Surratt Society Meeting and "Conference" 2021

[Steve]

There is even debate over who placed coins over Abraham Lincoln's eyes after he died. In his 1909 address Dr. Leale stated, "Then I gently smoothed the President's contracted facial muscles, took two coins from my pocket, placed them over his eyelids and drew a white sheet over the martyr's face."

However, Colonel George V. Rutherford stated he placed the coins, and the Chicago History Museum has an affidavit.

https://images.chicagohistory.org/asset/29269/

I have also seen at least one source (cannot remember where) that said it was Dr. Joseph Barnes who did it. And Dr. Ed Steers, in Blood on the Moon, mentions two more claimants: Colonel Thomas McCurdy Vincent and Maunsell Field.

Here's a link to Col. Vincent' 1894 account:

https://books.google.com/books?id=gZ1YAA...dy&f=false