DC Sites

[RJNorton]

(05-10-2013 11:14 AM)John Fazio Wrote:  Hello Everyone:

I'm not sure who lived where, but I can say with near certainty that Rathbone and Harris were delivered by carriage to the White House and that the presidential party (all four of them, plus the coachman, Francis P. Burke, left together for the theater. Here are the proofs:

1. Michael Burlingame, Ed., Lincoln Observed---p. 188 (Noah Brooks)

2. Forbes's Affidavit, 1892, in Good, We Saw Lincoln Shot , p. 102

3. Clara M. Laughlin, The Death of Lincoln, p. 40

4. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: the Prairie Years, p. 580

5. Katherine Helm, The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln, pp. 242, 256

Thank you.

Additional material or corrections are welcome.

John

Just out of curiosity I thought I'd see what George Alfred Townsend wrote about this in The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth (1865):

"At 8 o'clock the same evening, President Lincoln and Speaker Colfax sat together in a private room at the Whit House, pleasantly conversing. General grant, with whom the President had engaged to attend Ford's Theater that evening, had left with his wife for Burlington, New Jersey, in the 6 o'clock train. After his departure, Mr. Lincoln rather reluctantly determined to keep his part of the engagement, rather than disappoint his friends and the audience. Mrs. Lincoln, entering the room and turning to Mr. Colfax, said in a half laughing, half serious way, "Well, Mr. Lincoln, are you going to the theater with me or not?" "I suppose I shall have to go, Mr. Colfax, said the President, and the Speaker took his leave in the company of Major Rathbone, of the Provost Marshal General office, who escorted Miss Harris, daughter of Senator Harris, of New York. Mr. And Mrs. Lincoln reached Ford's Theater at twenty minutes before 9 o'clock."

If I am reading this correctly, Townsend thought Clara and Henry were already at the White House when the group departed for Ford's.

I believe some folks on the forum are more familiar with "Gath" as a writer than I am - generally speaking, how reliable is he?