To Bind Up the Nation's Wounds
Abraham Lincoln: The Final Casualty of the War
"This Dust was once the Man"
On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was attending a
play at Ford's Theatre in Washington. John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential
box and fired a single bullet from a derringer into the back of Lincoln's head.
As Booth escaped from the theater, Dr. Charles Leale made his way through the
audience to Lincoln's box. Leale quickly assessed the wound as fatal. The
president was moved to a boarding house located across the street from Ford's
Theatre. Several physicians attended Lincoln, including U.S. Army Surgeon
General Joseph K. Barnes of the Army Medical Museum. Using a probe, Barnes
located some fragments of Lincoln's skull and the ball lodged 6 inches inside
his brain. Lincoln, who never regained consciousness, was comforted until his
breathing stopped at 7:20 a.m. on April 15.
The entry from the "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion" reads:
CASE.-A. L-----, aged 56 years, was shot in the head, at Washington, on the
evening of April 14th, 1865, by a large round ball, from a Derringer pistol, in
the hands of an assassin. Dr. Charles A. Leale being close at hand, went
instantly to the wounded man, whom he found "in a profoundly comatose
condition,"… the breathing "exceedingly stertorous." No pulsation was
perceptible at the right wrist. When the head was examined, "I passed my fingers
over a large firm clot of blood,…[that] I easily removed, and passed the little
finger of my left hand through the perfectly smooth opening made by the ball,
and found that it had entered the encephalon. As soon as I removed my finger, a
slight oozing of blood followed, and his breathing became more regular and less
stertorous." After the administration of a small quantity of brandy and
water,…the patient was removed to a neighboring house... His clothing was
removed, and he was placed in bed. His extremities were cold. He was covered
with warmed blankets, and bottles of hot water were applied to the lower
extremities. It was now about eleven o'clock at night, the wound having been
inflicted about half past ten. His family physician, Dr. Robert H. Stone, and
Surgeon General Barnes, and Assistant Surgeon General Crane, arrived
presently;... The Surgeon General accordingly kept the external wound open by
means of a silver probe, until, a Nelaton's probe being brought, he made an
exploration of the course of the ball. A splinter obstructed the track at the
depth of about two and a half inches. An inch and a half further on the bulb
came in contact with a foreign body, which proved to be the disc from the
occipital forced out by the ball; passing beyond this the ball was detected, at
a distance of over six inches from the entrance wound….it was decided that no
attempt should be made to remove it or the foreign bodies, further than to keep
the opening free from coagula, which, when allowed to form and remain for a very
short time, would produce signs of increased compression, the breathing
becoming profoundly stertorous and intermittent, and the pulse more feeble and
irregular. The protracted death-struggle ceased at twenty minutes past seven
o'clock on the morning of April 15th, 1865.