Ford’s Theater: April 14, 1865

Enjoying a pleasant night out, Abraham and Mary Lincoln and their guests attended a comedy at Ford’s Theater. Around 10:30 p.m. a shot rang out in the Presidential Box, and a scream was heard. Within moments, John Wilkes Booth, a well known actor leaped from the box brandishing a dagger, and escaped through a back door.

Within minutes, Dr. Charles A. Leale had reached the Presidential Box.

Dr. Leale

Charles Augustus Leale (1842-1932) was just 23, and had received his medical degree only six weeks earlier from Bellevue Hospital in New York. Having served for a time as a medical cadet in the Union Army, he was reassigned to the Wounded Commissioned Officers’ Ward in Washington DC.

Leale had been interested and involved in medicine since early youth, and had begun formal medical studies when he was eighteen. His devotion to the profession never wavered, and he was trained for gunshot wounds and surgery as well as for heart and lung diseases.

A few days earlier, rejoicing (along with the rest of the country) that Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House signified the end of the horrible war, and the death and mourning, Leale was part of the crowd outside the White House that attended Lincoln’s last public address. The young doctor, profoundly impressed and intrigued by the President’s facial features, hoped for an opportunity to study them further. When he read that Lincoln was expected to attend Ford’s Theater, he tried to obtain tickets, primarily (according to his memoir) to see the President. Unfortunately the only seat available was in the front – out of prime view of the Presidential Box.

Minutes Later

With the pandemonium of the situation, Leale heard cries that the ‘President had been murdered’… and immediately ran to the Presidents box where he found Major Henry Rathbone badly gashed, and Lincoln slumped over in his armchair, barely breathing with only a faint pulse. An hysterical Mrs. Lincoln, learning that Leale was a doctor, exclaimed several times, “‘O Doctor, do what you can for him, do what you can’!” Leale laid him on the floor, and cut his collar and shirt, to check for wounds.

When he noticed that Lincoln’s eyes were dilated, he immediately searched and found a bullet wound at the back of his head, too deep to probe. Nevertheless, he discovered a blood clot which he removed, and which immediately eased his breathing. The young doctor, perhaps with more experience than he realized, extended Lincoln’s life for a few more hours, but knew the sad effect. His diagnosis was immediately telegraphed to the country: “His wound is mortal; it is impossible for him to recover.”

By that time, other medical professionals had rushed to the scene.

Since there was no way the wounded President could survive a carriage ride back to the White House, Leale took charge, and with two other doctors and four soldiers, gently carried the unconscious Lincoln to the Peterson boarding house across the street and laid him diagonally on a borrowed downstairs bed.

Within the hour, several medical professionals arrived on the scene, including Dr. R. K. Stone the President’s personal physician. Leale turned the situation over to Stone, and modestly relegated himself to holding the President’s hand throughout the night, “to let him know that he was in touch with humanity and had a friend.”

According to Leale’s speech more than 40 years later, “I left the house in deep meditation. In my lonely walk I was aroused from my reveries by the cold drizzling rain dropping on my bare head, my hat I had left in my seat at the theater. My clothing was stained with blood, I had not once been seated since I first sprang to the President’s aid; I was cold, weary and sad. The dawn of peace was again clouded, the most cruel war in history had not completely ended.”

The young doctor, only a year older than Lincoln’s son Robert, was invited to be an Honor Guard in the funeral procession and ceremonies mourning and honoring the fallen President. He was also permitted to attend the trial of the assassination conspirators.

Then he was forgotten.

Much Later…

Dr. Leale submitted a lengthy and detailed report to Representative Benjamin F. Butler’s commission investigating the assassination, but it was never made public, and was indeed lost until a copy was discovered at Georgetown University in 2008. Another copy was discovered in the National Archives in 2012.

But in 1909, the Centennial of Lincoln’s birth, when Dr. Leale was nearly seventy, he was invited to address New York’s Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States on “Lincoln’s Last Hour.”

It was the only time he spoke publicly about his recollections of that horrific night.

After his discharge from the Army, Leale traveled/studied in Europe, married raised a family and retired from many years of medical practice in 1928. He died in 1932, at age 90, one of the last surviving witnesses to the Lincoln Assassination.

Perhaps if he had been a few years older, with more experience and medical credentials and perhaps military medical “clout,” his place of importance would be remembered today.

But as it was, his diagnosis was spot on: “His wound is mortal; it is impossible for him to recover.”

And his immediate treatment was impeccable.

Sources:

Charles A. Leale – Lincoln’s Last Hours: Address Delivered Before the Commandery of the State of New York Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (Privately published, New York, 1909)

Steers, Edward –  Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. University Press of Kentucky, 2001.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0034.105/–dr-charles-a-leales-report-on-the-assassination-of-abraham?rgn=main;view=fulltext

https://www.nps.gov/foth/learn/historyculture/dr-charles-leale.htm

https://www.friendsofthelincolncollection.org/lincoln-lore/lincolns-first-responder-dr-charles-augustus-leale/