Henry Rathbone–The Other Man in the Box

Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancé, Clara Harris, had been invited to accompany President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Lincoln to Ford’s Theatre at the last moment, when General Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia were unable to attend. Rathbone, from Albany, NY, had served as a captain in the 12th U.S. Infantry Regiment at the Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. He was then relieved from frontline duty and given a desk job, eventually being promoted to major. Harris, also from Albany, was the daughter of U.S. Senator Ira Harris of New York, a close friend of President Lincoln. Harris was technically Rathbone’s stepsister through marriage—Rathbone’s widowed mother had married Harris’s widower father. While growing up in the same household, they had fallen in love and become engaged at the beginning of the Civil War.

Major Henry Reed Rathbone (Mathew Brady photo, 1865)

On April 15, 1865, Rathbone and Harris sat in the President’s box with President and Mrs. Lincoln watching the play Our American Cousin. As Rathbone later testified:

. . . while I was intently observing the proceedings upon the stage, with my back toward the door, I heard the discharge of a pistol behind me, and, looking round, saw through the smoke a man between the door and the President. The distance from the door to where the President sat was about four feet. At the same time I heard the man shout some word, which I thought was “Freedom!” I instantly sprang toward him and seized him.

Rathbone attempted to apprehend the shooter, John Wilkes Booth. Booth dropped his derringer and pulled out a dagger, slashing Rathbone’s left arm from elbow to shoulder. As Booth tried to jump from the President’s box, Rathbone grabbed at his coat, causing Booth to fall awkwardly to the stage, which more than likely broke his leg. Rathbone yelled out “Stop that man!” and made his way to the door of the President’s Box to remove the wooden wedge that Booth had placed there to keep anyone from entering. Several men then entered the box to assist the President. Rathbone would recall later:

In a review of the transactions, it is my confident belief that the time which elapsed between the discharge of the pistol and the time when the assassin leaped from the box did not exceed thirty seconds. Neither Mrs. Lincoln nor Miss Harris had left their seats.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Currier and Ives print)

Harris attempted to help Rathbone, who was bleeding profusely, and in the process her white dress, face, and hands were stained with his blood. Later, Harris would recall sitting with Mary Lincoln in an attempt to comfort her:

Poor Mrs. Lincoln, all through that dreadful night would look at me with horror & scream, “oh! my husband’s blood, my dear husband’s blood”…It was Henry’s blood, not the president’s, but explanations were pointless.

Despite being seriously wounded, Rathbone escorted Mary Lincoln to the Petersen House where doctors had taken the President. Shortly after arriving at the Petersen House, Rathbone passed out due to loss of blood. Harris arrived at the house soon after and held Rathbone’s head in her lap while he drifted in and out of consciousness. A surgeon who had been attending the President finally examined Rathbone and realized his wound was more serious than initially thought. Booth had severed an artery located just above Rathbone’s elbow and had cut him nearly to the bone. Rathbone was taken home while Harris decided to stay with Mrs. Lincoln.

Clara Harris (courtesy National Geographic)

Harris nursed Rathbone back to health, and they were married on July 11, 1867. Rathbone, who had risen to the rank of colonel, resigned from the army in December 1870. They settled in Washington, D.C. and eventually had three children, one of whom, Henry Riggs Rathbone, would go on to become a U.S. Congressman from Illinois.

Outwardly, it appeared that Harris and Rathbone were happily married, but Rathbone blamed himself for not preventing Lincoln’s death and was consumed by guilt. He suffered from depression and began having delusions and experiencing constant headaches. Fellow Union veteran and Rathbone’s closest friend, James Barrett said, “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.”

Every year on the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, journalists would contact the couple with questions about Lincoln’s death, furthering Rathbone’s feelings of guilt. Harris later wrote to a friend:

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.

The assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 reminded Rathbone of that terrible night at Ford’s Theatre and served as a trigger for what would probably be described as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in modern terms. Rathbone’s behavior became increasingly erratic, and he began drinking heavily and gambling. Due to his behavior, Rathbone found it difficult to hold a job for an extended period of time. He also suffered from a severe ulcer, probably caused by his anxiety.

Rathbone became increasingly jealous of other men who paid attention to Harris and resented the attention Harris paid their children. He also reportedly threatened her on several occasions, convinced that she was going to divorce him and take the children. Despite Rathbone’s increasing mental instability, in 1882 the Rathbone family traveled to Germany to provide a better education for their children.

On the night of December 23, 1883, Rathbone became agitated, claiming that there was an intruder in the house who was after his children. Harris asked her sister, who was living with them at the time, to take the children and lock the door to their room. Rathbone, becoming angered, shot Harris three times, and repeatedly stabbed her. He then attempted to kill the children, but a groundskeeper prevented him from doing so. Rathbone then stabbed himself five times in the chest in an unsuccessful attempt at suicide.

During his trial, Rathbone continued to insist there had been an intruder in the house, but he was charged with murder and declared insane by doctors. He was convicted and committed to an asylum for the criminally insane in Hildesheim, Germany, where he died on August 14, 1911. The couple’s children were sent to live with their uncle, William Harris, in the United States.

Clara Harris was buried in the city cemetery at Hanover, Germany. Her husband was buried next to her upon his death in 1911. According to German law, because the graves had not had any visitors for 40 years, the site was reused in 1952 for other burials. All that remains of Rathbone and Harris now is their tragic story.

Sources

Hatch, Frederick. Protecting President Lincoln: The Security Effort, the Thwarted Plots and the Disaster at Ford’s Theatre (2011).

“President Lincoln is Shot, 1865,” EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2009).

Ruane, Michael E. “A Tragedy’s Second Act”. The Washington Post. (April 5, 2009).

Smith, Gene. “The Haunted Major,” American Heritage Magazine, February/March 1994, Vol. 45, Issue 1.

Stephens, Caleb Jenner. Worst Seat in the House: Henry Rathbone’s Front Row View of the Lincoln Assassination. (2014).

Swanson, James L. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase to Catch Lincoln’s Killer (2009).

About the Author

Tracey McIntire earned her BA in English at Rivier College in Nashua, NH. She is Lead Educator at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine and an interpretive volunteer at Antietam National Battlefield. She is also an active Civil War living historian, where she portrays a woman soldier in various guises.