Two things went through my mind when the alarm clock went off at 6:00am on Sunday July 20, 2014: First, it was the 45th anniversary of Neil Armstrong taking his historic first steps on the surface of the Moon. Second, we did not have a cockroach taking its last steps on the carpeted surface of our room. Both were very good things to think about.
Our game-plan for our Sunday in Washington was to start with the Presidential sites near the White House that we didn’t see on the previous day and then finish with the sites along the National Mall; including the Capitol. Once those were done, we planned on visiting Mount Vernon before we headed north into the Baltimore, Maryland area for Tom’s safety conference.
The first stop was located only a short distance from the hotel in Alexandria, Virginia; it was a tavern that was built in 1785 called Gadsby’s Tavern. At 7:15 on a Sunday morning, there was no way we would be going inside to wet our whistles, so I simply posed for photos outside of the historic bar.
George Washington visited Gadsby’s Tavern frequently and twice attended the annual Birthnight Ball held there in his honor. Other future Presidents who quenched their thirsts at the tavern were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Soon after he became our third President, a banquet was held to honor Jefferson in the tavern’s ballroom.
Our fifteen minutes at the tavern had finished and Bob navigated the Optima into the vicinity of the National Mall where he found a parking spot just around the corner from the National Air and Space Museum. The biggest surprise wasn’t the fact that he found a parking space there; it was the fact that parking was free on Sunday with no time limit.
The three of us had a plan of touring Ford’s Theater when it opened at 9:00am, which gave us over an hour to make the nearly one-mile walk to the historic site. The route we used to cross the National Mall took us to Constitution Avenue where we paused to look at the National Archives building. I knew that the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights were housed there and on display, but the museum was not open that early.
We had made good time on foot and were ahead of schedule; Tom and Bob decided to find the site of the Kirkwood House on Pennsylvania Avenue. That historic hotel was the residence of Vice President Andrew Johnson in 1861 and on April 15, 1865 Johnson took the oath of office inside the Kirkwood House after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, the Kirkwood House was razed in 1875 and over the next 83 years two other buildings had been constructed on the site; including the modern structure that stood there in front of me.
It was about a two-block walk from the Kirkwood House site to Ford’s Theater. When we arrived at the historic theater at 8:40am, there was roughly a hundred people already in line under some painter’s scaffolding; a line that stretched from the building’s entrance, across the front of Ford’s and a ways down the sidewalk. At 9:00am the line began to move and before we knew it, we were inside Ford’s Theater. A lot of the folks in line headed straight for the museum in the basement, but I wanted to see the theater itself; and that included the Presidential box where Lincoln was shot.
On the night of April 14, 1865, which was Good Friday, President Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancé Clara Harris, sat in the Presidential box as they watched a stage performance of ‘Our American Cousin’. At about 10:30pm, actor and southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth had boldly made his way into Lincoln’s private box and pulled the trigger of his single-shot Philadelphia derringer that was held about two inches behind the President’s head. The bullet entered Lincoln’s skull behind his left ear, passed through his brain, and came to rest near the front of the skull after fracturing both orbital plates.
Throughout my entire visit inside Ford’s Theater, I envisioned Abraham Lincoln as he watched the play from the flag-draped Presidential box. He was finally able to relax as the Civil War had ended less than a week before that fateful day. I also thought about the chaos that must’ve occurred after John Wilkes Booth fired the fatal shot; stabbed Henry Rathbone; and then jumped from the box onto the stage. And finally I could see in my resin-filled mind’s eye as soldiers carried the President’s limp body down the staircase and out the front door of the theater; in search of a place for Lincoln to die.
Historic as Ford’s Theater was, it was also a very sad and painful place for me to visit. Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest men to ever walk the face of the Earth and in an instant, and for no reason, he was gunned down in cold blood. But as hard as it was for me to visit the assassination site, it was equally as difficult for me to be carried around the Lincoln Museum in the theater’s basement where dozens of authentic artifacts associated with the assassination were on display.
The first assassination artifact that I saw was Booth’s .44-caliber Philadelphia derringer. My photographer positioned me as though the pistol was aimed at the back of my head; and although it seemed a bit macabre at the time, the photo turned out to be impactful. I couldn’t take my painted eyes off the small pistol that was behind the protective glass. As I looked at the historic and infamous derringer, I thought to myself: “That actual barrel was two inches from the back of President Lincoln’s head. That wasn’t a replica gun; it’s the actual pistol that Booth had in his cowardly hand when he pulled the trigger and changed the course of history forever”.
I stood near the exhibits that featured some of Lincoln’s clothing he was wearing when he was shot; I saw Booth’s personal items that he had in his possession when he was killed; and then I was near the blood-stained pillow that supported the dying President’s head. Some of the items were hard to photograph because of the dim lighting; but their images were forever etched into my memory.
It had been only four months earlier when I made my way into Parkland Hospital in Dallas and saw the room where President Kennedy was pronounced dead. A short while later I stood on the ‘X’ in the middle of Elm Street at Dealey Plaza where John F. Kennedy was shot in the head.
A month ago, when I was in Buffalo, New York, I stood on the spot where William McKinley was shot in the stomach. Twice in my travels I have been placed on beds where Presidents have died; and I likely will stand on others in the future as well.
I knew when I had signed up for this gig that the historic Presidential sites would include some of the darkest and saddest moments in U.S. history; but Ford’s Theater and its artifacts nearly put me over the edge. I wasn’t finished, either; I still had the home and the actual room where Lincoln had died left on my docket. As a matter of fact, it was next on our agenda.
Shortly after President Lincoln was shot by Booth, soldiers carried the unconscious President down the stairs, out the theater’s front door and into the street that was muddied by the rain that was falling. Three doctors, each of whom were in attendance at Ford’s, knew a carriage ride to the White House would prove to be fatal for Lincoln. They decided he be taken to one of the row houses across the street from the theater.
Once the decision was made to take the wounded President to the house owned by tailor William Petersen, the soldiers carried Lincoln up the steps and into Petersen’s first-floor bedroom. Due to Lincoln’s 6’ 4” height, he had to be placed diagonally on the bed.
First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln was inconsolable as she sat by the President’s bedside. Within a short time of hearing her sobs of grief, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered her out of the bedroom and into a nearby parlor. Throughout the night a vigil was held at Lincoln’s bedside; those in the room included numerous government officials, doctors, and the President’s oldest son Robert Todd Lincoln.
At 7:22am on April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died from his wounds in the back bedroom of William Petersen’s boarding house. At the moment of Lincoln’s death, his personal secretary John Hay noted: “A look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features.” After a prayer by those in the room, Stanton said aloud: “Now he belongs to the ages”.
My photographer carried me into the bedroom where Lincoln had died. Although everything in that room was an exact reproduction from that historic night in 1865, it was a solemn experience to visit the room where true greatness had left the Earth. Even though the bed was a replica, like everything else in the room, Plexiglas was used to keep visitors from touching the furnishings. I would’ve loved to have been placed on Lincoln’s deathbed; replica or not – I just couldn’t find a way to get over the top of the clear barricade.
In a span of about two hours, I stood near the precise locations of where Abraham Lincoln was shot and where he died the next morning. Even though the assassination had occurred 149 years earlier, it was as though it had played out right in front of me. There was no doubt that I grew closer than ever to Abraham Lincoln on that day. I also developed a new-found hatred towards John Wilkes Booth on that morning as well. Although Booth was a famous actor; his final performance was that of a coward and I couldn’t wait to stand on his gravesite in Baltimore.
