The Fine Print
Civil War Fine Print

The pictures of Lincoln's death you weren't supposed to see

The famous pictures of Lincoln's death show a crowd around the bed, his wife at his side and Andrew Johnson among the mourners. Neither was in the room, and almost every one of those pictures was made by somebody who wasn't there.

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In this story

  1. 0:00Count the people
  2. 0:48The box
  3. 2:33Across the street
  4. 3:467:22
  5. 4:54The empty room
  6. 5:35The first drawing
  7. 6:18The print shops
  8. 8:25New York
  9. 10:09Booth's body
  10. 11:34The prisoners
  11. 12:08The hanging
  12. 13:20Springfield, 1952

Sources

Sources

  • The War of the Rebellion: Official Records, Series I, vol. 46, part 3, pp. 952, 965-967 (the telegrams of Stanton, Townsend, Beecher and Raymond, April 1865)
  • Henry Rathbone's sworn statement, 17 April 1865, and the trial record in Benn Pitman, The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators (1865)
  • Clara Harris to "Mary", 25 April 1865 (New-York Historical Society)
  • Willie Clark to his sister Ida, 19 April 1865 (National Park Service, Ford's Theatre)
  • James Tanner's letter of 17 April 1865 and his testimony notes
  • Diary of Gideon Welles, vol. 2 (1911)
  • John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, vol. 10 (1890), with Major A. F. Rockwell's plan of the house
  • Evening Star (Washington), 15 and 28 April 1865 and 16 February 1869; New-York Tribune, 25 and 28 April 1865; New York Herald, 25 April 1865; Daily National Intelligencer, 3 May 1865
  • Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 29 April 1865; Harper's Weekly, 6 May, 13 May and 22 July 1865
  • E. D. Townsend, Anecdotes of the Civil War (1884)
  • Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 45:3 (1952); LIFE, 15 September and 6 October 1952; Ronald Rietveld, "The Magnificent Find" (Abraham Lincoln Online)
  • Lincoln Lore nos. 1517 (1964) and 1742 (1983)
  • National Park Service, Ford's Theatre National Historic Site; Chicago History Museum; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
  • Walter Stahr, "Lincoln's Death, Stanton's Words" (2022); Richard Wightman Fox, "A Phrase for the Ages" (2015); Harold Holzer, "The Last Photo of Lincoln" (2009)

Pictures

  • Gurney & Son's photograph of Lincoln's coffin, New York City Hall, 24 April 1865 (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library); the Ulke brothers' photograph of the empty bed (Chicago History Museum); Alexander Gardner's photographs of the conspirators and the execution; the Library of Congress's photographs of Ford's Theatre, the box and the funeral train; prints by Currier & Ives, Kellogg, Brett, Lloyd, Magee, Ritchie and Alonzo Chappel; Alfred Waud's sketches; portraits by Brady and Gardner; Carol M. Highsmith's photographs of the Petersen House today (Library of Congress); the Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0); the National Archives.

Film

  • D. W. Griffith, Abraham Lincoln (1930); Ford Motor Company films of Washington (about 1918-1921), National Archives.

Credits

  • Lincoln's bed at the Chicago History Museum by Adam Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Booth plot, Green Mount Cemetery, by Danekusic, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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