On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary, were enjoying the British comedy Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre. (To the right is an image of a facsimile of a playbill.) They were sitting in an upper right-hand box. Mary wore a black and white striped silk dress, with black lace veiling on her hair. A young couple, Major Henry Rathbone and Miss Clara Harris, shared the box with the Lincolns. As the play progressed, Mary sat very close to her husband, her hand in his. She whispered to him, "What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?" The president replied, "She won't think anything about it."

Those are the last recorded words of Abraham Lincoln. It was between 10:15 P.M. and 10:30 P.M. On stage actor Harry Hawk was saying, "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal - you sockdologizing old mantrap!" John Wilkes Booth opened the door behind where the president was sitting and shot him in the head at near point blank range. Mary, still holding the president's hand, clutched her husband. His head inclined toward his chest. Booth then stabbed Rathbone and jumped over 11 feet to the stage. Mary screamed as Rathbone yelled, "Stop that man!" But Booth was able to escape from the theater.

Charles Leale, 23, was the first doctor to reach the State Box. He lifted Mary's head off the president's chest. Mary said, "Oh, Doctor! Is he dead? Can he recover? Will you take charge of him? Oh, my dear husband! My dear husband!" Mary was now in a state of near collapse. She sat down on a couch adjacent to the chair in which she had been sitting. Leale asked a few soldiers to place the president on the floor. Other doctors arrived in the box. With the help of some brandy and water, the doctors were able to bring the stricken man to a state of irregular breathing and feeble action of the heart. After examining the nature of the wound, Leale said, "His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover."

The doctors decided Lincoln should be taken to the nearest house. With the help of several soldiers, the president was carried out of Ford's Theatre. Rathbone, leaving a trail of blood from his knife wound, and Mary followed behind. She was crying and wringing her hands. From the Petersen House, 25 year-old Henry S. Safford shouted, "Bring him in here!" The president was carried up the steps of the Petersen House (the building in the center of the photograph). Mary momentarily lost sight of the president and yelled out, "Where is my husband? Where is my husband? Why didn't he kill me? Why was I not the one?" The president was carried into a room rented by William T. Clark. Being so tall, the president had to be placed diagonally on Clark's bed. Mary stood in the doorway along with Laura Keene (female lead of Our American Cousin) and Clara Harris. Mary entered and bent over her husband's unconscious face covering him with kisses, calling him by endearing names, and begging him to speak. As the doctors began their examination of the president, Mary was asked to wait in the front room of the Petersen House. The deathwatch began.

Mary kept a nightlong vigil, alternately crying and making forays from the front parlor to the room where the president lay. She would kiss him and call him by tender names. Once she asked that son, Tad, be sent for; Tad had been watching a play at Grover's Theatre when his father was shot, but he was then taken to the White House, not the Petersen House. The Lincolns' older son, Robert, was at the White House at the time of the shooting and immediately went to be with his mother at the Petersen House when he heard the tragic news. He spent the night weeping and trying to comfort his mother.