Lincoln's Last Days

by Bill O'Reilly

  “Home. Down in Charles,” Booth replies.

  “Didn’t you know, my friend, that it is against the laws to pass here after nine o’clock?” When the war started in 1861, a curfew was established around the capital and strictly enforced. Cobb is required to challenge anyone entering or exiting Washington, but the truth is that, since the war is almost over, the formal restrictions on crossing the bridge after curfew have ended. He wants no trouble, just to finish his shift in peace and get a good night’s sleep.

  “No,” lies Booth. He explains that he’s been waiting for the full moon to rise so that he might navigate the darkened roads by night.

  “I will pass you,” Cobb sighs. “But I don’t know I ought to.”

  Major Rathbone’s gloves worn on the night of President Lincoln’s assassination.

  “Hell, I guess there’ll be no trouble about that,” Booth shoots back.

  Booth is barely across the Potomac when David Herold approaches the bridge. He gives his name as just Smith. Once again, after a brief discussion, Cobb lets him pass.

  One more rider approaches Cobb that night. He is John Fletcher. Fletcher can clearly see Herold on the other side of the bridge, disappearing into the Maryland night.

  “You can cross,” Cobb tells him, “but my orders say I can’t let anyone back across the bridge until morning.”

  The Maryland countryside, with its smugglers and spies and bandits, is the last place Fletcher wants to spend the night. He turns his horse back toward the stable.

  A wooden drawbridge in 1865, similar to the one by the Navy Yard.

  Chapter

  37

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  10:20 P. M.

  LINCOLN’S LIFE IS SLIPPING AWAY. Mary Lincoln lays her head on the president’s chest as Major Rathbone uses his one good arm to yank away the music stand blocking the door.

  The major swings open the outer door of the state box. Dozens of unruly theatergoers try to barge in. “Doctors only!” Rathbone shouts as blood drips down his arm and pools on the floor.

  “I’m bleeding to death!” Rathbone says as a twenty-three-year-old doctor, Charles Leale, fights his way forward. Dr. Leale came to the theater because he wanted to see Lincoln in person. Now he is the first physician to come upon the crime scene. Leale gives Rathbone a quick physical examination. Noting that Rathbone is not bleeding to death, Dr. Leale turns his attention to Lincoln.

  “Oh, Doctor,” sobs Mary Lincoln as Leale slowly removes her from her husband’s body. “Can he recover? Will you take charge of him?”

  “I will do what I can,” Dr. Leale says calmly. With a nod to the crowd of men who have followed him into the box, the young doctor makes it clear that Mary must be moved. She is ushered to a couch on the other side of the box, next to Clara Harris, who begins stroking her hand.

  Leale orders that no one else be admitted to the state box except for physicians. Then he stands in front of the rocking chair, facing Lincoln’s slumped head. He pushes Lincoln’s body upright, and his head lolls back against the rocker. Leale can feel a slight breath from Lincoln’s nose and mouth, but he is reluctant to move the body without making a preliminary examination. One thing, however, is clear: Lincoln is not dead.

  Dr. Charles A. Leale.

  Dr. Leale can’t see the injury. Onlookers light matches for him, and the call goes out for a lamp. The front of Lincoln’s body shows no sign of physical violence, and the forward slumping indicates that the attack must have come from behind. Yet there’s no visible entry wound or exit wound. If Dr. Leale didn’t know better, he would swear that Lincoln simply dozed off and will awaken any minute.

  A fanciful depiction of the bullet used to assassinate President Lincoln.

  “Put him on the floor,” the doctor orders. Gently, Lincoln’s long torso is lifted by men standing on both sides of the rocking chair and then lowered to the carpet.

  Because he saw that Major Rathbone’s wounds were caused by a knife, and because he hadn’t heard any gunshots during the performance, Leale deduces that Lincoln was stabbed. He rolls the president on one side and carefully searches for a puncture wound, his fingers slipping along the skin, probing for a telltale oozing of blood. But he feels nothing, and when he pulls his hands away, they’re clean.

  He strips Lincoln to the waist and continues the search, cutting off the president’s white shirt with a pocketknife. But his skin is smooth, with no sign of any harm. Leale lifts Lincoln’s eyelids and examines the pupils. He waves his hand back and forth. The pupils do not respond. He decides to reexamine Lincoln’s head. Perhaps he was stabbed in the back of his skull.

  Dr. Leale runs his hands through Lincoln’s hair. This time they come back red with blood.

  Alarmed, Leale examines the president’s head a second time. Beneath the thick hair, just above and behind the left ear, hides a small blood clot. It’s no bigger than the doctor’s pinkie finger, but when he pulls his finger away, the result is like a cork being removed from a bottle. Blood flows freely from the wound, and reflexively Lincoln’s chest suddenly rises and falls as pressure is taken from his brain.

  Dr. Leale knows just what to do—and he does it well.

  Working quickly, he straddles Lincoln’s chest and begins resuscitating the president, hoping to improve the flow of oxygen to his brain. He shoves two fingers down Lincoln’s throat and presses down on the back of the tongue, just in case food or drink is lodged in the esophagus. As he does so, two other doctors who were in the audience arrive on the scene. Though they are far more experienced, army surgeon Dr. Charles Sabin Taft and Dr. Albert King defer to their younger colleague because Dr. Leale was first on the scene. When he asks them to stimulate the blood flow by manipulating Lincoln’s arms in an up-and-down, back-and-forth manner, each instantly kneels and takes an arm. Leale, meanwhile, presses hard on Lincoln’s torso, trying to stimulate his heart.

  Then, as Leale will one day tell an audience celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, he performs an act of great and urgent intimacy: “I leaned forcibly forward directly over his body, thorax to thorax, face to face, and several times drew in a long breath, then forcibly breathed directly into his mouth and nostrils, which expanded the lungs and improved his respirations.”

  Every bit of his energy is poured into accomplishing the task of saving Lincoln. Finally, Dr. Leale knows in his heart that the procedure has not worked. He will later recall, “After waiting a moment I placed my ear over his thorax and found the action of the heart improving. I arose to the erect kneeling posture, then watched for a short time, and saw that the President could continue independent breathing and that instant death would not occur. I then pronounced my diagnosis and prognosis.”

  The state box where Dr. Leale examined President Lincoln.

  But Dr. Leale does not utter the hopeful words the onlookers wish to hear.

  Dr. Leale has seen Lincoln’s pupils. The pupil of the left eye is severely contracted, and the pupil of the right eye is widely dilated. Neither responds to changes in the light, a sure sign that his brain has been severely damaged. “His wound is mortal,” Leale announces softly. “It is impossible for him to recover.”

  * * *

  A soldier vomits. Men remove their caps. Mary Lincoln sits just a few feet away but is in too much shock to understand what’s been said. Someone hands Dr. Leale a glass of brandy and water, which he slowly dribbles into Lincoln’s mouth. Though the president’s brain is dead, his body remains alive and is able to function at a survival level. Lincoln’s prominent Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

  The uproar in the theater, meanwhile, has not diminished. No one in the state box speaks as Dr. Leale works on Lincoln, but its list of occupants grows longer. With John Parker, Lincoln’s bodyguard, still missing, no one is blocking access to the little room. On the couch, the distraught Mary Lincoln is being comforted by Clara Harris. Major Rathbone drips blood on the carpet, trying to st
anch the flow by holding tight to his injured arm. Three doctors, a half dozen soldiers, and a small number of theater patrons have battled their way into the box. And then the actress Laura Keene forces her way into their midst and kneels at Lincoln’s side. She begs to be allowed to rest Lincoln’s head on her lap. Dr. Leale, somewhat stunned but knowing it can do no harm, agrees.

  The coat President Lincoln was wearing the night he was assassinated.

  Keene lifts the president’s head into her lap and calmly strokes his face. The chestnut-eyed actress with long auburn hair knows that this moment will put her name in papers around the world, so there is more than a touch of self-indulgence in her actions. But like everyone else in the state box, she is stunned. Just a few minutes before, the president of the United States had been a vibrant and larger-than-life presence. Now everything has changed.

  Detail of the lining of President Lincoln’s coat. Note the phrase “One country, one destiny.”

  Chapter

  38

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  11 P. M.

  THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES cannot die on a dirty floor. No one knows how much longer he will live, but he must be moved. Dr. King suggests they move him to the White House, where he can pass the final moments of life in the comfort of his own bed. But Dr. Leale knows better than to attempt a bumpy carriage ride through the crowded city streets. “He will be dead before we get there,” Leale says firmly.

  The young doctor agrees, however, that Lincoln should be resting in a bed, not on the floor. Dr. Taft sends a soldier to search nearby boardinghouses for an empty room. He orders four other young soldiers to lift Lincoln back into the rocking chair and carry the president out of the theater.

  But Dr. Leale overrules Taft. A stretcher would be ideal, but none is available. Leale orders the four soldiers to get to work, lock their hands beneath the president, and form a sling. Two will lift his torso, while two will carry his legs. They will transport Lincoln headfirst. Leale will walk backward, cradling Lincoln’s head in his hands.

  Laura Keene steps aside as the four soldiers of the Pennsylvania Light Artillery—John Corey, Jabes Griffiths, Bill Sample, and Jacob Soles—slip their hands under that torso and raise Lincoln to a sitting position. Dr. Leale, with help from the other two physicians, buttons the president’s coat.

  “Guards,” barks Leale, “clear the passage.”

  Through the hallway, out into the dress circle, and down the stairs they travel. Mary Lincoln follows behind, stunned and shaky.

  “Clear the way,” Leale orders. Soldiers in the crowd push back the mob. They finally reach the lobby but don’t know where to go next. By now, soldiers have found a partition usually used to divide the state box. At seven feet long and three inches thick, it makes a perfect stretcher for Abraham Lincoln. His body is shifted onto the board.

  Dr. Leale and the two other surgeons decide they will carry Lincoln into Taltavul’s, right next door. A soldier is sent to clear the tavern. But he soon comes back with word that Lincoln will not be allowed inside. Peter Taltavul is a patriot, a man who spent twenty-five years in the Marine Corps band. He is one of the few who has the foresight to understand the significance of how the night’s events will one day be viewed. “Don’t bring him in here,” Taltavul tells the soldier. “It shouldn’t be said that the president of the United States died in a saloon.”

  Leale orders that Lincoln be lifted and carried to the row houses across the street. There is an enormous crowd in front of Ford’s. It will be almost impossible to clear a path through their midst, but it’s vital that Leale get Lincoln someplace warm and clean, immediately. The makeshift stretcher is lifted, and Lincoln’s body is carried out into the cold, wet night.

  A painting by an unknown artist of the scene of President Lincoln being carried out of Ford’s Theatre.

  Then Lincoln’s bodyguards arrive. Not John Parker—the instant he heard that Lincoln was shot, he vanished into the night. No, it is the Union Light Guard, otherwise known as the Seventh Independent Company of Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, that gallops to the rescue. They raced over from their stables next to the White House when they heard about the shooting. Rather than dismount, they work with other soldiers on the scene to make a corridor from one side of Tenth Street to the other. Leale and the men carrying Lincoln make their way down Ford’s granite front steps and onto the muddy road, still not knowing where they are going.

  “Bring him in here,” a voice shouts above the madness.

  Henry S. Safford is a twenty-five-year-old War Department employee. He has toasted the Union victory every night since Monday, and tonight he felt so worn out that he stayed in his rented room in William Petersen’s boardinghouse to rest. He was alone in his parlor, reading, when the streets below him exploded in confusion. When Safford stuck his head out the window to see what was happening, someone shouted the news that Lincoln had been shot. Safford raced downstairs and out into the crowd, but “finding it impossible to go further, as everyone acted crazy or mad,” he retreated. Safford stood on the porch and watched in amazement as Lincoln’s body was carried out of Ford’s. He saw Leale lift his head, scanning the street, searching for someplace to bring Lincoln.

  Now Safford wants to help.

  “Put him in here,” he shouts again.

  Dr. Leale was actually aiming for the house next door, but a soldier had tried and found it locked. So they turn toward Safford.

  Leale and his stretcher bearers carry Lincoln up nine short, curved steps to the front door. “Take us to your best room,” he orders Safford. And though he is hardly the man to be making that decision, Safford realizes that his own second-floor room will not do. He guides the group down to the spacious room of George and Huldah Francis, but it is locked. Safford leads them to another room. He pushes open the door and sees that it is empty. It is clearly not Petersen’s finest—but it will have to do.

  A late-twentieth-century photograph of the Petersen House, where Lincoln was carried.

  The room is rented to William Clark, a twenty-three-year-old army clerk who is gone for the night. At just under ten feet wide and eighteen feet long, the room is furnished with a four-poster bed, a table, a bureau, and chairs. It is a cramped but very clean and neat space.

  Lincoln is much too big for the bed. Dr. Leale orders that the headboard be broken off, but it won’t break. Instead, the president is laid down diagonally on the red, white, and blue bedspread. His head points toward the door and his feet toward the wall. Ironically, John Wilkes Booth had often rented this very room during the previous summer.

  The room where Lincoln died. The Petersen House is now a national historical site, and the building and rooms are preserved and restored to the setting of President Lincoln’s final hours.

  Everyone leaves but the doctors and Mary Lincoln. She stares down at her husband; there are two pillows under his head, and his bearded chin rests on his chest. Now and then, he sighs involuntarily, giving her hope.

  “Mrs. Lincoln, I must ask you to leave,” Dr. Leale says softly.

  Mary is like a child, so forlorn that she lacks the will to protest as others make decisions for her. The first lady steps out of William Clark’s room, into the long, dark hallway.

  “Live,” she pleads to her husband before she leaves. “You must live.”

  The pillow on which Abraham Lincoln’s head rested showing bloodstains.

  Chapter

  39

  SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1865

  Washington, D. C.

  Midnight

  DR. LEALE STRIPS LINCOLN’S BODY. He searches it for signs of other wounds but finds none.

  Examining the long, slender body, Leale is disturbed to feel that Lincoln’s feet are now icy to the touch. The doctor tells a soldier in the room what he needs and orders the soldier to obtain the items at the Lincoln General Hospital, a nearby military facility. Soldiers soon arrive from the hospital with hot water, brandy, blankets,
and materials to make a mustard plaster. Dr. Leale immediately applies a mustard plaster to every inch of the front of Lincoln’s body, from shoulders down to ankles. “No drug or medicine in any form was administered to the president,” he will later note. “But the artificial heat and mustard plaster that I had applied warmed his cold body and stimulated his nerves.”

  He then covers the president with a blanket as Dr. Taft begins the process of removing the bullet from Lincoln’s head. Taft inserts his index finger into the wound and pronounces that it has penetrated beyond the length of his fingertip.

  More brandy and water is poured between Lincoln’s lips. His Adam’s apple once again bobs during the first spoonful but not at all for the second. With great difficulty, the doctors gently turn Lincoln on his side so that the excess fluid will run from his mouth and not choke him.

  The doctors can do nothing for the president but monitor his vital signs. The deathwatch has begun. A normal man would have been dead by now.

  Dr. Leale sends messengers out to find Robert Lincoln and bring him before his father dies. Messages also go out to Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes and a few other doctors, including Lincoln’s family physician, Dr. Robert King Stone, as well as the president’s pastor, the Reverend Dr. Phineas D. Gurley.

  Dr. Barnes arrives and takes control of the scene. He is closely followed by the future surgeon general Charles H. Crane. Dr. Leale explains his course of action in great detail to these two powerful and well-regarded physicians. Both men agree with Leale’s decisions and treatment, much to the young physician’s relief.