List of Ford's Theatre Attendees

[jbarry]

(04-28-2026 02:47 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Mnay thanks to Steve for sending this article. Steve writes, "I have something to post to the Forum. It's an article from page 5 of the 10 April 1909 edition of the Lincoln Evening News (Nebraska). It's William Greer's account of that night at Ford's Theatre. He doesn't claim that he helped carry Lincoln. Rather, he and a companion were following behind Lincoln and picked up a hat and shaw that had fallen from the body as it was being carried. Greer. He claims they then dropped off the hat and shaw at Petersen House. Here's Greer's Find A Grave memorial:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1285...liam-greer

I looked into Greer's military record. He got injured in battle and had an arm amputated in 1864. I don't know what hospital he would have been in to see if he was in Washington DC in April 1865. Someone would probably have to look up Greer's Carded Medical Records (or maybe it could be in his pension files?) to do that. I did learn that Greer was only a Private and never a Captain, though. So the fact that he presents himself as being a Captain in the Civil War could be considered a possible red flag of his honesty about what he did that night."

Thanks, I've updated the record. Given all the honorifics floating around (including many in a civilian capacity that we sometimes confuse with military rank) including "Captain" and "Colonel", I don't think it's that egregious of an inflation 40 years later, especially when it's written in third person. That, and people's jobs later in life often conferred an honorific.