Assassination Trivia

[Steve Whitlock]

(01-18-2021 03:49 AM)Steve Wrote:  

(01-17-2021 04:48 PM)wpbinzel Wrote:  In April 1865, Dr. Charles A. Leale was a 23 year-old Union Army surgeon. Hoping to get a look at President Abraham Lincoln, he bought a ticket to Our American Cousin playing at Ford's Theater on Good Friday. Leale was the first physician to reach Lincoln after he was shot. He took charge, found the wound, pronounced it fatal, and removed the clot to relieve the pressure on Lincoln's brain. Because of Leale's quick action, Lincoln lived through the night (although he never regained consciousness). Leale remained at Lincoln's bedside until the end. Although outranked by other doctors who were summoned (such as Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes), no senior physician overruled Dr. Leale's diagnosis or prescribed course of action. After the Civil War, Leale returned to New York City and practiced medicine. Upon his death in 1932, at the age of 90, he was thought to be among the last of those who were present at Lincoln's death in the Petersen House 67 years earlier.

Bill, do you have any idea who the "Naval Surgeon", who was described in Clara Harris' affidavit as climbing up into the box, may have been?



The obvious first thought would be Dr. Taft climbing into the box and Clara Harris could've easily been confused about the uniform. But both Dr. Taft's account at the time:

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

and Dr. Leale's contemporaneous accout:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

say that Dr. Taft got there later after Dr. Leale was already treating the President.

Also Dr. Taft recalls people asking for water, indicating that Leale had already reached Lincoln before he started climbing up to the box.

However, the soldier Clara Harris helped into the box, Capt. Edwin Bedee, said the man climbing ahead of him into the box said he was a doctor. Bedee also said when he got into the box Lincoln was still in his chair and that he helped one of the doctors (presumably Leale) look for the wound by removing Lincoln's coat and vest. Now Bedee's account of what happened is from an 1897 account of his regiment written with let's call it a "very thick hagiographic glaze" :

https://archive.org/details/historyoftwe...6/mode/2up

but it generally matches Dr. Leale's contemporary account of the President's treatment when Dr. Leale first reached the President. So if Bedee climbed into the box before Dr. Taft, who was the doctor who climbed ahead of Bedee?

P.S. This isn't a trivia question, I want to know if you or anybody out there know or have heard about a Naval surgoen's account of climbing into the box.

Steve Williams,

I believe the answer to your question is in the account of Army surgeon Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, as stated in the attached news clipping. He appears to have been sitting in the orchestra just below the Lincoln box, and he states:

"I leaped from the top of the orchestra railing in front of me upon the stage, and announcing myself as an Army surgeon, was immediately lifted up to the President's box by several gentlemen who had collected beneath. I happened to be in uniform..."

His account suggests that Dr King was already with Leale, which conflicts with Leale's account. At any rate I'm fairly certain that he is the "naval surgeon" Clara mistakenly identified.

As an aside I found an obit for Dr. Albert F. A. King, which doesn't even mention his part in the Lincoln assassination.