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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by DERBY & MILLER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

THE ASSASSINATION AT FORD'S THEATRE

silver-mounted Derringer pistol, which he carried in his right hand, holding a long double-edged dagger in his left. All in the box were intent on the proceedings upon the stage; but President Lincoln was leaning forward, holding aside the curtain of the box with his left hand, and looking, with his head slightly turned, towards the audience. Booth stepped within the inner door into the box, directly behind the President, and, holding the pistol just over the back of the chair in which he sat, shot him through the back of the head. Mr. Lincoln's head fell slightly forward, and his eyes closed, but in every other respect his attitude remained unchanged.

The report of the pistol startled those in the box, and Major Rathbone, turning his eyes from the stage, saw, through the smoke which filled the box, a man standing between him and the President. He instantly sprang towards him and seized him; but Booth wrested himself from his grasp, and dropping the pistol, struck at him with the dagger, inflicting a severe wound upon his left arm, near the shoulder. Booth then rushed to the front of the box-shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!"—put his hand upon the railing in front of the box, and leaped over it upon the stage below. As he went over his spur caught in the flag which draped the front, and he fell; but recovering himself immediately, he rose, brandished the dagger, and facing the audience, shouted "The South is avenged!" He then rushed across the stage towards the passage which led to the stage-door in the rear of the theatre. An actor named Hawke was the only person on the stage when Booth leaped upon it, and seeing Booth coming towards him with the dagger in his hand, he ran off the stage and up a flight of stairs. Booth ran through the passage-way beside the scenes, meeting one or two persons only, whom he struck from his path, went out at the door which stood open, and which he closed behind him, and mounting a horse which he had brought there, and which a lad was holding for him, he rode over the Anacosta bridge, across the east branch of the Potomac, giving his real name to the guard who challenged

him, and found a temporary refuge among the rebel sympathizers of Lower Maryland.

The discharge of the pistol had not apprised the audience of the real nature of the transaction. By many it was supposed to be an incident of the play, and it was not until Booth had leaped from the box and crossed the stage, that there was any general suspicion of what had taken place. Mr. J. B. Stewart, who was seated in the orchestra stalls, leaped upon the stage and pursued the flying assassin, but he reached the stage-door only in time to see him riding off on the horse he had mounted. Major Rathbone, seeing that the President was unconscious, started for assistance through the door which Booth had barred. Miss Laura Keene, the leading actress in the play, came upon the stage, entered the box, and calling on all in the house to keep quiet, bathed the head of the unconscious victim, and required the crowd to fall back and give him air. The house was speedily in confusion-the lights were turned off, and the multitude dispersed. Several surgeons soon came forward and made an examination of the President's person, and as soon as the wound was discovered, he was removed from the theatre to the house of Mr. Peterson, on the opposite side of Tenth Street, where, in a small room on the first floor, he was laid diagonally across a large bed. He was at once divested of his clothing; the surgeons in attendance, Surgeon-General Barnes presiding, examined the wound, and it was at once seen that he could not possibly survive many hours. The ball had entered on the left side of the head, behind the left ear, and three inches from it. Its course was obliquely forward, traversing the brain, and lodging just behind the right eye. The President was at once surrounded by the prominent officers of the Government. Mrs. Lincoln, overcome with emotion, was led from the theatre to the house where her husband lay. Secretary McCullough, Attorney-General Speed, Secretary Welles, Senator Sumner, and other distinguished gentlemen, remained in the room through the night. When first brought into the house

the President's breathing was regular, but difficult. This continued throughout the night, he giving, with occasional exceptions, no indications of suffering, and remaining, with closed eyes, perfectly unconscious. At about seven in the morning his breathing became more difficult, and was interrupted at intervals sometimes for so long a time that he was supposed to be dead. At twenty-two minutes past seven he ceased breathing, and thus expired. There was no convulsive action, no rattling in the throat, no appearance of suffering of any kind-none of the symptoms which ordinarily attend dissolution and add to its terrors. From the instant he was struck by the ball of the assassin, he had not given the slightest indication that he was conscious of any thing that occurred around him.

His

The news that the President had been shot spread at once through the town, and was instantly followed by tidings of a murderous assault, still more terrible in its details, upon the Secretary of State. We have already mentioned the accident by which Mr. Seward was thrown from his carriage, and seriously injured. His right arm was broken above the elbow, his jaw was fractured, and his whole system seriously shattered. For nearly a fortnight he had been confined to his bed, unable to swallow any thing but liquids, and reduced, by pain and this enforced abstinence, to a state of extreme debility. room was on the third floor of his residence in Madison Place, fronting on President Square, and the bed on which he lay stood opposite the door by which the room was entered, and about ten feet from it. At a few minutes past ten-within five minutes of the time when the Pres ident was shot-a man, proved afterwards to be Lewis Payne Powell, generally known as Payne, rang at the door of Mr. Seward's residence, and said to the colored lad who opened it that he had some medicines prescribed for Mr. Seward by Dr. Verdi, his family physician, which he must deliver in person. The lad said that no one could go up to Mr. Seward's room; but Payne pushed him aside and rushed up stairs. He had

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