Dr. Robert K. Stone, Lincoln’s personal physician, was considered the dean of Washington, D.C.’s medical community.

The pro-slavery physician was wholly unsympathetic to the Union cause, although he did ask occasional favors of the president for his wife’s family in Richmond.

While he disliked Lincoln’s politics, Stone felt the opposite about the man himself.

“Lincoln is the purest-hearted man with whom I ever came in contact,” he said.

On Monday, April 17, newspapers reported citizen reaction to President Lincoln’s death:

From Council Bluffs, Iowa: “Old men are weeping on the streets for the death of Abraham Lincoln.”

From Henry, Ill.: “The deepest feeling of indignation at the unprovoked and cowardly deed was everywhere manifested.”

From Des Moines, Iowa: “The Des Moines artillery continued the firing of minute guns throughout the day.”

From Indianapolis, Ind.: “The feelings of citizens were stirred to their innermost depths. Old men shed tears, and there was, among all, a deep-seated feeling of indignation, which boded no good to sympathizers with the rebellion.”

Source: Chicago Tribune.

 

Lt. John Bolton was assigned to Ford’s Theatre to check officers’ passes on the evening of April 14. When he finished work, Bolton took a seat to enjoy the play.

He had seen John Wilkes Booth pass in and out several times while he was standing at the door examining passes, but he noticed nothing peculiar about the actor’s face or his actions. At least not until he heard a shot during the play’s third act.

Bolton saw a man lower himself by his left hand from the plush cushioned railing in front of the presidential box, but he thought it was part of the play. He said everyone sat still when Booth shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!” and crossed the stage.

He said the audience’s first inkling that something was awry came when Bill Ferguson, who ran a saloon next door to the theater, rose from his orchestra seat and pointed to the presidential box shouting, “My God. The president’s shot!”

Actually Ferguson was sitting in the front row of the dress circle. He secured a seat early in the afternoon after one of the Ford’s tipped him off that the president would be attending that night’s performance. Ferguson wanted to see the president more than he wanted to see the play, so he booked a seat on the same level as the presidential box and brought his binoculars.

Source: We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts by Timothy S. Good

 

When the president scheduled a public reception at the White House following his second inauguration, famed African-American orator Frederick Douglass assumed he would be welcome.

After all, Douglass was nationally known and well acquainted with the Lincolns.

Frederick Douglass

As he walked into the house after standing in a line 2,000 persons long, two policeman grabbed Douglass. They were about to oust him through an East Room window when the president heard about it. While white handshakers waited, Mr. Lincoln stopped to chat with Douglass.

The guards should have been working the room. After the crowd left, almost a square yard of red brocade had been cut from the East Room window hangings and a large piece was missing from the Green Room drapes.

Source: Reveille in Washington by Margaret Leech

Whether you believe Dr. Sam Mudd was guilty of aiding John Wilkes Booth or not, a visit to his Waldorf, Md., plantation is a good move.

The Dr. Mudd House Museum offers a beautifully restored farmhouse, entertaining and informed tour guides and a chance to gaze through a window John Wilkes Booth looked through when he was on the run after the assassination.

The house features many original pieces of Mudd family furniture — including the red settee where Booth rested as the doctor examined his severed fibula.

The collection includes several pieces of inlaid furniture handmade by Dr. Mudd and his jailhouse pal Edward Spangler. The doctor saved Spangler’s life when they were imprisoned together in malaria-ridden Dry Tortugas, and, during their imprisonment, the stage carpenter taught the doctor to make fine furniture.

Joseph H. Simonds, a close friend of John Wilkes Booth, was a sandy-haired, immaculately dressed cashier at Merchants Bank in Boston — until he gave up his job and moved to Franklin, Pa., to manage Booth’s oil investments.

Simonds aspired to be something more than a bank clerk. He had no clue Booth was conspiring against the president.

In fact, when Booth was preoccupied with the plot to kidnap Lincoln in the early months of 1865, Simonds chastised him for neglecting his acting and his investments.

Source: “Right of Wrong, God Judge Me: The Writings of John Wilkes Booth,” edited by John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper

The flowers for President Lincoln’s Washington funeral cost $30 — about $433 in today’s dollars. The total included $9 for rose buds, $1 for other white flowers and $20 for unspecified flowers.

The other funeral costs included $100 for embalming, $160 for an embalmer and assistant to travel with the funeral cortege to Illinois, 700 yards of white silk at $3.75 a yard, 126 pair of white silk gloves at $1 each, $10 for removing Willie Lincoln’s remains so they could be buried with his father’s in Springfield, two $8 silk hats for the coachmen and one $10 silk hat for Robert Lincoln.

 Elizabeth Keckley

Elizabeth Keckley, Mrs. Lincoln’s attendant, expensed $360 for caring for the widow from April 14 until May 26 — $210 for her services, $100 for travel and incidental expenses, a $50 for requisite mourning apparel.

 

Test your Lincoln Administration knowledge:

Q. What did Lincoln often eat for lunch?

A. Just an apple

Q. What was the name of President Lincoln’s horse, the one he rode over the Eighth Judicial Circuit?

A. Old Bob.

Q. What animal did Lincoln’s sons lead to the White House attic?

A. A goat.

Q. Why did Mary Lincoln dislike Fridays?

A. She thought they were unlucky — even years before the assassination.

Q. What was Mr. Lincoln’s presidential salary?

A. $25,000 a year.

Q. How much did John Wilkes Booth earn acting in the 1860s?

A. About $20,000 a year.

Q. Lincoln was the first president to wear this.

A. A beard

Q. What unusual gathering did President and Mrs. Lincoln host in the White House?

A. A seance.

 

 

 

Maine’s Gov. Enoch Lincoln

 

You can’t assume all of the thousands of spots named Lincoln are named after the 16th president.

Lincoln County in Maine predates the president. It takes its name from the British town of Lincoln.

Lincoln, N.H. predates the president too. It was established in 1764 and named for Henry Fiennes Pelham-Clinton, the 9th Earl of Lincoln.

After the Constitution was signed, the namesakes began to shift from Brits to Americans.

Lincolnville, Maine, settled in 1802, was named after Revolutionary War general Enoch Lincoln, Maine’s sixth governor.

 

One of President Lincoln’s favorite tunes was “Dixie,” the anthem of the South.

He asked the band to play it at an impromptu celebration over Lee’s surrender, just four days before the assassination.

“I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard,” he said. “Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it. I presented the question to the attorney general, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance.”

The bank struck up “Yankee Doodle” as an encore.

Hear a 1907 recording of “Dixie” from the Library of Congress collection: http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/552/

Sources: Library of Congress and A.Lincoln in His Own Words, edited by Milton Meltzer