Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-01-14
FoRD'S THRATER.
THE BUILDING WHERE LINCOLN
WAS ASSASSINATED.
Its Strange History-Scenes Theo-
logical, Theatrical, Tragical
and Ghastly-Etc.

Its Strange History-Scenes Theo-
logical, Theatrical, Tragicai
and Ghastly-Etc.
The Washington correspondent of the |
St. Louis Globe Democrat sends to that pa
per the following interesting letter con-
corning the famous Ford's Theater where
President Lincoln was assassinated and
the museum which has since occupied it:
The Government will soon have to find
new uses for Ford's Theater After the
assassination of Lincoln public sentiment
revolted at the idea that the place should
continue to be a playhouse. A PROPOSE
ton to transfer the property to the Gov
eminent was readily entertained by the
proprietor. The purchase price was $685.
600. At that time the medical and surgi
cal branch of the Government service had
collected a great number of curious speci-
mems from the battle-telds and the hos
pitfalls. The war was over. The tempo
rary repositories of these specimens in va
rious parts of the country were being given
up and the Surgeon-General was at a loss
to know what to do with the thousands of
anatomical relics. For short time the
old theater was used rs storehouse for
Confederate State papers and documents.
Then came the suggestion that it should
be turned over TO the SurgeonGeneral. 1t
was accepted as peculiarly fitting. And
thus the building in which the President
received his mortal wound became the
storehouse for the CHASTITY records and still
more CHASTITY relics Of the army surgeons.
THE OLD THEATER
Ford's Theater was built with heavy
walls and 4 severely plain and solemn
front, for church. When it was trans
formed the first time the pulpit gave place
to Il stage, the pews were replaced by or
chestra chairs, pillars were put in to sup
port dress-circle and a place aloft for the
''gods" But the changes were all inte-
rior. The front was still the front of a
church. Ard when the second transfer
nation took place after the assassination
all interior likeness to theater disap
peared. There were arranged two stories
with halls and rooms for offices in which
the records were kept This left an upper
room quite high and nearly as wide and
long as the building. The third floor be-
came the Army Medical Museum, one of
the legitimate objects of interest to Wash
ington visitors. 1t was filled with show
cases, and in these were arranged the skel-
etons, the detached bones, the jars and
casts But the front remained unchanged.
For church, theater and medical museum
it Was and is the same.
! i street is the thoroughfare between the
groups of Government buildings. At one
end it runs plump against the side of the
! Treasury building, with the White House
and the War, Navy and State Departments
beyond. Eight blocks east of this group
is the other group, consisting of the Post
office Department. the Interior Depart
ment ard the Patent Office. Ford's Thea
ter is between Me two groups, being only
a few steps off, on side street from f..
The location is very central, and, for
twenty years, few sightseeing strangers,
who made the tour of the departments,
have failed to visit "the place where Lin
coin was shot" Some years, such as the
Centennial and the Inauguration years,
the number of visitors to the museum ran
up to nearly 100000. There have been
other years when not more than %, 600
climbed the iron stairs to wander among
the glass cases and look out of the third
story window down into the alley where
Booth had his horse in waiting to make
the ride for life after the shooting.
WHERE LINCOLN WAS SHOT.
People with weak nerves do not tarry
long among the bones and casts Most
visitors are disappointed. They expect
something realistic pertaining to the as
sassination. But the building has been SO
altered that it requires pretty strong inn
agination to turn the interior into thea
ter and picture the scene Of that terrible
April night Not even the box in which
the shot was fired remains. The attend
ants can only point out about where it
was. Sometimes INSCRIPTIONS guides have
taken their credulous victims to n back
window and boldly claimed that Booth
leaped down full thirty feet to the alley
in making his escape. They reminded the
listeners that Booths leg was fractured,
and that his capture was fastened by the
difficulty he experienced in getting about
This leap from the window they said was
what caused the injury.
The truth is, Booth jumped from the
box to the stage after shooting the Presi-
dent, and as he did so his spur caught in a
flag and threw him. Thus it was he re-
ceived the injury to his leg. But the
fracture did not prevent him from running
through the passages back of the stage,
reaching the exit into the alley, mounting
his horse and riding away. The flag on
which Booth caught was one which had
been loaned to the proprietor of the thea
ter that night to decorate the Presidents
box 1t was one of two which belonged to
the Treasury Guard Regiment, composed
Of employees of the Treasury, and can be
seen any day in its glass case at that de-
partment.
THE ASSASsIN's BACKBONE.
The failure to CRAFTY morbid curiosity
by the preservation of the interior, or part
of it, in the condition it was the night of
the assassination has been partially atoned
for All these years there has been on ex-
hibition in the corner above where the
President sat that fatal night little glass
case containing three pieces from human
backbone. The sections rest one upon an
other. Between the first and second, as
they stand, there is a jagged hole, SHOW ing
where bullet struck. Attached to the
case is a tag with this awfully scientific in
scription:
No. 1886. The third, fourth and fifth
cervical vertebrfe. A conoidal carbine ball
entered the right side, comminuting the
base of the right lamina of the fourth yer,
tebra, fracturing longitudinally and sepa-
rating it from the spinous process, at the
same time fracturing the fifth through its
pedicles, and involving that transverse
process. The missile passed directly
through the canal, with slight inclina.
ton downward and to the rear, emerging
through the left bases of the fourth and
fifth lamine, which are comminuted, and
from which fragments were embedded in
the muscles of the neck The bullet, in
its course, avoided the large cervical yes
sells. From a case where death occurred
in few hours after injury, April 26
1865"
The lease" is that of J. Wilkes Booth
the assassin of Mr.. Lincoln The three
vertebre are nearly all of the remains o
the mad actor which have not crumbled t.
dust. A small bottle, such as surgeons us'
, to preserve specimens in alcohol, goes Will
the portion of Booths backbone. A clio
of grayish-looking matter floats in the pre-
serving liquid. 1t is the part of the spina
cord which was struck by Boston Corbett'