Did Laura Keene Nurse the Assassinated Lincoln?

One of  the secondary threads of the Lincoln assassination story describes how actress Laura Keene left the stage of Ford's Theatre to nurse the dying Lincoln by holding his head on her lap while doctors administered life saving measures. The story has been derided by some, but enough new evidence has emerged to give it a new lease on life.

The Lincoln literature is a vast hall of mirrors, where ambiguous and secondary evidence has morphed into holy writ - not to be doubted or questioned. The story of Keene's involvement in the assassination aftermath is not quite to that level, but is generally related as a matter of fact.

The background for this story is that Keene, a prominent British actress appearing in a production of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC, rushed for the presidential box when she realized what had happened to the president.

When she arrived, she is alleged to have asked the attending physician, Charles Leale, to hold Lincoln's head. As Leale reports in 1909,

While we were waiting for Mr. Lincoln to gain strength Laura Keene, who had been taking part in the play, appealed to me to allow her to hold the President's head. I granted this request and she sat on the floor of the box and held his head on her lap.

If that were not enough, there are supposedly patches taken from her costume retaining blood stains from Lincoln's wound. The National Museum of American History holds one of these relics.

Yet historian Norman Gasbarro expressed skepticism about this story, noting the logistical improbabilities of gaining access to the president's room in the pandemonium reigning at Ford's Theater immediately after the shooting of the president.

Writing on his fine Civil War Blog website, Gasbarro states:

Other eyewitness accounts are given, some stating that Keene was in the state box and some stating that she was not. Harbin does state rather emphatically that no one who made any of these statements ever testified at the trail of the conspirators, and that the statements were actually made many years later – Seaton Munroe (31 years),  Dr. Charles Leale (44 years), Jeannie Gourlay (58 years) and William Ferguson (65 years).  Harbin concludes by stating that it all comes down to deciding “which eyewitnesses… you believe” and that it is doubtful whether any conclusive proof will ever come forward.

Gasbarro rightly objects to the absence of contemporary accounts corroborated by first hand witnesses. Had these witnesses been deposed under oath, this matter would probably be settled. And why weren't they called to the witness stand? First hand witnesses are quite valuable to court cases. But alas, this matter is secondary to a murder case.

But witnesses, especially decades after the fact, can be troublesome, especially when other first hand witnesses contradict them. In this case, Clara Harris, whom Mary Lincoln had invited to accompany her and her husband to the play, claimed adamantly that Laura Keene was never in the president's box. Gasbarro concludes as follows:

Even more deceptive, is that after relying almost completely on Reck as a source, Steers fails to state the two important points in Reck’s conclusion:  (1) that Clara Harris, who was the Lincoln’s guest in the state box that night, vehemently denied that Laura Keene was ever at any time in the state box (Reck, p. 123), and (2) “No statement from Miss Keene about the alleged occurrence has ever been seen (Reck, p. 123).”

Nonetheless, Gasbarro leaves open the possibility that new evidence might confirm or contradict the legend of Laura Keene. Interestingly, such evidence emerged after he wrote his articles in 2012.

In the audience of the Ford Theater that evening was W. Martin Jones who described his location in a letter to Captain Bowen, dated April 24, 1865:

The theatre was well filled, and the play opened soon after eight oclock [sic]. I occupied a front seat in the first section from the private box fitted up for the Presidential company, which was on the right hand side of the audience.

In his mellifluous and hagiographic letter concerning Lincoln, he later describes the moments immediately after the shot of gunfire is heard:

Laura Keene stepped forward and endeavored to restore quiet, but suddenly, was seized with a new thought, she rushed to the President's box, and taking the head of the murdered man in her lap, did what she could to bring back the life that was fast passing away. Thus in the public theater of Washington the life blood of the illustrious Chief Magistrate of the Nation stained the robe of an Actress [sic]. 

So a very contemporary witness, writing 10 days after his visit to Ford's Theater, avers that Laura Keene indeed held the dying president's head in her lap. Reading this passage from a contemporaneous letter of the event, one could say, Case closed, and be done with it.

However, it is not so simple as that. On the one hand, this story is not a late invention. It is part of the earliest days of the assassination's history and legend. Even though others told this story in later years, it appeared much earlier - from the very beginning from someone who was a witness to the events at the theater.

There is one small problem. Jones' letter is a conflation of events he personally witnessed and read. He describes aspects of the funeral, visitation, and mourning of Washington, some of which he did not personally attend. In other words, his account contains a mixture of first and second hand accounts. Thus we ask, Did Jones actually see Keene in the state box of Ford' Theater - let alone hold the president's head?

His extremely valuable contribution was describing Laura Keene's actions in the very moments after the assassin left the stage. However, there is not enough evidence contained in his witness to suggest that Keene succeeded in her attempt to reach Lincoln. Jones notes that the theater was quickly cleared, so it seems doubtful that he had enough time to actually witness Keene enter the presidential box. They would have been moving in opposite directions, so it seems likely that our correspondent would have noted her in passing, yet says nothing of such an encounter.

Our conclusion is that Keene did not attend to the president. She attempted to do so, but failed. However, if firm DNA evidence from the alleged swatches from her dress confirm that the blood is Lincoln's, we would readily concede the point.

The morals of the story are that eye witnesses can produce conflicting testimony, and they are not the last word.

Reference
Norman Gasbarro, Laura Keene and the Bloody Dress, Civil War Blog, January 22, 2012, accessed 9/26/2020, http://civilwar.gratzpa.org/2012/01/laura-keene-and-the-bloody-dress/

W Martin Jones, Letter to Captain Bowen, April 24, 1865, original facsimile published January 22, 2015 by MailOnline.

Charles A. Leale, MD, Lincoln's Last Hours, February 1909, as reproduced by gutenberg.org, The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lincoln's Last Hours

Copyright 2020 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.