Genetic Lincoln

[Steve Whitlock]

(05-12-2020 04:37 PM)Steve Wrote:  

(05-08-2020 03:59 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  I don't know who the 2 gentlemen were that Dr. Leale mentions, who arrived before Dr. Taft and Dr. King.

"When I reached the President he was in a state of general paralysis,[29] his eyes were closed and he was in a profoundly comatose condition, while his breathing was intermittent and exceedingly stertorous.[30] I placed my finger on his right radial pulse but could perceive no movement of the artery. As two gentlemen now arrived, I requested them to assist me to place him in a recumbent position, and as I held his head and shoulders, while doing this my hand came in contact with a clot of blood near his left shoulder."

His account for the arrival of Dr King and Dr Taft comes later in the narrative.

Steve,

One of the two people who assisted Dr. Leale moving Lincoln off the rocking chair was Capt. Edwin Bedee of the 12th New Hampshire Inf. who was the second person to climb up into the box. From the way Leale described it, it seems like the unknown man who preceeded Bedee climbing up into the box was the other man who assisted. I haven't found any first-hand accounts by Bedee but I've found this account written three decades later by Asa Bartlett based on Bartlett's interview of Bedee:

https://books.google.com/books?id=TXAhAA...&q&f=false

Bedee says the man who climbed into the box before him claimed to be a doctor. (Note that Bartlett's description of Bedee's account seems to confuse this physician with Leale once describing how another doctor (Leale) broke through the box door.)

Clara Harris's 18 April 1865 affidavit describes this unknown man as dressed in the uniform of a naval surgeon:


(ref: New York Times - 23 April 1865 pg. 3)

At first I thought this person was Dr. Taft and that Clara Harris was mistaken about the uniform. (She had been with Bedee; he was a returned POW not a member of the VRC). But Taft's description of the night didn't match and he describes hearing Leale's calls for water. Also, one of the spectators said Taft climbed after the others climbed into the box:

https://books.google.com/books?id=hbesCQ...ed&f=false

(By this time Clara Harris was with Mrs Lincoln according to Leale's account and likely wouldn't have been there to help Taft into the box like the others as described in her affidavit.)

This "naval surgeon" doesn't seemed to have crossed over with the President to Peterson House, so I can understand why Dr. Leale wouldn't know his name. But once Leale starts examining the body he seems to disappear completely from the accounts. Bedee and Harris both claim the man was a doctor. Why didn't he make more of an impression on the others? I haven't been able to find any later newspaper accounts of this man coming forward and giving his story.

Steve Williams,

Thank you for the information. To add to the Clara Harris deposition here is the deposition of Henry Reed Rathbone. Note that even tho Oliver Gatch claims the brothers interfaced with Maj. Rathbone, he makes no mention of them, or any doctors by name. Also, no mention of a Naval Surgeon, and C. D. Gatch was an Army Surgeon.

"Henry Reed Rathbone, Deposition on the events of April 14, 1865, Ford's Theater, Washington D.C.
Henry Reed Rathbone, circa 1865, detail
Major Henry Rathbone, together with his betrothed, Clara Harris, had been with President and Mrs. Lincoln in the presidential box at Ford's Theater when John Wilkes Booth entered and fatally shot the chief executive. Rathbone grappled with Booth and received a deep cut on his arm in the struggle as Booth broke away and escaped. Three days later, Major Rathbone was deposed at the office of Justice Abram B. Olin in preparation for a possible future trial of the fugitive. Rathbone gave a clear and succinct description of the crime from his point of view, up to the time when the mortally wounded Lincoln had been removed to the Peterson House. Henry Rathbone struggled the rest of life with the psychological impact of that evening and slipped into mental illness. Tragically, while the family were on diplomatic service in Germany in 1883, he murdered Clara, now his wife and mother of his three children, with a small pistol and stabbed himself several times with a dagger, the same weapons Booth used that night in April 1865. He survived but ended his days in a German asylum for the criminally insane. (By John Osborne) See also: "Major Rathbone and Miss Harris: Guests of the Lincolns in the Ford's Theatre Box," Lincoln Lore: Bulletin of the National Lincoln Life Foundation (Fort Wayne, Indiana) No 162, August, 1971, pps. 1-3.

Source citation:
Reprinted in Clara E. Laughlin, The Death of Lincoln: The Story of Booth's Plot, His Deed and the Penalty (New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1909), 289-292.
Author:
Rathbone, Henry Reed
Recipient:
Olin, Abram Baldwin
Type:
Judicial record
Date Certainty:
Exact
Transcriber:
John Osborne, Dickinson College
Transcription date:
04/06/2015
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
MAJOR RATHBONE'S STATEMENT

Before Judge A. B. Olin, Justice Supreme Court, District of Columbia, on the 17th of April, Major Henry R. Rathbone subscribed and swore to the following statement:

That on April 14th, 1865, at about twenty minutes past eight o'clock in the evening, he, with Miss Clara H. Harris, left his residence, at the corner of Fifteenth and H Streets, and joined the President and Mrs. Lincoln, and went with them in their carriage to Ford's Theatre, in Tenth Street. The box assigned to the President is in the second tier, on the right-hand side of the audience, and was occupied by the President and Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Harris, and the deponent — and by no other person. The box is entered by passing from the front of the building, in the rear of the dress circle, to a small entry or passage-way, about eight feet in length and four feet in width.
This passage-way is entered by a door, which opens on the inner side. The door is so placed as to make an acute angle between it and the wall behind it on the inner side. At the inner end of this passage-way is another door, standing squarely across, and opening into the box. On the left-hand side of the passage-way, and very near the inner end, is a third door, which also opens into the box. This latter door was closed. The party entered the box through the door at the end of the passage-way. The box is so constructed that it may be divided into two by a movable partition, one of the doors described opening into each. The front of the box is about ten or twelve feet in length, and in the centre of the railing is a small pillar overhung with a curtain. The depth of the box from front to rear is about nine feet. The elevation of the box above the stage, including the railing, is about ten or twelve feet.
When the party entered the box, a cushioned arm-chair [Rocking chair] was standing at the end of the box farthest from the stage and nearest the audience. This was also the nearest point to the door by which the box is entered. The President seated himself in this chair — and, except that he once left the chair for the purpose of putting on his overcoat, remained so seated until he was shot. Mrs. Lincoln was seated in a chair between the President and the pillar in' the centre above described. At the opposite end of the box — that nearest the end of the stage — were two chairs. In one of these, standing in the corner, Miss Harris was seated. At her left hand, and along the wall running from that end of the box to the rear, stood a small sofa. At the end of this sofa, next to Miss Harris, this deponent was seated. The distance between this deponent and the President, as they were sitting, was about seven or eight feet; and the distance between this deponent and the door was about the same. The distance between the President, as he sat, and the door, was about four or five feet. The door, according to the recollection of this deponent, was not closed during the evening. When the second scene of the third act was being performed, and while this deponent was intently observing the proceedings upon the stage, with his back toward the door, he heard the discharge of a pistol behind him, and looking around, saw, through the smoke, a man between the door and the President. At the same time deponent heard him shout some word, which deponent thinks was "Freedom!" This deponent instantly sprang toward him and seized him; he wrested himself from the grasp, and made a violent thrust at the breast of deponent with a large knife. Deponent parried the blow by striking it up, and received a wound several inches deep in his left arm, between the elbow and the shoulder. The orifice of thewound is about an inch and a half in length, and extends upward toward the shoulder several inches. The man rushed to the front of the box, and deponent endeavoured to seize him again, but only caught his clothes as he was leaping over the railing of the box. The clothes, as deponent believes, were torn in this attempt to seize him.
As he went over upon the stage deponent cried out, with a loud voice: "Stop that man!" Deponent then turned to the President; his position was not changed; his head was slightly bent forward, and his eyes were closed. Deponent saw that he was unconscious, and supposing him mortally wounded, rushed to the door for the purpose of calling medical aid. On reaching the outer door of the passage-way, as above described, deponent found it barred by a heavy piece of plank, one end of which was secured in the wall, and the other resting against the door. It had been so securely fastened that it required considerable force to remove it. This wedge, or bar, was about four feet from the floor. Persons upon the outside were beating against the door for the purpose of entering. Deponent removed the bar, and the door was opened.
Several persons, who represented themselves to be surgeons, were allowed to enter. Deponent saw there Colonel Crawford, and requested him to prevent other persons from entering the box. Deponent then returned to the box, and found the surgeons examining the President's person. They had not yet discovered the wound. As soon as it was discovered it was determined to remove him from the theatre. He was carried out, and this deponent then proceeded to assist Mrs. Lincoln, who was intensely excited, to leave the theatre. On reaching the head of the stairs, deponent requested Major Potter to aid him in assisting Mrs. Lincoln across the street, to the house to which the President was being conveyed. The wound which the deponent had received had been bleeding very profusely, and on reaching the house, feeling very faint from the loss of blood, he seated himself in the hall, and soon after fainted away, and was laid upon the floor. Upon the return of consciousness deponent was taken in a carriage to his residence.
In the review of the transaction it is the confident belief of this deponent that the time which elapsed between the discharge of the pistol and the time when the assassin leaped from the box did not exceed thirty seconds. Neither Mrs. Lincoln nor Miss Harris had left their seats.

John Wilkes Booth shoots President Lincoln during the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford’s Theatre
Lincoln's Assassination
Rathbone, Clara Hamilton Harris
Clara Hamilton Harris Rathbone, circa 1865, detail
Lincoln, Abraham
Abraham Lincoln, November 8, 1863, detail
Lincoln, Mary Todd
Mary Todd Lincoln, circa 1846, detail
Ford's Theatre, Washington, DC
How to Cite This Page: "Henry Reed Rathbone, Deposition on the events of April 14, 1865, Ford's Theater, Washington D.C.," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/43879."
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Among those who mention C.D. Gatch as present by Lincoln's deathbed is Lafayette Baker in his book "The Secret Service in the Civil War".
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Presidential Physician: Charles A. Gatch
Presidents

Abraham Lincoln

· Assassination: Consultant Physician
Notes

Gatch was the third or fourth physician to reach Lincoln' s box in Ford's Theater.
He had ``served through the war with the armies of General Rosecrans.'' [Kunhardt p45]
Roos names him as C.D. Gatch

References

Roos CA. Physicians to the Presidents, and their patients: a bibliography. Bull Med Library Assoc. 1961; 49(3): 291-360.
Kunhardt DM, Kunhardt PB Jr. Twenty Days: A Narrative in Text and Pictures of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the Twenty Days and Nights That Followed. New York: Castle Books, 1965.
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"The Secret Service in the Civil War" (Expanded, Annotated)
By Lafayette C. Baker, names C. D. Gatch as one of those surrounding the deathbed of Abraham Lincoln
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"The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth"
By George Alfred Townsend, names Dr. C. D. Gatch as one in attendance at Lincoln’s time of death.