On April 14, 1865, the United States of America was on a path to peace. Just five days earlier, at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his forces, the Army of Northern Virginia, to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the United States Civil War. Confederate forces across the South surrendered in the following weeks and a general feeling of relief swept across the land. The North, especially, was joyous. Not immune to this welcome feeling, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary decided to take in a play at Ford’s Theatre. Viewing Our American Cousin from a box above the stage, the Presidential couple had intended for General Grant and his wife Julia to accompany them. The Grants, however, declined the invitation and their seats were given instead to Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris. The tragic events of this historic evening and the wake of sadness left behind are well-known. Often forgotten, however, are the two other victims in the Presidential box on that fateful evening, the President’s guests, Clara Harris and Major Henry Rathbone.
Clara Hamilton Harris was born September 4, 1834 in Albany, New York. Her mother, Louisa, died in 1845 and her father remarried to a widow named Pauline Rathbone in 1848. The family moved to Washington D.C. in 1861 upon Ira’s election as United States Senator for the state of New York and Clara became acquainted with the political elite of the day. She not only gained a new step-mother with her father’s marriage to Pauline, but also new step-siblings, one of whom she would develop romantic feelings for and eventually marry; a step-brother named Henry.
Henry Reed Rathbone was also born in Albany, on July 1, 1837. After attending Union College in Schenectady, earning a Master’s degree in Art, Rathbone studied law and practiced at the office of his step-father’s brother, Hamilton Harris. He was admitted to the bar in 1859. Henry went on to join the 12th U.S. Infantry in 1861 upon the outbreak of the Civil War and after serving the Union on the battle field, including Antietam and Fredericksburg, he moved to Washington D.C. to serve with the Provost-Marshal General Bureau. By 1865, Rathbone had been promoted to the rank of Major and became engaged to his step-sister Clara.
On that ill-fated evening in April, 1865, the President and his party arrived late to the theatre. They were met with resounding applause and the play was halted so “Hail to the Chief” could be played by the orchestra. They were led to their box, which was two adjoining boxes with the center partition removed, and settled in; Lincoln sat closest to the audience in a rocking chair, his wife beside him and their guests next to her, closest to the stage. Another individual was upstairs, as well, lurking in the corridor. Armed with a Deringer pistol and a sharp dagger, actor John Wilkes Booth was a Southern sympathizer who had conspired with others to assassinate President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. Only Booth would successfully follow through. As the play reached a comedic high-point, a scene that the actor knew would come, and the audience’s raucous laughter concealed his movements, Booth snuck into the box, pointed his Deringer at the back of Lincoln’s head, and fired.
Through the gun smoke, Rathbone was able to see Booth and immediately leapt from his seat to apprehend the would-be assassin. The men grappled with one another until Booth broke free, reached for the knife he was carrying, and swung wildly at Rathbone, slashing the man’s arm from shoulder to elbow. Rathbone let go of Booth, then reached for him again as the latter stumbled precariously and leapt, albeit less than gracefully, from the balcony onto the stage. “Stop that man!” cried Rathbone, but the stunned audience was unsure if the commotion they were witnessing was part of the performance or if the act playing out in front of them was real. Booth made his escape out the back door. “The President is shot!” cried Clara.
Rathbone was bleeding profusely from his wound while three doctors from the audience, Dr. Charles A. Leale, Dr. Charles S. Taft, and Dr. Albert F. A. King, tended to the President. Clara embraced her fiancé, leaving her dress soaked with his blood. The couple followed the Lincolns to the Petersen house across the street from the theatre as the President was too gravely wounded to survive the carriage ride back to the White House. Mary caught site of Clara and sobbed, “Oh, my husband’s blood!” She thought the blood on Clara’s dress was her husband’s. Once the doctors settled around Lincoln, Rathbone collapsed, his blood loss significant, his grief enormous. Rathbone was taken home that evening. President Lincoln died in the Petersen house the following morning.
Dr. G. W. Pope, the Harris family doctor, tended to Rathbone upon his arrival back home. The knife wound was deep, almost to the bone, and stretched down his bicep from shoulder to elbow. It came within inches of the brachial artery, which would have meant certain death for Henry. While that bit of luck saved his life, he had still lost a substantial amount of blood. He was pale as a ghost and delirious with guilt. He did recover, though he never regained full use of his arm, nor did he ever truly forgive himself for not being able to save the President’s life.
Clara and Henry wed on July 11, 1867 and had three children; their first, Henry Riggs Rathbone, shared President Lincoln’s birthday of February 12. That same year, 1870, Henry resigned from the Army. The family resided in Washington D.C. but spent years traveling to and from Europe, visiting various doctors and spas in search of relief for Henry’s chronic dyspepsia, a stomach ailment that plagued him for years after Lincoln’s assassination. Henry also suffered from mental distress. He was nervous, suspicious, and often irrational. He became convinced that his wife was going to leave him and take their three children with her.
The Rathbones eventually settled in Hanover, Germany in 1883, and Henry’s mental decline worsened. He was depressed, his behavior was erratic, and his temperament was often volatile. On December 23 of that same year, his struggles got the best of him and he lashed out at his family, attacking his wife and children with a gun. Clara managed to get her three children safely behind a locked door while she took Henry to their bedroom in an attempt to calm him down. It was in vain. Henry shot his wife twice before he pulled out a knife and stabbed her, brutally taking her life. He then turned the knife on himself, plunging it in his chest five times in a failed attempt at suicide.
Henry was arrested and found guilty of murder, but was placed in an asylum after being declared insane. It was widely believed that he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and was never fully able to recover from that dreadful night in April, 1865. His guilt and depression ate away at him, both physically and mentally, until he simply snapped. He lived out the rest of his days in Provincial Insane Asylum, scarcely eating and still wrapped up in a guilt-fueled mania that included paranoia and hallucinations. On August 14, 1911, Henry Rathbone died. He was buried with his wife. Years later, the cemetery re-opened their plots for reuse as the graves had not had visitors in ages. The whereabouts of their remains today is unknown.
Sources:
Gilmore, Jr., Colonel, M.C., U.S.A., Hugh R. “Medical Aspects of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 47 (Feb 1954): 103–108.
Hallisey, Michael. “Discover Loudonville: A Loudonville Native Placed the Blame of Lincoln’s Death Upon his Shoulders, and Paid Dearly for it.” Spotlight News. November 14, 2008. https://www.spotlightnews.com/towns/colonie/2018/11/14/discover-loudonville-a-loudonville-native-placed-the-blame-of-lincolns-death-upon-his-shoulders-and-paid-dearly-for-it/.
Ruane, Michael E. “A Tragedy’s Second Act.” Washington Post. April 5, 2009. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032701576.html.
Smith, Gene. “American Characters: The Haunted Major.” American Heritage 45, no. 1 (Feb/ Mar 1994). Accessed November 20, 2019. https://www.americanheritage.com/haunted-major.
“Clara Harris.” AssassinationofAbrahamLincoln.com. Accessed November 20, 2019. https://www.assassinationofabrahamlincoln.com/clara-harris-rathbone
“Henry Rathbone.” AssassinationofAbrahamLincoln.com. Accessed November 20, 2019. https://www.assassinationofabrahamlincoln.com/henry-rathbone.
