The death of Abraham Lincoln was a tragedy to America, and to the world, but it also brought deep suffering to our Finger Lakes region. For one thing, TWO attacks were made that night, and the second was an attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward, a resident of Auburn.
Lewis Payne (or Powell) presented himself at Seward’s house as a messenger, then bulled his way in and upstairs. Attacking with a knife he did manage to slash the bedridden Seward badly, along with two of Seward’s sons, a soldier nurse, and a servant, besides roughing up the butler and Seward’s daughter, all of whom tried to protect the injured man, before escaping into the night. Seward, who had been badly injured in a carriage accident, was supported in a heavy metal frame, which probably saved his life by deflecting some of the blows. Although badly slashed, he managed to heave himself off the bed into the space between the bed and the wall, giving himself a little prottection.
Powell/Payne finally fled, and was later executed. Seward continued in stellar service to his country, including the purchase of Alaska. But one side of his face forever sagged, thanks to the slashing he got from Lewis Paine.
The other regional connection is Major Henry Rathbone. We often hear that the major was from Steuben County, but I’m pretty sure that that’s not true. He was one of the clan for whom the Town of Rathbone was named, but I’m not sure how close.
Hardly ANYONE, including their own son, seemed to want to go to the play with the Lincolns. They finally settled on Major Rathbone, who agreed to bring his fiancee Clara Harris.
When John Wilkes Booth crept into the presidential box Mary Lincoln was teasing Abe about holding her hand: “What will Miss Harris think?” Lincoln replied, “She won’t think anything of it” — the last words he ever spoke.
Booth, who was well familiar with the play, waited for a burst of laughter and used those laughs to cover the sound of his shot as he fired one bullet into the back of Abraham Lincoln’s head. While the audience missed the sound of the shot, experienced soldier Major Rathbone did not. He instantly sprang upon Booth, who dropped his single-shot Deringer and slashed Rathbone with his large knife, cutting to the bone from shoulder to elbow.
This got him free long enough to rush to the front of the box, where Rathbone grabbed him again. This, plus catching his spur on some bunting, apparently threw Booth off enough that he landed badly — it was something like a 12-foot drop to the stage — and broke his leg. Rathbone shouted to stop the man, and a soldier in the audience vaulted across the orchestra pit and set out in pursuit. Booth, however, made it to the alleyway and his waiting horse, then fled the city before word got out.
A doctor was lifted up from the audience while others pounded on the door that Booth had barred, which the profusely-bleeding Major Rathbone opened. Lincoln was carried out of the box and down the stairs to a house across the street. Here, as Miss Harris tried to comfort the justifiably hysterical Mrs. Lincoln, Major Rathbone finally passed out from loss of blood, and doctors recognized for the first time how gravely wounded he was.
Sadly, that was not the end of the tragedy. Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone, who were stepbrother and stepsister, married in 1867, after an eight-year engagement. He became consumed… unjustly and unrealistically… by his perception that he had failed to protect the president, and Lincoln had died because of his failure. But that had not been his assignment, and short of pre-emptively shooting anyone who walked through the door, it’s hard to see how he could have prevented it. His actions were heroic — instantly and bare-handedly springing upon a killer with a gun, and continuing the fight after being gravely wounded.
But none of those facts mattered. Two days before Christmas in 1883, while serving as U.S. consul in Hanover, Germany, he attacked his three children. When Clara Harris Rathbone rushed to their defense, he killed her with a knife and a hand gun… the same types of weapons John Wilkes Booth had used. He stabbed himself repeatedly but was taken into custody and died in 1911 in a German mental institution. He was buried with his wife, and their remains were disposed of in 1952. Their son, 13 years old at the time of the killing, was later elected to Congress from Illinois.
Perhaps there were other forces at work – Rathbone had fought through the Civil War, including what is STILL the bloodiest day in American history, at Antietam – so maybe PTSD was already eating away at his soul on that night. At any rate, Booth’s ghastly plot had a very long reach.