Read the First-Person Account of the Doctor Attending to Lincoln Right After Shooting
- Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:06pm by
Liz Klimas
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Dr. Charles Leale's report of being the first physician to treat President Abraham Lincoln after he was shot. (Image: Papers of Abraham Lincoln)
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (The Blaze/AP) — When President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C., someone cried out “is there a surgeon in the house?” Dr. Charles Leale was that man.
Rushing into Lincoln’s box and finding the president paralyzed and comatose against his wife, Dr. Leale’s first order: brandy and water.
In an exciting find, researchers sifting through the National Archives papers regarding Lincoln’s death have unearthed the first-person account of Leale, who was the first physician to help the president after he received these fatal wounds.
Written just hours after his death, the papers reveal Leale, an Army surgeon, sat 40 feet from Lincoln at the theater that night in April 1865, saw assassin John Wilkes Booth jump to the stage, brandishing a dagger. Thinking Lincoln had been stabbed, Leale pushed his way to the victim but found a different injury.
“I commenced to examine his head (as no wound near the shoulder was found) and soon passed my fingers over a large firm clot of blood situated about one inch below the superior curved line of the occipital bone,” Leale reported. “The coagula I easily removed and passed the little finger of my left hand through the perfectly smooth opening made by the ball.”
The historians who discovered the report believe it was filed, packed in a box, stored at the archives and not seen for 147 years. While it doesn’t add much new information, “it’s the first draft” of the tragedy, said Daniel Stowell, director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln.
See the historical account here. For the best representation of the transcript, check out the press release on the find from the Papers of Abraham Lincoln here.
“What’s fascinating about this report is its immediacy and its clinical, just-the-facts approach,” Stowell said. “There’s not a lot of flowery language, not a lot of emotion.”
A researcher for the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Helena Iles Papaioannou, found the report among the U.S. surgeon general’s April 1865 correspondence, filed under “L” for Leale.
Another page of Leale's account. (Image: Papers of Abraham Lincoln)
Physicians continue to debate whether Lincoln received proper treatment. With trauma treatment still in its infancy, Leale’s report illustrates “the helplessness of the doctors,” Stowell said. “He doesn’t say that but you can feel it.”
“For his time, he did everything right,” said Dr. Blaine Houmes, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, specialist in emergency medicine who has studied the assassination. Accounts vary about how Leale did it – Houmes thinks he might have pounded on the victim’s chest – but the doctor resuscitated the president.
“When Dr. Leale got into the president’s box, Lincoln was technically dead,” Houmes said. “He was able to regain a pulse and get breathing started again. He basically saved Lincoln’s life, even though he didn’t survive the wound.”
Leale wrote a report for an 1867 congressional committee investigating the assassination that referenced the earlier account, but no one had ever seen the original, said Stowell, whose group’s goal is to find every document written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime.
At least four researchers have been painstakingly scouring boxes of documents at the National Archives for more than six years. They methodically pull boxes of paper — there are millions of records packed away and never catalogued, Stowell said — and look for “Lincoln docs,” as Papaioannou called them.
Leale's signature on the report. (Image: Papers of Abraham Lincoln)
She was assigned the surgeon general‘s mail and was leafing through letters pitching inventions for better ambulances and advice about feeding soldiers onions to ward off disease when she hit Leale’s report, likely rewritten in the neat hand of a clerk.
“I knew it was interesting. What we didn’t know was this was novel,” Papaioannou said. “We didn’t know that this was new, that this was an 1865 report and that it likely hadn’t been seen before.”
Leale, who was 23 and just six weeks into his medical practice when Lincoln died, never spoke or wrote about his experiences again until 1909 in a speech commemorating the centennial of the president’s birth.
While Leale’s report includes little sentiment, Papaioannou believes the way he described the moments after Booth disappeared shows how deeply he was affected.
“I then heard cries that the `President had been murdered,’ which were followed by those of `Kill the murderer’ `Shoot him’ etc. which came from different parts of the audience,” Leale wrote. “I immediately ran to the Presidents box and as soon as the door was opened was admitted and introduced to Mrs. Lincoln when she exclaimed several times, `O Doctor, do what you can for him, do what you can!’”
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, administered by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, has found and is digitizing 90,000 documents, Stowell said. Leale’s report – neither written by or to Lincoln – doesn‘t technically fall in the group’s purview, but Stowell said some exceptions are made for extraordinary finds.
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slvrserfr
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 2:59pmHe was against slavery and foreshadowed that a Federal Reserve would destroy this nation, as the idea was pushed even back then by progressives. Two of the reasons that were believed that he was shot.
Report Post »LameLiberals
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:46pmNot much sympathy for Lincoln from me. He should not have been murdered but Lincoln was wrong also.
Each state VOLUNTARILY joined the federal government and should have been VOLUNTARILY able to leave the union. Lincoln acted like the British – FORCING the “British colonists” to REMAIN AGAINST THEIR WILL a part of Britain. The British colonists at least had an excuse – they didn’t voluntarily join England – they were British when they parked their behinds in the New World and just wanted out from under an intrusive British government. But after our independence THEY VOLUNTARILY joined “the unon” and should have been able to voluntarily – DISOWN it. Yet Lincoln started a civil war to FORCE people to stay in it just like a million dictates before him. IT will work for awhile but sooner or later EVERY – NO EXCEPTION – not even for the USA – breaks up and disappears under debt, disagreement, etc. Note: Slavery was not the biggest reason for the South to leave the union because most did not own slaves – it was FREEDOM just like BraveHeart when fighting for Scotland against the British. There is slavery NOW in Middle East and Africa – no one cares – case in point!
Report Post »Iron_Wyll
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:15pmDear Lame: You need to restudy the US Constitution. The Founders believed in natural rights and to guarantee those rights, they said, governments are established. The Constitution calls for the formation of a republican government at the national and state levels. If slavery was allowed to exist in the Southern states, then they would be in violation of the basic principle of a republic, that is, “all men” are created equal. The slave-owning South agreed to the democratic form of government, and the free-states hoped that slavery would disappear over time. The Southern states were agreeing to representative democracy but behaving be as aristocracies, in which the higher class ruled over the lower class. Remember too that there was a prescribed amendment method for changing the Constitution if the South wanted to go that route. At best, the Southern states agreed to a republican form of government under false pretenses. They rejected the only legitimate way to change the Constitution because they would not win. When they chose to rebel, they were breaking a solemn agreement with all other parties to the Constitution. This is not about “states rights”, as the Constitution only agrees to “state powers”, and slavery is not among those powers.
Report Post »Twinspeedr
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 9:50amI would suggest that all the Blaze readers please read “The Real Lincoln” by Thomas DiLorenzo. This book is one of the best accounts of the untold side of Abraham Lincoln. Sadly I see many of the political tools that Lincoln used to fore his policies on the southern states are alive and well today. It now seems much more clear why Obama took a symbolic train ride that replicated Lincoln’s on the way to his inauguration. There is a story here folks…
Report Post »soybomb315
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 5:56pmi second that. Wish Glenn Beck would at least read the cliff notes of it
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:10amThere are a couple of details missing: The doctor yelled “Bring me a glass of whiskey and a glass of water.“ He drank the whiskey and said ”The water is for the president.”
Report Post »Isn’t this story a few years late? He was asasinated in 1865 wasn’t he? Maybe in another 100 years “we” will find out who shot JFK.
apollo18
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:55am“We” already know: Lee Harvey Oswald. How LBJ handled it lead to the “mystery”. Dan Rather was in the motorcade. Doesn’t he “know everything”?
Report Post »isobamamadd
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:58pmG.H.W. Bush was C.I.A. .he has many strange connections to presidential shootings. When Kennedy was killed there a picture that looks like him in front of the book depository. But he refuses to say where he was that day. When Regan was shot he was in the situation room at the white house, and had visited the Hinkley family shortly before the shooting. Also Oswald was doing work with a Dr. in a lab that was shall we say a black op. for the pharmas. She was working on cancer in mice . Needless to say both wound up dead. There’s a You Tube about the book and the Coverup.
Report Post »http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL1FNhZlOs0
For more on the Cancer causing Monkey virus http://deathbyvaccination.com/
Eyeball
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:16amWhy did the doctor think Lincoln was stabbed? Just because he saw booth with a knife? Didn’t he hear the shot? It must have been loud as he was sitting nearby.
Report Post »jmcclena
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 2:12amSounds like a conspiracy theory. To the BECKMOBILE!
Report Post »nzkiwi
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:04amThat made me laugh.
But seriously, when I was in Washington I visited the Ford theatre and the box where he was shot. Two things surprised me; firstly how much smaller everthing was than I had imagined – tiny little space, and secondly, that I was much more moved by the visit than I expected to be.
If any of you guys find yourselves in the area, I absolutely recommend that you go there (assuming that you have not already been). They have some remarkable and sobering exhibits displayed in the basement, which has been converted to a sort of museum.
Report Post »cykonas
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 5:29amJ.W. Booth was a very accomplished actor. He was very familiar with the play that was being put on at Ford’s that evening. He knew all of the points during the play where the audience was sure to applaud and the fairly exact times that they would occur. He picked the time that usually brought the largest applause response during this particular play. That‘s probably why many in the theater didn’t really hear the single gun shot.
Bill O’Reilly recently wrote a great book titled “Killing Lincoln”. It‘s a fairly short and very interesting read on the last few days of Lincolns’ life. It‘s very well researched and honestly I couldn’t put the thing down. A lot of things similar to the subject of your question come out in the book. It’s not just another dry regurgitation of old history that pretty much everyone knows. Peace.
Report Post »USNRET04
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:07amFrom what I read, the first thought was stabbing because of seeing the knife. While being attended to, very little blood if any was seen, the doc was struggling to figure out what was wrong. The doc, though being young, had seen a life time of gun shots and stabbings because of his Civil War experience.
Report Post »apollo18
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:59amI wasn’t there, but a US Army major was in the same box, with a life-threatening extremity wound from a knife. I’m just supposing, but maybe there was a little “excitement” in the President’s box, at the time. Could have been a bit confusing, at the time. But I wasn’t there.
Report Post »Bryan B
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:00amLincoln was removed from the Theater, to a Boarding House across the street, thats where the wound was declared mortal. The bullet entered through the back of President Lincoln head and lodged behind his right eye.
The play at the Theater that night was Our American Cousins, it was a comedy…..
Report Post »Jupitor
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:19am“When President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C., someone cried out “is there a surgeon in the house?” Dr. Charles Leale was that man.”
Dr. Charles Leale was the man who cried out “is there a surgeon in the house?”
:p
Report Post »JGraham III
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:45amDon’t give up yer day job, chum.
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:13amMy brother had a heart attack and almost instantly there were 15 doctors surrounding him. He was on a golf course.
Report Post »Possum45
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:50pmStinkin Lincoln!!!
The most damaging president to the usConstitution untill modern times!!!
Good riddance!!!
Glen, cho your hero’s more wisely!!!
Report Post »Red Meat
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:08amThis.
Report Post »Wat Tyler
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:21amBlasphemy. Lincoln was a great man.
Report Post »getourcountryback
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 2:25amGo back under your bridge Troll.
Report Post »RepubliCorp
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 3:16amPOSSUM45 yet another redneck Paulbot speaks…….
Report Post »Wat Tyler
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:01am@REPUBLIKCORPSE:
Are you sure about that? He sounds more like an internationalist neo-con Romney supporter RINO to me.
Report Post »nzkiwi
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:18amHe sounds spectacularly ill-informed to me.
Does the phrase “…that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” ring any bells with you, Possum?
You should read a bit more about Lincoln, who also said that “it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt”.
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:24amPossum needs to be roadkill.
Report Post »RepubliCorp
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 7:46amWAT TYlenol I have read his spew and he is a BOT
Report Post »Twinspeedr
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:31amReserve judgement. Lincoln was whitewashed. I couldn’t belive it either at first. All of you that love Lincoln and the truth owe it to yourself to read “The Real Lincoln” by Thomas DiLorenzo. You will be shocked by who tho man really was and how history has portrayed him.
Report Post »mama6
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:36amWow!!! Why do you think Lincoln was a detriment to the Constitution?
Report Post »apollo18
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 9:04amHey, you weren’t thinking Barrabas was the better choice too, were ya?
A$$ clown
Report Post »Iron_Wyll
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:20pmPossum: Learn to spell. It makes written communications so much easier.
Report Post »aquablue
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:43pmI think it is an interesting story. The doctor’s handwriting just beautiful.
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:15amYes. Things sure have changed. Now doctors can’t read their own handwriting.
Report Post »nzkiwi
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:21amThat was the first thing that I noticed, too.
Report Post »Inlightofthings
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 3:16pmArticle says it was likely re-written by a clerk. Just fyi.
Report Post »PimpleJuice
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:32pmOK. I listen to Beck and like him. He’s the closet thing to Paul Revere. Why would you bring up a presidential assination? Sometimes you are right on the mark other times I turn you off.
Report Post »Wat Tyler
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:23amAlex Jones is closer to Paul Revere.
Beck covers for NWO Bildergergers. Jones was the first to expose them years ago.
Report Post »Wat Tyler
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:29amDon’t forget Mark “From Michigan” Koernke and Liberty Tree Radio.
He told about the NWO back in the early ‘90’s when Bill “the Communist” Clinton came to the fore.
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:56pmHe thought it was a stab wound? Didn’t guns make noise back in those days? He was stabbed with a muskett? a one-shot (noisless gunpowder using) pistol? Quite a lot of noise in the theatre? Well, looks like someone would have told the doc about the pistol and the man with the pistol who ran away. Stabbed? He must have been a liberal Doctor.
Report Post »Blazeanswerman
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:30pmHe was at a theatre during a show. Would you hear a gun shot at an Avengers movie? Or at a July 4th Fireworks display? I’m sure your are a medical examiner, or at least a surgeon to comment on the injury that destroyed a man’s life. Maybe your one of those “Forensic’s” type of people that can tell if a wound was from a gun or knife. Maybe Boothe stabbed the President then fired a shot in the air. Maybe you should stop commenting on things you don’t know if you were not there.
Report Post »TreeTrimmerJim
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 12:44amAs the story was written “saw assassin John Wilkes Booth jump to the stage, brandishing a dagger. Thinking Lincoln had been stabbed, Leale pushed his way to the victim but found a different injury.”
Maybe seeing the dagger gave him his frame of mind? Just a thought.
Report Post »Mr.Fitnah
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 3:48amBack then everything was in black and white and there was a constant kind of hyper piano noise everywhere nearly at every turn a man with a placard explaining what may be going on.
Report Post »Ive seen the footage.. Very strange times indeed.
USNRET04
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:10amBooth being an actor and well aware of the play, chose a specific part of the act when the crowd would be loud as the point to shoot Lincoln. This is why the gun shot was not heard.
Report Post »apollo18
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 9:14amMajor Rathbone, US Army major, standing right next to him. Able to speak, tried to stop Boothe. Very small Presidential box. Bleeding profusely right next to Dr. Leale. Not a doctor’s job to immediately “assume” anything. “High index of suspicion”.
I’m just wasting my time with explaining…Oh. you were making a joke! Haha! Hilarious!
Report Post »ashestoashes
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:21pmAccording to this account..this is why Lincoln was assassinated..as was JFK..
Report Post »http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USGSOViaulc&feature=related
TunaBlue
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:45pmYou can find this tripe all over the internet. Care to share at least one piece of empirical data or source to support your theory?
Report Post »ashestoashes
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:05pm@TURNABLUE The dictionary definition of empirical evidence is evidence relating to or based on experience or observation. No sweetheart..I am not that old..but I do believe in history except for the history that has been changed by the Communists/Zionists/NWO elite.. What are you? A banker? I hear that they speak “very affectionately of the Federal Reserve.?” Sold your soul much? Here you can have anything your little heart desires here.. I don’t have empiracal evidence that God exists either..but I believe..You can have your Lucifer..
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:22amThe Federal Reserve has done MUCH to destroy this nation. It is spectulated that the Titanic sinking was linked to the formation of the Fed Reserve. You are another one who went to school and was brain washed with what the system wants us to believe so they can control us.
Report Post »nzkiwi
Posted on June 7, 2012 at 4:25amBooth himself made it very clear why he shot the President. That is a silly proposition.
Report Post »Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:20pm1865, if we had Obamacare back then:
Dear Diary, first day on the job and what a doozy, they bring in a gunshot victom right after I smoked a joint. Everyone kept yelling “Its the President”……right. So anyway, I didn’t feel like working, so I just pronouned him dead. Good thing we have socialized medicine, they can’t fire me.
Report Post »copatriots
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:15pmIf this nation survives, maybe some librarian 150 years from now will find 0bama’s actual birth certificate.
Report Post »V8WATCHMAN
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:30pmLOL! Very Nice! Not likely though as there is no real birth certificate!
Report Post »RightPolitically
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:48pmOh that’s cruel. But I hope you’re right, I hope they find it too.
Report Post »blackyb
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 10:59pmNot unless she lives in Kenya.
Report Post »momrules
Posted on June 6, 2012 at 11:12pmThanks Copatriots………LOL…..What a great way to end the day!!
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