New Eyewitness Account?

[AussieMick]

Steve also sent an article from the April 17, 1865, New York World which cites Laura Keene's actions after the assassination. I am posting the part of the article that mentions Keene:

There are several strange instances in the article regarding Laura Keene. To refer to just one ... the water pitcher. Apparently, Miss Harris (not yet married to Major Rathbone despite what the article says) called for the water and it was brought up by a 'gentleman'. It was later used by Laura Keene to give to the President once she had made her way to the box ... did nobody else use the water? Did Miss Rathbone ever state anywhere else that she had called for water?

[RJNorton]

Did Miss Rathbone ever state anywhere else that she had called for water?

Michael, I do not know. Can anyone post the entire interview Clara Harris did with correspondent Emily Pomona Edson Briggs which was published in the Philadelphia Weekly Times on December 29th 1878?

[Steve]

Did Miss Rathbone ever state anywhere else that she had called for water?

Michael, I do not know. Can anyone post the entire interview Clara Harris did with correspondent Emily Pomona Edson Briggs which was published in the Philadelphia Weekly Times on December 29th 1878?

I just looked over all 8 pages of The Times issue of Sunday 29 December 1878 and found no interview of Clara Harris or any mention of Harris or Keene. Are you sure that is the correct issue?

[RJNorton]

Steve, I am using W. Emerson Reck's A Lincoln: His Last 24 Hours. The endnote for the Harris' (Mrs. Rathbone by then) interview is on the top of p. 191. I am pretty sure I copied it correctly.

[RJNorton]

Steve, I was searching to make sure all sources had the same date, and I found one that has a year different from what Reck says.

The web page at

http://chicagohistoryresources.org/wetwi...htm#briggs

has the same publication, month, and day, but says the year was 1877.

"Briggs, Emily Edson. "Assassination Night." Philadelphia Weekly Times, 29 December 1877."

[Steve]

Steve, I was searching to make sure all sources had the same date, and I found one that has a year different from what Reck says.

The web page at

http://chicagohistoryresources.org/wetwi...htm#briggs

has the same publication, month, and day, but says the year was 1877.

"Briggs, Emily Edson. "Assassination Night." Philadelphia Weekly Times, 29 December 1877."

The article was published in 1877, not 1878. Unfortunately, Newspapers.com doesn't have images of the 8-page weekly version of The Times until September 1878. It does have the 4-page daily versions of The Times and I can see advertisements for Briggs' upcoming "Assassination Night" article in the late December 1877 editions of the paper. There's also an advertisement with a list of previously printed articles of the same series of Weekly Times articles that Briggs' appeared in Feb. 1878 issues of the daily version of the paper.

All the other newspaper databases that I usually consult don't have any images of The Times - Genealogybank, Chronicling America, Old Fulton Postcards, etc.

[RJNorton]

Thanks for trying, Steve! How would you guess an author such as W. Emerson Reck got access to this article? His book was published in 1987. Clara Harris made some very interesting statements after the assassination including the observation that JWB made a "trial run" into the State Box about an hour before he returned to shoot Lincoln. No one else said that as far as I know.

Michael, I looked through several sources trying to find out who yelled "Water!" Some said it was Clara Harris, but others just said something like "someone yelled for water." The ones that said it was Clara Harris had no footnote.

[AussieMick]

Thanks for trying, Steve! How would you guess an author such as W. Emerson Reck got access to this article? His book was published in 1987. Clara Harris made some very interesting statements after the assassination including the observation that JWB made a "trial run" into the State Box about an hour before he returned to shoot Lincoln. No one else said that as far as I know.

Michael, I looked through several sources trying to find out who yelled "Water!" Some said it was Clara Harris, but others just said something like "someone yelled for water." The ones that said it was Clara Harris had no footnote.

Thanks, Roger. It wouldnt be surprising if several people (including Clara Harris) called for water ... rather like people shouting for towels and water when a woman is giving birth. They feel the need to be involved and to assist in some way.

[Steve]

Here's a link to a book that has transcriptions of both Maj. Rathbone's and Clara Harris' 17 April 1865 affidavits:

https://books.google.com/books?id=_dZCAA...22&f=false

Neither of them mention Laura Keene being admitted into the box. Clara's affidavit says she helped two people climb up into the box from the stage, one a naval surgeon (Dr. Taft, who was actually an Army surgeon) and a soldier wearing a Veterans Reserve Corp uniform. That could possibly be Augustus Clark, though, as far as I can tell he hadn't been a soldier prior to working as a clerk in the War Department. I very much doubt William Flood's account of climbing up to the box. Are there any other people who claimed to have climbed up to the box?

[RJNorton]

Are there any other people who claimed to have climbed up to the box?

Not that I know of. I can also add that Dr. Leale's initial accounts did not mention Laura Keene's presence. It was not until 44 years later (1909) that Dr. Leale included her in the box. I do not want to diminish Dr. Leale's efforts on behalf of the stricken President, but there are some people who feel Dr. Leale did some embellishing in his 1909 address.

[Finnigan]

Steve, I was searching to make sure all sources had the same date, and I found one that has a year different from what Reck says.

The web page at

http://chicagohistoryresources.org/wetwi...htm#briggs

has the same publication, month, and day, but says the year was 1877.

"Briggs, Emily Edson. "Assassination Night." Philadelphia Weekly Times, 29 December 1877."

The article was published in 1877, not 1878. Unfortunately, Newspapers.com doesn't have images of the 8-page weekly version of The Times until September 1878.

I can get a copy of this article for you. It may take about a week.

[RJNorton]

I can get a copy of this article for you. It may take about a week.

That would be great! Thanks, David.

[Steve]

With all this debate about who was really at the box before Lincoln's body was moved (Laura Keene, etc), it occurs to me that I haven't seen any account of what happened by Maj. James Potter, the Army paymaster who escorted Mary Lincoln from the box to Peterson House at the request of Maj. Rathbone. He's mentioned in Rathbone's statements, the newspaper accounts, etc. But I can't find any testimony, affidavits, later accounts written by him, or later newspaper stories about him that give his version of what happened. I think he was just outside the box and not in it, but he would've seen if Keene was admitted to box and would definitely know if she walked with Mary to Peterson House. The closest thing I could find to an account by him is this book about Kingston, Rhode Island mentioning that his daughter mentioned it:

https://books.google.com/books?id=iqZ5wX...on&f=false

Does anybody know if there is a surviving Potter account?

[RJNorton]

I, for one, have never seen an account by Major Potter. To me, he is somewhat of a mystery man. Steve, in Reck's book, Potter is referred to as Major Horatio Potter, not Major James Potter.

[Steve]

I, for one, have never seen an account by Major Potter. To me, he is somewhat of a mystery man. Steve, in Reck's book, Potter is referred to as Major Horatio Potter, not Major James Potter.

I checked and the only Army paymaster at the time with the surname Potter is Maj. James Potter, and contrary to what Reck says in his book he was from Rhode Island, not New York.

The only Horatio Potter that I can find in the entire war was a Capt. Horatio Potter of the 7th New York Artillery. I don't know where he was on 14 April 1865, but he was promoted to Captain on 12 January 1865 at Petersburg Va and was discharged on 03 July 1865 in Baltimore. He is also listed as being on detached duty to a Gen. Potter of "5A Corp"(?) after he was promoted to Capt. I think that is supposed to be a reference to Gen. Robert Brown Potter, which would place Horatio Potter in Virginia sometime before Gen. Potter was shot on 02 April 1865 - but the New York muster roll abstract I'm looking at for this information doesn't give the dates of his detached duty.