Silent Witnesses: Artifacts of the Lincoln Assassination

[Rhatkinson]

This promises to be a great exhibit

http://www.fords.org/event/silent-witnesses

March 23-May 25, 2015

This hallmark exhibition will reunite—for the first time since April 1865—an extraordinary collection of artifacts that were in the Theatre or carried by Abraham Lincoln the night of his assassination

Included within the exhibition are:
Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, cuff buttons, a Brooks Brothers Great Coat and the contents of his pockets from the night of the assassination
Mary Todd Lincoln’s black velvet cape
John Wilkes Booth’s deringer pistol
a letter from Dr. Charles Leale, the first to attend to the wounded president; the Bunting Flag from the Presidential Box at Ford’s Theatre
fragments from the gowns worn by Mary Todd Lincoln and guest Clara Harris; gloves belonging to Major Henry Rathbone
a bloody sleeve cuff and fragment from the costume worn by leading actress Laura Keene
a playbill for the performance of Our American Cousin
and a violin and drumsticks used in the orchestra the night of April 14, 1865.

Additionally, Lincoln’s carriage, which transported the President, Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris to Ford’s Theatre, will be on display at the National Museum of American History, March 23 to May 25, 2015.

Lenders
Lenders for Silent Witnesses include the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum; Chicago History Museum; Library of Congress; National Museum of American History; National Park Service; Pike County Historical Society; Shapell Manuscript Foundation; Studebaker National Museum; and historian James Swanson.