When President Lincoln was shot, Newton Ferree was playing bagatelle, a table game where players try to guide balls through a series of pegs.

As Ferree walked out the door of Falstaff House after his game at about 10:30 p.m., he heard someone at Ford’s Theatre cry out. He went into Ford’s and found the entire audience on its feet and crying out that someone should be hanged.

Ferree ran forward and jumped up on the stage. There, he learned the president had been assassinated. He started to go towards the presidential box, but he saw five or six men carrying President Lincoln out.

Ferree picked up the collar that had been torn from the president’s neck after he was shot.

“When I heard of the president being assassinated, it almost set me wild,” Ferree wrote.