Dr. Samuel A. Sabin's eyewitness account of assassination

[Linda Anderson]

Dr. Samuel A. Sabin from Palmyra, NY, wrote a letter to his wife, Ellen, on April 15 describing what he saw in Ford's Theatre the previous evening when "I was an eye-witness to the most appalling tragedy ever enacted in the history of our country. Lieut. [Jakeway R.] Hoff, formerly of the 9th, is here, and rooms with me, and I proposed to go, last night, and hear Laura Keene in 'Our American Cousin' in Ford's Theatre. We occupied orchestra chairs near the stage and about the middle of the house."

The complete letter is included in The Ninth New York Heavy Artillery: A History of Its Organization, Services in the Defenses of Washington, Marches, Camps, Battles and Muster-Out by Alfred Seelye Roe, 1899, 241-242.

https://archive.org/details/ninthnewyork...7/mode/2up

"Just as the curtain was rising, in the third act, the sharp report of a pistol was heard in the direction of the president's box, and immediately afterwards a man jumped from the box upon the stage with a drawn dagger in his left hand. The president's box was draped with flags upon the outside, and as he jumped from the box he was partially caught by a flag and fell upon the stage, but not entirely down. As he reached the stage he cried, 'Sic semper tyrannis,' and immediately ran along the footlights and left the theatre by a back entrance, where he had a horse waiting, which he mounted and rode rapidly off before the audience had recovered from the paralysis occasioned by the unwonted spectacle. My first thought was that a boy in the gallery had fired off one of those large firecrackers which we have been hearing for the last week, and that one of the president's party had been seized with a fit, or had suddenly become insane, and I ran towards the back to stop him, supposing, as he went behind the scenes, he had instead jumped to the floor and was coming towards the door. As I got to the door, someone said, 'The president is shot,' and, thinking there would be no surgeon at hand I might be of service, I ran immediately to the president's box. When I got there, of course, I found everything in the utmost confusion, some calling for one thing, some for another. As soon as I saw the wound I saw there was no hope, and another surgeon had stated the same previously. Some brandy was brought and given but he could not swallow. The bullet entered the head behind the left ear and penetrated the brain, lodging in the same... He was carried as soon as possible to a private residence across the street, where he remained till he died...I did not accompany the body across the street, as I might have done, dreading to be called as a witness when there should be an investigation. I shall never forget the expression of the assassin's face when he leaped upon the stage; his face as white as parchment, his black, fierce-looking eyes, his black mustache, the drawn dagger in his hand and the (to some) cabalistic words, 'Sic semper tyrannis', - all made an impression on my mind which can never be erased. Report say, and do I do not doubt the truth, that J. Wilkes Booth is the assassin."