We had just enough time after visiting the zoo today to get over to Ford’s Theater. As we walked into the theatre you quickly see the booth where President Lincoln and his wife (Mary Todd Lincoln) were sitting. It is preserved as it was on April 14, 1865. Seeing it like that gave me the chills. It was definitely experiencing a step back in history.
An unexpected museum display was downstairs.
We went across the street to the boarding house where President Lincoln was taken after being shot. This is where President Lincoln took his last breath. To the left of the red brick boarding house is what is now the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership. I think it’s cool how you can see Lincoln looking out from the upper window of this building.
Below is the entry hallway and the parlor where Mrs. Lincoln with their son Robert, and friends in between visits with her husband in another nearby bedroom. The parlor leads into a bedroom where Secretary of War Stanton interviewed witnesses, held several cabinet meetings and ordered the pursuit of the assassins.
President Lincoln died in this private bedroom at 7:22 am on April 15, 1865. Church bells began tolling within minutes of his death on the gray, drizzly morning.
We exited out via this area between the boarding house and the Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership.
Shortly before 11:00 a.m., the door of the Petersen Family’s Boarding House opened and soldiers exited, carrying the president’s body in a plain pine box. They placed it in a horse-drawn wagon, which rattled over cobblestone streets to the White House, where doctors conducted an autopsy in a second floor bedroom.
One of the surgeons, Dr. Curtis, wrote this account of the autopsy:
“…suddenly the bullet dropped out through my fingers and fell, breaking the solemn silence of the room with its clatter, into an empty basin that was standing beneath. There it lay upon the white china, a little black mass no bigger than the end of my finger, dull, motionless, and harmless, yet the cause of such mighty changes in the world’s history as we may perhaps never realize.”
A TOWER of Books on Abraham Lincoln! It is pretty impressive. These are not all the books that have been written. The tower consists of about 6,800 books. I was disappointed to learn that there are only 205 different books featured about Lincoln’s life and legacy, and are repeated throughout the tower. There wouldn’t have to be any repeats since to-date there are more than 15,000 books that have been written about Lincoln! To include all of them would take more than two book towers! I still think it would be impressive NOT to repeat any of the books within this one tower.
This is my last Washington, DC blog for our 2022 visit. I LOVED every day we spent here, and could have enjoyed several more days. DC is already on my re-visit list. We’d like to time our next visit with the full bloom of the cherry blossoms along the Potomac!
Thanks for the great history lesson. Jerry & Belinda
🙂 The stop (as so many) was pleasantly more than we expected.