meigs because he actually was at Lincoln's deathbed.

[loetar44]

(09-01-2014 05:10 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  Kees, I am so sorry and heartbroken for you to have lost not only a brother...but your twin! :(It's very generous and brave of you to share this information with us here..thank you.

Thank you so much for your kind and comforting words. I appreciate that very much. It was a severe blow and loosing my twin brother caused a never healing wound inside me. Thank you once again! Re. Tad, after reading your mail I tend to believe that you are right, and that you never can compare situations with each other because the circumstances are always different. But in general it is still my believe that you must never deny a child to grieve in his own unique way, so they can express their grief. In all matters of death it's so difficult to allow yourself to speak from your heart, not just your head. And in Tad's case people spoke more from head than from heart. I always suspected Stanton gave a kind of "order" to withhold Tad (and his mother). In any case I think we can agree that Tad had to go after his father's death a journey that was for him frightening, painful and overwhelming.