Clara Harris's Bloody Dress

[LincolnMan]

I would think that there must have been some blood of Lincolns-even if only due to Miss Keene having had his head on her lap?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Has ever a DNA analysis been made if there was blood of two different persons on the remaining dress fragment? Or has it been compared to that on the alledgedly remaining pillow cases?
Has a medical doctor ever commented on Dr. Taft's statement that the wound wasn't bleeding (at that time)*?

I second Bill. Dr. Leale writes**: "I quickly passed the separated fingers of both hands through his blood matted hair to examine his head, and I discovered his mortal wound." "his bleeding head rested on my white linen handkerchief". This (and thus blood in A. L.'s hair) happened before Dr. Taft came to assist. And every time Leale removed another blood clot, blood ouzed out.

Dr. Leale's report sounds realistic to me. If Laura Keene held A. Lincoln's head in her lap (as Dr. Leale also stated) I consider it unlikely that none of at least the blood that had already moistened the hair stained her dress.

* http://books.google.de/books?id=6vJ1tHgJ...=html_text

** http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24088/240...4088-h.htm

[L Verge]

Didn't this discussion focus on whether or not Clara Harris (not Laura Keene) had Lincoln's blood on her dress?

[RJNorton]

What I was trying to do was reconcile Clara Harris' statement ( "The President’s wound did not bleed externally..”) with Seaton Munroe's account ("not only was her gown soaked in Lincoln's blood, but her hands, and even her cheeks where her fingers had strayed, were bedaubed with the sorry stains"). My question could really apply to both ladies' dresses. I was asking that if we take Clara's statement at face value then maybe the vast majority of the blood on both dresses must have been Rathbone's? It's also difficult to reconcile Clara's statement that Laure Keene was never in the box at all with other accounts (such as Dr. Leale's) that placed Keene there. I am also confused by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum's stand that Lincoln bled from behind his left ear all the way down his coat to his pocket where his gloves were. This also does not reconcile with Clara's "the President's wound did not bleed externally." Lots of confusion in my mind.

[calebj123]

Sorry to come late to this party, but here are my viewpoints.

First, it was discussed for a moment, so I'll touch on this. Henry Rathbone was in civilian clothes that night, there are a few sources that verify that. It was common for soldiers to do so during that time, in order to avoid the provost marshals in DC. The marshals patrolled DC and stopped soldiers in uniform attempt to curb public intoxication,gambling, fights, etc. Rathbone was also unarmed because of this.

Second, the blood on Clara's dress was most likely Henry's. He was bleeding profusely from the arm and was in contact with Clara more often than Clara would have contacted Lincoln. From most accounts, Lincoln's wound didn't bleed that much and did so intermittently.

There has been an analysis done on the bloody dress worn by Laura Keene and it showed up inconclusive, but nothing was done on Clara's dress.

As for the bloody dress story, it's most likely just a ghost story. Clara and Henry did spend some time in Albany after the assassination, while Henry recuperated. But the evidence that the dress was walled up behind bricks cannot be fully verified. Harold Holzer seems to have similar feelings on this topic. The White Satin Dress is a beautifully written story, but much like Thomas Mallon's Henry and Clara its a work of fiction. Unfortunately, as you noted about the Haunted Major article, the Henry and Clara facts are filled with inconsistencies and completely wrong or fictional information.

[wsanto]

(11-08-2013 10:06 AM)calebj123 Wrote:  Sorry to come late to this party, but here are my viewpoints.

First, it was discussed for a moment, so I'll touch on this. Henry Rathbone was in civilian clothes that night, there are a few sources that verify that. It was common for soldiers to do so during that time, in order to avoid the provost marshals in DC. The marshals patrolled DC and stopped soldiers in uniform attempt to curb public intoxication,gambling, fights, etc. Rathbone was also unarmed because of this.

I doubt Rathbone was worried about being stopped by the Provost Marshall while riding in the President's carriage and in the company of President and Mrs. Lincoln.

If I were an active-duty Army Major celebrating the end of the war and was asked to join the President socially for the evening I would surely be wearing my best dress uniform for the occasion.

In fact it was probably a very proud time to be seen in your uniform as the entire city is celebrating your victory. Free drinks and all.

Also Booth's diary comment on there being a "Colonol by his side" indicates Rathbone was in uniform. He got the rank wrong (or was exagerrating it) but Rathbone must have been in uniform for Booth to identify him as an Army officer.

Bill C

[calebj123]

(11-08-2013 01:03 PM)wsanto Wrote:  

(11-08-2013 10:06 AM)calebj123 Wrote:  Sorry to come late to this party, but here are my viewpoints.

First, it was discussed for a moment, so I'll touch on this. Henry Rathbone was in civilian clothes that night, there are a few sources that verify that. It was common for soldiers to do so during that time, in order to avoid the provost marshals in DC. The marshals patrolled DC and stopped soldiers in uniform attempt to curb public intoxication,gambling, fights, etc. Rathbone was also unarmed because of this.

I doubt Rathbone was worried about being stopped by the Provost Marshall while riding in the President's carriage and in the company of President and Mrs' Lincoln.

If I were an active-duty Army Major celebrating the end of the war and was asked to join the President socially for the evening I would surely be wearing my best dress uniform for the occasion.

In fact it was probably a very proud time to be seen in your uniform as the entire city is celebrating your vicory. Free drinks and all.

Also Booth's diary comment on there being a "Colonol by his side" indicates Rathbone was in uniform. He got the rank wrong (or was exagerrating it) but Rathbone must have been in uniform for Booth to identify him as an Army officer.

Bill C

Hi Bill,
While we can't really know for sure, we can only go on the sources we have. No source can confirm that Rathbone was actually in uniform, while an article from the Times-Union, Albany's paper and Rathbone's hometown, states that Lincoln picked up Henry dressed in mufti, civilian clothes. Whether or not he was worried at that particular point about Provost Marshals is not sure, but it may have simply been a habit to not wear military attire. Also, if he was in uniform he would have been carrying his saber.

In regard to Booth's comment, there's no way to validate where he obtained this (false) information. He was privy to newspaper articles as he fled. He also hovered around the theater an hour before the attack, he could have ascertained information as to who was with Lincoln during that time.

[L Verge]

The only mention we have of Booth referring to Rathbone by rank is in his diary - after he had seen newspaper accounts identifying Rathbone as military. Perhaps the newspapers made the mistake and Booth copied it.

[calebj123]

(11-08-2013 01:32 PM)L Verge Wrote:  The only mention we have of Booth referring to Rathbone by rank is in his diary - after he had seen newspaper accounts identifying Rathbone as military. Perhaps the newspapers made the mistake and Booth copied it.

I think that's very likely Laurie. Confusion was possible as the paperwork for Rathbone's promotion had been filed March 13th, just a month before the assassination.

[RJNorton]

(11-08-2013 01:27 PM)calebj123 Wrote:  No source can confirm that Rathbone was actually in uniform, while an article from the Times-Union, Albany's paper and Rathbone's hometown, states that Lincoln picked up Henry dressed in mufti, civilian clothes.

The only trial testimony regarding Rathbone's dress (that I know of) would indicate he was in civvies. James P. Ferguson testified, "Then the gentleman in citizen’s clothes, whom I learned afterwards was Major Rathbone, sat back almost in the corner of the box." (from Poore)

[wsanto]

I hate conceding but I guess that's the right thing to do here. You all have made great points.

I am still confused about Booth's diary entry. If you all are correct then Booth could not have been exaggerating Rathbone's rank for some grand effect as others had claimed.

If you all are correct, then Booth didn't know Rathbone was a military officer until he read it in the papers prior to his diary entry. Interesting. He wouldn't exaggerate a rank that he he learned in the paper.

Can we surmise which papers Jone's brought to the pine thicket? Can we get copies of those articles in order to read what Booth read? And learn was correctly reported and what was incorrect in these article.

[L Verge]

I have never looked into this, but my instinct is that Booth was being brought the Washington Star and the National Intelligencer. The stagecoach out of D.C. came into Southern Maryland every other day of the week - excluding Sundays - so the people of that area were pretty savvy about what was the latest news. Thomas Jones, especially, would have a system of retrieving current newspapers because he had been sending the D.C. papers to Richmond for four years.

My gut instinct is also to surmise that the reporters may not have known whether or not Rathbone was in uniform. They may have just heard him referred to as Major (or Colonel) and made the assumption that he was in uniform -- for the very reasons that Bill cited above.

I also object to the often commented on "exaggerations" in Booth's diary. He was writing in florid Victorian style of the day and with a hint of Shakespeare thrown in (that he had grown up with). A theater full of people seemed like thousands to him, I'm sure; he did not have an odometer on either horse to judge the distance that he had ridden - plus the roads have straightened out and become easier to traverse just since I was a child around these parts; he was trying to explain his reasonings for why Lincoln had to die; etc. etc. and so forth. And, he was a much better writer in style and flourish than 80% (or more) of Americans today.

---

Caleb - Have you been in contact with Mike Kauffman concerning the bloody dress? Nearly a decade ago, when he was still doing the narrating for the Surratt Booth Tours, he would mention talking to a Rathbone descendant. My mind is vague on this, but I believe that he was told the story of the dress being discovered in a bricked up closet and that one of Clara's daughters fainted at the sight of it. She remembered stepping over her dead mother's body years later when the children had to get out of the room that their nanny and Clara had protected them in. When this daughter saw the blood on that dress, it brought back memories of that awful night of her mother's murder.

I hope I have the story straight 'cause the mind ain't what it used to be...

[BettyO]

Fascinating stories regarding this dress....

This is just a part of why the assassination is so wonderfully intriguing!

[Anita]

According to Henry Riggs Rathbone, who was 13 at the time of his mother's death, his father wasn't in uniform when he accompanied Lincoln to Ford's Theater. He stressed this in his 1928 article for Progressive Magazine "The Greatest Tragedy of American History" where he states that his father "accompanied the Lincoln's to Ford's not as a body guard but merely as a social guest. He was unarmed and not even in military uniform." http://www.michaelrathbun.org/11-1991/11-001.pdf

[Linda Anderson]

The Nov. 14th New York Times has an article on the fate of Jacqueline Kennedy's pink suit.

Jacqueline Kennedy’s Smart Pink Suit, Preserved in Memory and Kept Out of View

"But for the half century since John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, the most famous artifact from that day, one of the most recognizable articles of clothing ever worn, has been seen by almost no one. Now preserved by the National Archives in a climate-controlled vault outside of Washington, it is subject to Kennedy family restrictions that it not be seen for almost a century more."

"Now preserved in its vault, the pink suit and its accessories, still stained, the stockings blood-powdered and folded in a white towel, remain essentially unchanged from the day of the assassination. Only the outfit’s matching pillbox hat and white kid gloves are missing, lost in the chaos of that day."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/fashio...shion&_r=0