President Abraham Lincoln's Autopsy

After President Abraham Lincoln passed away on the morning of April 15, 1865, his body was returned by hearse to the White House shortly after 9:00 A.M. Accompanied by an escort of cavalry, the solemn procession slowly moved up 10th Street to G Street and thence to the White House. Mr. Lincoln's temporary coffin was wrapped in an American flag. His remains were transported to the Guest Room which was on the second floor at the front right-hand corner of the building (northwest corner). Nine men were present for the autopsy. These included Surgeon General Dr. Joseph K. Barnes, Lincoln family physician, Dr. Robert King Stone, Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, Assistant Surgeon General Dr. Charles H. Crane, Army Assistant Surgeon William Morrow Notson, General Rucker of the Army's Quartermaster Department (whose men had escorted the hearse back to the White House), Lincoln's friend, Orville H. Browning, Army Assistant Surgeon Joseph Janvier Woodward (who also assisted with and wrote the details of John Wilkes Booth's autopsy), and Army Assistant Surgeon Edward Curtis. During the autopsy Mary Lincoln sent a messenger to request a lock of hair, and a tuft was clipped from the head for her. 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:

When the doctors had completed their autopsy, undertaker Harry P. Cattell of Brown and Alexander (please see the very bottom of this page) began his work. Mr. Lincoln's blood was drained through the jugular vein. A cut was then made in the thigh and through it a chemical substance was force-pumped which hardened the body like marble. The undertakers then shaved the face, but they left a tuft on the chin. The mouth was set in a very slight smile, the eyebrows were arched, and the eyes were closed. Later Mr. Lincoln's body was dressed for the funeral and burial in the same black suit he had worn to his Second Inauguration on March 4, 1865.

Members of the Wright family, relatives of Dr. Brown, were kind enough to send me these images. The first one is a newspaper advertisement that Dr. Brown ran informing the public of his new method of embalmment. The second image is Dr. Brown’s obituary. Note that he conferred the third degree on Edwin Booth. Anyone wishing to contact the Wright family can do so at this e-mail address: celticturtle@mindspring.com