Episode 36: Henry Rathbone

Let us not forget, there were three other people in the presidential box on the night Abraham Lincoln was shot. Two of those people met terrible ends.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, I'm Shannon, and welcome to the They Hid What Podcast. On this podcast, I explore parts of history that have been kept hidden or swept under the rug. In this week's episode, I will be discussing Henry Rathbone for all that beautiful theme music. We all know that President Lincoln was shot while at the theater, but we neglect the three other people that were in the theater box with him. And this brings me to the topic of today's episode, Henry Rathbone. Henry Reed Rathbone was born on July 1st, 1836 in Albany, New York. His mother was Pauline Penny and was 27 when Henry was born. Henry's father, Jared, was 45 at the time of Henry's birth. And he was a provision merchant, which, to my understanding, is someone that, quote, sells food and other provisions. Big old help. But he was also the first elected mayor of Albany. So Jared was the director of the State Bank of Albany, the director of the Albany Insurance Company, a member of the Albany Common Council, a trustee and president of Albany Medical College, and a member of the Whig political party. Busy guy. Now I mentioned that Jared Rathbone was the first elected mayor of Albany. And the mayor previous to Jared was chosen by the Albany Common Council on January 21st, 1839. Jared, however, was elected by popular vote on December 30th, 1839. And he was elected mayor again on May 5th, 1840. I don't know why these two votes were so close together. It seems like enough people loved him to vote him in twice. Henry was the second of five children born to Jared and Pauline. Their first child, Charles, was born in 1836 but died in 1837. Then came Henry in 1836. The third child died soon after birth in 1839 and didn't have a name, or at least not one that I could find. Baby number four was named Anna, and she was born in 1840, but she died at two years old. And then son Jared was born in 1844. Henry's father, Jared, died in 1845 when Henry was nine years old. And at this point, there was only Henry and his younger brother Jared. Upon their father's death, Henry inherited$200,000, which is just under$8.5 million today. Henry's mother, Pauline, married Ira Harris in 1848 when she was 39 and he was 46. Why do I point out the ages? I just think it's interesting. Ira had five children from a previous marriage. Clara, 14, Amanda, 12, William, 10, Louise, 8, and Ira Jr., who was five. And two years after the marriage, Pauline gave birth to a girl. So there are now two adults and seven, no, eight children in the home. Ira was appointed to U.S. Senator for New York in 1861. So perhaps Pauline has a type. Henry attended Union College and worked in a law partnership. In 1858, he entered into the New York National Guard and worked as a judge advocate. The following year, he was sent to Europe as an observer during the Second Italian War for Independence, and that was in 1861. Henry joined the Union Army serving as a captain in the 12th Infantry Regiment at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, and the Battle of Friedrichksburg from December 11th to 15th, 1862. By 1863, Henry was removed from frontline duty and was given a desk job, and he soon became mayor. Now, around the time that Henry was sent to Europe as an observer in 1861, he and his stepsister Clara had become engaged. And this wasn't a weird thing to happen at the time. Yeah. Let's get to April 14th, 1865. Henry and Clara were invited by President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary to see a play at Ford's Theater. At this time, Henry and Clara were engaged, and the pair had been friends with the Lincolns for a few years. Originally, the Lincolns invited Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia to the theater that night, but they declined. In the theater box, Abe sat in a rocking chair on the left. Henry was on a chair opposite Abe on the right. And Mary and Clara sat on a sofa between the two men. John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box of the theater and shot Abe in the back of the head. Now Henry thought he heard Booth shout, freedom, before he jumped from his seat to grab Booth. Booth and Henry wrestled, and during the scuffle, Booth dropped his gun and pulled out a dagger. Now John Wilkes-Buth stabbed at Henry's chest but didn't make contact. However, he did manage to cut Henry from elbow to shoulder on his left arm. Now, as John Wilkes-Buth got ready to jump onto the stage from the presidential box, Henry grabbed Booth's coat, and this caused Booth to lose his balance and fall onto the stage, possibly breaking or at least injuring his leg. Henry shouted, Stop that man, and another patron did try to catch Booth, but was unsuccessful. Henry then rushed over to his friend to see if there was anything he could do. This is a quote I found describing Henry's next steps. Quote When going to the door to find medical aid, Henry said, barred by a heavy piece of plank, one end of which was secured in the wall, and the other resting against the door. It had been so securely fastened that it required considerable force to remove it. This wedge or bar was about four feet from the floor. Persons upon the outside were beating against the door for the purpose of entering. I removed the bar and the door was opened. Several persons who represented themselves as surgeons were allowed to enter. I saw there Colonel Crawford and requested him to prevent other persons from entering the box. I then returned to the box and found the surgeons examining the president's person. They had not yet discovered the wound. As soon as it was discovered, it was determined to remove him from the theater. End quote. Henry said that, quote, upon reaching the head of the stairs, I requested Major Potter to aid me in assisting Mrs. Lincoln across the street to the house where the president was being conveyed. Shortly after all of this, Henry passed out due to blood loss. I'm pretty sure it was just adrenaline that had kept him going to that point. And Henry was taken by carriage to the Harris house. Originally, Clara, this is Henry's fiance and stepsister, was going to stay with Mary, but by the time Dr. G.W. Pope came to the home to tend to Henry, Clara was by his side with his head in her lap. And Dr. Pope recalls that on entering the home, Henry was stripped of his clothes and was as pale as a corpse. After attending to Abe, Army surgeon Charles Leal came to treat Henry. And it was quickly realized that Henry's wound was bad. Not only was it long, again, it was from the elbow to the shoulder, but it was so deep that it was nearly to the bone and had severed an artery. Clara remained calm and brought water, towels, and bandages as Leal stitched up Henry's arm. And after Henry was transported back to the Wrathbone house, Clara went back to sit with Mary and an unconscious Abe Lincoln for the next nine hours until he passed on the morning of April 15th. John was 26 years old when he assassinated Abe Lincoln. He came from a prominent theatrical family and became an actor himself. The Booth family was from Maryland and was pretty divided when it came to the Confederacy that wanted to preserve slavery in the United States. John was a Confederate sympathizer and disagreed with Lincoln and the abolition of slavery. His anger built until he came up with a plan. John and his friends, Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Lalan, were going to kidnap Lincoln in order to help the Confederate cause. Sure. When the trio learned that Lincoln would be attending a performance of a play, the three would try and kidnap Lincoln. But Lincoln never appeared. Turns out he changed his plans at the last minute and went to a reception at the National Hotel, which was where John had been staying. Which is madness. On the morning of April 14th, John went to Ford's Theater to get his mail. Because remember, he's an actor at this point in his life. While at the theater, John learned that the Lincolns would be in attendance that night. John immediately started making plans for the kidnapping and arranged for a getaway horse and planned an escape route. This plan changed them. Now John would shoot the president. His friend George would kill Vice President Andrew Jackson, and a new cohort, Lewis Powell, would kill Secretary of State William Seward. George got cold feet and spent the night drinking instead. Lewis was able to stab Seward while he was bedridden, but Seward survived. David Harold was set to help the three escape to Virginia. So John shoots Ape, then escapes the theater. He uses the getaway horse that was provided by Joseph Burrows and fled with David Harold. The two eventually make it to Virginia, where they were led to Richard Garrett's farm by William Jett, who was a friend they had made during the journey. The Garrett's were unaware of Lincoln's assassination. And John was introduced to them as James W. Boyd, a Confederate soldier whom they were told was wounded at the Siege of Petersburg and was returning home. At the same time, a small army of 26 men had been sent to track down John and David. This army arrived at the Garrett Farm on April 26th. The two men were hiding in the tobacco barn, and upon discovery, David surrendered to them, but John refused. And so the army set fire to the barn. One of the men in this army, Sergeant Thomas Boston Corbett, shot John Wilkes Booth, quote, without order, pretext, or excuse. John was shot in the neck and was dragged from the barn to the porch of the home where he had died three hours later. The order of the army was to take John alive. So Thomas Corbett had disobeyed those orders. Thomas was 33 when he shot Booth and was known for his devout religious beliefs and his erratic behavior. After the incident, Thomas began receiving death threats. And Thomas left Virginia and made his way to Boston, Massachusetts, then to Danbury, Connecticut, and finally Camden, New Jersey. Thomas would give lectures about the shooting of John Wilkes Booth, but was never asked back due to his erratic behavior and incoherent speeches. After settling in Kansas, he became paranoid that John's family or friends would come for him. And due to his fame as Lincoln's Avenger, Thomas was appointed assistant doorkeeper of the Kansas House of Representatives in Topeka, Kansas in January 1887. On February 15th, he became convinced that officers of the House were discriminating against him. He jumped to his feet, pulled out a revolver, and began chasing the officers out of the building. Now no one was hurt, but Thomas was arrested. And the following day, a judge declared him insane and sent him to the Topica Asylum for the insane. But on May 26th, 1888, he escaped and disappeared, never to be heard from again. Back to April of 1865. Clara had kept her bloodstained dress from this night. She didn't wash it, she didn't destroy it, but she instead stored it in a closet in their summer home. Now allegedly. Clara believes that she was visited by Abe's ghost. And after this, she had the closet containing the bloodstained dress to be bricked up, with the dress still inside. Later in 1910, her son took down the bricks, opened the closet, and had the dress destroyed, believing that it was a curse on the family. And you will find out why a little later on. After the events of the Lincoln assassination, Henry couldn't get it out of his mind that he failed Abraham Lincoln. His friend, James Barrett, said, quote, I don't think that he ever recovered from the shock of fright in President Lincoln's box at the theater. The scene always haunted his mind. Henry also experienced bouts of despondency and moodiness. Nowadays we would call this post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor's guilt. Two years after the event, Henry and Clara married on July 11, 1867. In 1869 and 1870, Henry was treated for what doctors called attacks of neurologia of the head and face and in the region of the heart, attended by palpitations and at times difficulty breathing. Now to me, this sounds like panic attacks. On February 12th, 1870, which happened to be Abe Lincoln's birthday, Clara gave birth to their son Henry. Henry Sr., the one we're talking about today, had made it to the senior rank of brevet colonel, but resigned from the military and settled the family in Washington, D.C. Now Henry was struggling, and some might say spiraling. His mental health was deteriorating and he became increasingly erratic. Henry was drinking heavily, gambling excessively, and began having affairs. He was also finding it difficult to hold a job for any length of time. Clara gave birth to their second child, Gerald, on August 26, 1871. Something that added to Henry's torment was every year around the anniversary of Lincoln's death, he and Clara would be hounded by journalists. This not only brought back all the horrible memories from that fateful night, but it also increased the guilt that Henry felt. It was a constant annual reminder. Clara wrote to a friend, quote, I understand his distress. In every hotel we're in, as soon as people get wind of our presence, we feel ourselves become objects of morbid scrutiny. Whenever we were in the dining room, we began to feel like zoo animals. Henry imagines that the whispering is more pointed and malicious than it can possibly be. When Clara became pregnant with their third child, a girl they named Clara, born on September 15th, Henry became convinced that she had been unfaithful. He was jealous of the attention Clara gave their children and was also convinced that she was going to divorce him and take the kids away. On July 2nd, 1881, President James Garfield was shot twice by an angry constituent in the presence of Robert Todd Blinken, Abe's son. Garfield later died in September of that year. Now this event made Henry's depression even worse. The new president, Chester Arthur, was a family friend and appointed Henry the counsel to Hanover, now Germany, in hopes that a relocation would help his mental state. It didn't. In 1883, the Rathbone family was relocated to Germany. Henry's now afraid of himself. He was having hallucinations and he was so scared that Clara was going to leave him that he wouldn't let her sit by a window or even by herself. He continued to beg Clara to stay with him while at the same time he purchased a revolver. Clara wrote in her diary on November 30th, 1883, quote, The truth is I have never loved him more than I have this last month. I have wanted to wail with pity over him. He mutters more than ever of our hours in the box at Ford's, forcing me to think of them too. Then came the night of December 23rd, 1883. Clara's sister Louise was living with the Rathbone family at the time. As was a normal occurrence at this time, Clara and Henry began to argue. And when Henry took out his gun and started heading into the children's room, Clara asked Louise to take the three kids into their bedroom and lock the door. Henry and Clara went into their bedroom. The two continued to argue and Henry continued to spiral until finally Henry aimed his revolver and shot Clara three times in the chest and stabbed her repeatedly. He then stabbed himself five times in the chest in what could have possibly been a suicide attempt. Clara died from her wounds at 49 years old. Now Louise was only a few doors away and heard everything. When the noise finally stopped, she rushed into Henry and Clara's bedroom. She alerted the police and then sent a telegram home. Ira Harris, Henry's stepfather, had passed away in 1875, but Pauline, his mother, was still alive and was completely devastated by the news. Clara and Louise's brother William immediately booked passage on a ship to bring Louise and Clara's children back to the States. Henry survived his injuries. He was charged with murder, but declared insane. So he was convicted of murder and committed to an asylum in Hildesheim, Germany. On February 4, 1884, Henry, age 13, Gerald 12, and Clara 11 were sent to live with their uncle, William. Henry's wife, Clara, was buried in Germany. Friends of the family knew that Henry had never recovered from the night of the Lincoln assassination. Dr. Pope, who treated Lincoln that night, said, quote, He never was thoroughly himself after that night. I have no hesitation in affirming that the dreaded tragedy, which preyed upon his nervous and impressionable temperament for many years, laid the seeds of the homicidal media. Henry remained in the asylum for almost 30 years. His mind still tormented him, and he lived in constant fear and thought that the other patients were conspiring against him, that the walls were hollow, and that they contained a spray apparatus that blew out dust and gas. He also routinely asked about Clara. In January of 1911, A reporter for the Washington Post visited Rathbone and said, quote, that his suite was like a hotel's with its own dining room and library. Rathbone was then 73 and still looked like a man of refinement, but his doctor said that he scarcely ate, was chronically paranoid, and constantly tormented by hallucinations. Henry Rathbone died on August 14, 1911, at the age of 74, and was buried next to his wife, Clara. In 1952, it was noted that Clara and Henry's graves hadn't been visited in a substantial amount of time. And in accordance with the German cemetery's policies, the remains of Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris were exhumed and destroyed. The event of Abraham Lincoln's death had a ripple effect. It started Henry Rathbone's mental breakdown, which led to the death of John Wilkes Booth, fanned the flames of an already fragile Thomas Corbett, and left three children without their parents. There's no happy ending to any member involved in this story. One of Henry's children did go on to be mayor, just like he did, just like his grandfather did. That's all I have for this week. Come back next time to see what else has been hit.