Library of Congress Why was President Lincoln brought to the Petersen House?The house, owned by William and Anna Petersen, was a boarding house with rooms available for rent. One of the boarders living on an upper floor, Henry Safford, heard the commotion and came downstairs. Safford opened the front door and, on the front porch with a lighted candle in hand, said, “Bring him in here! Bring him in here!” Safford knew that a bedroom at the back of the house was available for the president, with the boarder living there, Willie Clark, gone for the evening celebrating the end of the war. Who were the Petersens? What happened to them during and after the assassination?William Petersen was an immigrant from what is now Germany. He became a United States citizen in 1844. He was a tailor whose shop was located near 8th and E Street, N.W. He and his wife Anna built their boarding house in 1849 to offer rooms for rent. The Petersens had 10 children, but only 5 were living in 1865. 15-year-old Fred, 13-year-old Pauline, and 9-year-old Charles were in the house when the president was brought inside. For unexplained reasons, William Petersen stayed at his shop on 8th Street that evening and only briefly visited the house while the president was there. The responsibility for dealing with the crisis at their home devolved upon 15-year-old Fred. William’s wife Anna was on Easter holiday in New York City with her sister and her daughter Louisa, who was 16. The oldest Petersen child was 20-year-old William Felix Petersen, who worked as a drug store clerk. His whereabouts on the night of April 14th, 1865 are unknown.Following the war, the Petersens faced financial difficulty as business for Mr. Petersen’s tailoring shop dried up. The family also lost most of their boarders following the assassination. None of the renters had privacy any longer, with a constant stream of visitors asking to see the room in which the president died. Many of these visitors were not respectful. Everyone wanted a souvenir, in some instances cutting pieces of carpet from the hallway floor or cutting a square out of the wallpaper from the room. By 1870, records show only two people boarding at the home. In 1871, William Petersen was found lying unconscious on a park bench in front of the Smithsonian Castle. He died the next day. His death was attributed to an overdose of laudanum, a powerful concoction of opiates and alcohol which was legal at the time. His wife Anna died four months later of an undisclosed illness. Not wanting to stay in a house that had seen so many tragedies, the heirs of the Petersen family held an auction in 1872. The contents of the house sold for very little money. James Boyd, a local directory publisher, purchased the bed upon which President Lincoln died for $82.00. Charles F. Gunther, a Chicago-based collector and candy company owner, acquired the bed sometime around 1890 for $1,500. That bed is now located in the Chicago History Museum. The Petersen House remained in the hands of the Petersen family until November 25, 1878, when the heirs of William and Anna Petersen sold the property to Louis and Anna Schade for $4,500. The Schade family moved into the house, and the Schade children used the room where Lincoln died as a playroom. Louis Schade published the Washington Sentinel, a pro-immigration newspaper, from the basement of the home. The federal government bought the Petersen House from the Schade family in 1896 for $30,000. 
Library of Congress Who was living in the Petersen Boarding House in April 1865?There were about 13-15 people living in the house at the time, with 11 of them likely to have been home at the time of the assassination:William and Anna Petersen owned the house and lived there, probably with four of their children: Charles, Pauline, Fred, and Louisa. Both Anna and Louisa were away in New York City at the time of the assassination. The oldest Petersen child, William F., was likely living elsewhere in Washington. William T. "Willie" Clark was a clerk in the adjutant general’s office originally from Lowell, Massachusetts. He resided in the room where Abraham Lincoln died. Clark was out celebrating the end of the war that night and did not return until the next morning, after Lincoln had passed away in his bed. Exhausted, he fell asleep on the sheets stained with the president's blood. Henry Safford, a 25-year-old War Department clerk, lived upstairs, likely in the front room on the second floor. He directed the men carrying the president across Tenth Street to bring him into the Petersen House. Thomas Proctor, a War Department clerk, was a roommate of Henry Safford’s on the second floor. George and Huldah Francis occupied the first floor's front and back parlors. They sold house furnishings, sewing machines, and hardware from a shop on 7th Street. The Francises vacated their quarters to allow Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and the cabinet to use the back parlor. Mrs. Lincoln and her supporters mourned in the front parlor. Brothers Henry and Julius Ulke occupied space in one of the upper floors. Henry was a photographer and portrait painter, as well as an avid amateur scientist with a large collection of beetles. Julius, also a photographer and partners with his brother in a studio on Pennsylvania Avenue, photographed the scene of Lincoln’s death just moments after the president’s body was removed. Some historians claim that John Matthews and Charles Warwick, both actors who knew Booth well and who occasionally performed at Ford’s, boarded at Petersen’s that night. No conclusive evidence for either of these men's presence there has come to light. 
National Archives and Records Administration Who was with Mary Lincoln through the night at the Petersen House?Soon after Lincoln was placed in the bed in Willie Clark’s room, a messenger was sent to the White House to summon Robert Todd Lincoln, the Lincolns’ eldest son. Robert, along with Senator Charles Sumner, quickly made the trip to 10th Street and arrived around 11:30 p.m. After trying to comfort his mother, Robert spent most of the night standing by his father’s bedside, occasionally weeping and steadying himself on the comforting shoulder of Senator Sumner.Miss Clara Harris stayed with Mrs. Lincoln through the night after her fiance Major Rathbone had been taken to his home to receive medical treatment for his knife wound. Mrs. Lincoln was also comforted by her friend Mrs. Elizabeth Dixon, Mrs. Dixon’s sister, Mary Kinney and Mrs. Kinney’s daughter Constance. Mrs. Dixon was the wife of a Connecticut senator and Mrs. Kinney was the wife of a millionaire hotelier. All three arrived at the Petersen House around midnight, Mrs. Dixon having been sent for by Robert Lincoln. Mrs. Lincoln also sent for her dressmaker and confidante Elizabeth Keckley, but the messengers could not find her home. Keckley heard the news of the shooting from a neighbor and, assuming the president would be brought to the White House, she went there, only to be denied entry by guards. In the morning, a carriage arrived at Keckley’s house and she was escorted into the White House, where she provided comfort to Mrs. Lincoln. How did Lincoln’s sons learn of the tragedy? Where were they during the night?President Lincoln had two living sons in 1865. Thomas, known affectionately as “Tad”, ws 12 years old. Robert, 21 years old, was a captain in the Union army.Tad was attending the play Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp at the National Theatre, a few blocks from Ford’s with his chaperone, White House doorkeeper Alphonso Donn. Tad learned about the assassination when the theater manager, C. Dwight Hess, interrupted the play to notify the audience. Donn took Tad Lincoln back to the White House, where he took care of the boy until Mary Lincoln returned the next morning. Robert Todd Lincoln had just returned to the White House after witnessing Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House as part of General U.S. Grant’s staff. Tired from his travels and preparing to retire for the evening, Robert heard of the assassination by Mr. C.C. Bangs, a member of the US Christian Commission. He was escorted to the Petersen House, where he tried to comfort his mother. In the back room, Robert could only stand by the bedside and watch as his father’s life slipped away. 
Wikimedia Commons, public domain image Why didn’t Andrew Johnson, as Vice President, take charge of the situation when he arrived at the Petersen House?Vice President Andrew Johnson was asleep in his room at the Kirkwood House hotel, located at 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, at the time of the assassination. He was not awakened and summoned to the Petersen House until well after Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had already arrived and taken charge of the investigation. Stanton arrived at the Petersen House about 15 minutes after President Lincoln was brought there. Another contributing factor is that Johnson had only been vice president for 5 weeks. Stanton, having been on the job more than 3 years, was much more familiar with all the players and situations that needed managing through that night.Who was with Lincoln at the time of his death?Historians are unsure of the exact number present at Lincoln’s bedside when he died at 7:22 am. Those almost certainly present include Dr. Charles Leale, Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, Lincoln’s personal physician Dr. Robert King Stone, Dr. Ezra Abbott, Dr. Albert F.A. King, Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, Assistant Surgeon General Charles Crane, Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s Secretary John Hay, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, Corporal James Tanner, and Lincoln’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Phineas Gurley. Many others may have been present.Mrs. Lincoln made her last visit around 7 am. Having made a “piercing cry” and falling faint to the floor, she was removed from the room on the orders of Secretary Stanton. Mary Lincoln was in the front parlor when she learned of her husband’s death. Most lithographs or drawings of the death room depict anywhere from forty to sixty people in the room when the president died. It is obvious, based on the size of the room in which the president died, that this is not possible. No photographs were taken while the president was dying, and the persons in that room were among the most prominent people in the country. Would you, as an artist, risk offending some of the most powerful people in the country by leaving them out of the picture? Probably not. These images are accurate in that all the people in them made an attempt to pay their respects at the Petersen House that evening and early morning. The idea that they were all in the room simultaneously, though, is not realistic. What is original in the Petersen House?On the exterior, the brickwork is original, though somewhat restored and repainted over the years. The sills and lintels of the windows are original, as are the door casing and the front door itself. The shutters are 1950s replacements modeled after the originals. The front steps were replaced twice (though with stone from the same quarry as the originals), in the 1920s and the 1950s. The iron railing is likely the same metalwork that was there in 1865. The steps down to the lower-level entrance are original, but the columns supporting the porch are 1950s replacements. The bronze historic plaque was added in 1923.Most of the interior decorative wood moldings, the staircase and railings, many of the doors, and the creaking floorboards are original to the 1865 period of the Petersen House. Architectural historians believe that the fireplaces in the front and back parlors are likely original, though they may have been added after the Petersen children sold the house in the 1870s. The furniture is original to the period, but not original to the Petersen House. Both the house wallpaper and carpeting are reproductions in styles of the period. The original bed is on display at the Chicago History Museum, along with other pieces of furniture and artifacts from the Lincoln death room. The bed in the Petersen House today is a period piece very similar in size and design. Lincoln was six feet four inches tall and was placed on the bed diagonally, as he was too tall for the bed. Want to Learn More?
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Last updated: November 24, 2024