![]() National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution While many of the details of the Lincoln assassination are considered facts, others are still debated to this day. One reason is the varying testimonies collected after the assassination. Some stories were not recorded until years, even decades, afterwards. The fact that some people remembered certain details that others remembered completely differently is a human phenomenon. Historians must consider these faults of memory when drawing their own conclusions. One detail that scholars still debate is whether Laura Keene actually made her way into the president’s state box that tragic night. Explore the evidence below and draw your own historical conclusion. For more on Laura Keene and the trailblazing, exciting, and fulfilling life she led as an actress, theatre manager, mother, and entrepreneurial woman, check out our biographical article. YES – Dr. Charles Leale was the first doctor to reach Lincoln and attend to his wound. Leale claimed that Laura did ask him if she could hold the president, and that he gave her permission to do so. YES – William J. Ferguson, callboy and later actor, claimed he assisted Laura to and inside the president’s box. He noted that she did not hold Lincoln. YES – Actress Jeannie Gourlay (playing Mary Trenchard) claimed Laura was in the box. Jeannie said that her father, T. C. Gourlay, escorted Laura there “by a way known to the regular company.” Apparently, this was possible, as “one could exit through a backstage door (stage left), from there enter the building adjoining the theatre on the south, climb the stairs to the ‘lounging room’ on the second floor, and enter from there directly back into the theatre. This would put one in the south end of the dress circle. James and Harry Ford had rooms on the third floor of the adjoining building and must have frequently entered the theatre in this manner.” Jeannie also wrote that Laura held the president’s head “‘in her arms and found blood trickling down her dress.’” YES – Actors Helen Truman and E. A. Emerson claimed they saw Laura in the box that night. YES – Laura’s daughter Emma wrote down her recollections after visiting with her mother the day after the assassination. Emma had a conversation with a servant at a friend’s house who told her that she had been at the theatre “and most distinctly spoke of seeing Miss Keene in the box after the firing.” Emma also wrote the following based on her mother’s account: “She told me that on hearing a voice from the box saying, ‘For God’s sake, Miss Keene, get some water,’ she procured some and made her way with difficulty to the box. As she entered and saw the president wounded, the thought passed through her mind how much he resembled a picture of ‘The Dead Christ.’ She also showed me the stage clothes she had worn; not only her dress, but even her underskirts were bespattered with blood...I took her in my arms to embrace her, she shook all over like a leaf.” YES – Mrs. Eldridge, a member of Wood’s Theatre stock company in Cincinnati, said that Laura recounted a similar story shortly after the “sad event.” Laura also gave her a piece of the blood-stained dress. NO – Thomas H. Sherman (former secretary to James G. Blaine) claimed that he saw Laura help “a man up over the side of the box and sent for a pitcher of water.” He did not say he saw her in the box. NO – The wife of J. B. Wright, Ford’s stage manager, claimed Laura was never in the box. NO (or at least suggestive of a No) – No one who testified in the trials following the assassination mentioned anything about Laura being in the box that night. Many find it peculiar that there would be no mention of such a prominent person in the box. Laura would have been quite noticeable there in her voluminous dress. ![]() National Museum of American History, Bequest of Virginia Adler Thompson, 1962 Want to Learn More?
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Last updated: December 1, 2024