Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1897-07-01
SAW LINCOLN KILLED
A MAN WHO WAS AT FORD'S THEA
TER ON THE FATAL NIGHT.
IL. w. Lewis Was In the Gallery When He
Heard the Shot Fired and Saw the Pres
ident's Head Drop He Also Saw the
First Shot In the War.

thst Shot IN the Nhrs
The sun printed letter from a Brook
Ign correspondent asking II The Sun had
"eyer heard of or from any body who at
tended the thoater I'm Washington on the
night that A braham Lincoln was shot be
sides those who became more or less well
known by their connection with the Incl
donts Of that night.
The sun has received several letters from
persons who were in Ford's theater on the
night of Lincoln assassination or know of
Others who were there. One of these let
ters said that Henry w. Lewis of "a VOL
colt street, Brooklyn, witnessed tho muir
der of the president A Sun reporter went
to see Mr.. Lewis. Mr.. Lewis is 81 years
old and somewhat feeble in health, but has
"A vigorous memory. He recalls with lively
interest the occurrences in Fords theater
on the night of April IL, 1865 In his
younger days Mr.. Lewis used To be n sea
man BY the time no was 90 years old he
had been around the world. He saw the
gold rush To California and that to Aus
tralia, which country he visited in 1850.
In the latter part of the civil war Mr..
Lewis was employed on the government
transport Constitution, which piled be-
Potomac in Virginia.
On April ii the Constitution reached
Washington from City Point, where she
had delivered cargo of bread for the
army. She brought back part of the Ninth
corps to Washington When she reached
town, the members of the crew read that
Lincoln and Grant would attend Ford 5
theater that night.
81 had often seen Lincoln" said Mr..
Lewis, "but had never seen Grant, and
proposed to several of my mates to go to
tho theater to see Grant and the play, Our
American Cousin We arrived at the
theater just before the performance was to
begin. There Were no seats To be had, and
we passed in OF admission prices and stood
up behind the seats in the upper gallery.
We watched the incidents of the night ca
gerly, and in the third act of the play heard
the pistol shot that Booth fired
INSTANTLY there was much confusion.
| think the excitement in the gallery was
as great as that I'm the other parts of the
thoater, of which SO much has been writ
ten. There was great connection and q
great craning of necks. | remember dis
tinctly seeing Lincoln's head drop to his
arm. He was unconscious, of course, and
no one had yet reached him. | also saw
Booth jump to the stage and sink to the
floor on one knee We could tell that he
was saying something just before he drag
god himself off the stage. The noise I'm
the place was that of n roar by this time.
Those in the gallery were on their feet,
and we could see no more. A stampede
began, such as | suppose occurs at a time
of fire i'm n theater. To this day | do not
know how L reached the street. l have
absolutely no recollection about it and
never had. My mates also did not remom-
Der how they got out All we knew was
that we were swept out of the place and
found the street thronged. 1t was a sad
night, and we were late in reaching our
quarters.
Cautiously enough, in all my work and
on what few journeys have made since,
have never met man and never heard of
one except the officials who were in Ford's
theater on that night. Instead of there
being 200 persons present, as The Suns
correspondent suggested, there must have
been $500. There was standing room
only, and it is strange that SO few of those
present have been heard from. For years
the incidents of that night came to me
with sense Of horror 1t was long
time before / could shake it off. "
Mr. Lewis has another Renaissance that
his friends have always liked to hear him
tell. He saw tho first shot fired ut the out
break of the civil war. 1t was i'm Charles
ton harbor on April IL, 1861, but he
says il was not ut Fort Sumter. 1t was at
the coaster Nashville at 4 80 o'clock in the
morning. Mr.. Lewis was the lookout on
the Nashville. The Union fleet, consisting
of the transport Baltic and the warships
Pawnee, Pocahontas and Harriet Lane
had left New York before the Nashville
but the Nashville passed them and arrived
off the bar of Charleston harbor first. The
Nashville, which belonged to line run
ming boats between Charleston and New
York regularly and had carried arms and
ammunition to the southerners, resembled
the Harriet Lane in her size and rig, and
when she approached the bar the southern
ers thought she was the Harriet Lane.
They had been warned that the Harriet
Lane was coming down. The famous bat
terry on Morris island threw shot at the
Nashville on this superstition, and this
opened the hostilities in Charleston harbor.
The shot fell half mile from the Nash
Vile. 1t was followed by another, which
came within quarter of mile of the YES
sci. Captain Murray, who commanded the
ANuSbNiiNi EhNO pihNio GU phit W Icbilt
from the bar. To have gone in would have
been certain destruction.
AS the Nashville was leaving the bar
the Harriet Lane hove in sight Captain
Murray didn't want the captain of the
Lane To examine his papers, and he shout
ed to his chief engineer, named Hood, to
"shake her up" The captain of the Lane
saw what was going on and fired blank
shot rs warning to stop. The Nashville
went on The Harriet Lane swung around
broadside on and fired solid shot.
Stop her, Hoodr' shouted Captain
Murray to his chief engineer, and forth
with the Nashville came around
The captain of the Harriet Lane simply
asked some perfunctory questions, and
both ships lay off the bar and watched not
only the first shot fired on Fort Sumter,
but also the entire bombartlment of 36
hours. On Sunday, April IL, the day of
the evacuation of Fort Sumter, the Nash
Vile went into the harbor, and Mr. Lewis,
with Captain Murray and Others rowed
over To the fort. The only souvenir of the
visit that Mr.. Lewis has retained is a
grapeshot with dent in 10 that was fired
against Fort Sumter from one Of the rebel
batteries in the harbor. New York Sun.
In the Department Store.
Customer (who has purchased a pair OF