April 14, 2026 • 10 mins
What Happens to Your Life, if You're Sitting Right Next to a President When He's Assassinated? This Is the Shocking Story of the Folks Who Shared the Theater Box the Night Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Happened. Feel Free to DM Me if You Have a Story You’d Like Me to Cover . . on Facebook It’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, it was exactly one hundred and sixty one years
ago tonight that Abraham Lincoln climbed into a carriage with
his wife Mary Todd and headed to the Presidential Box
at Ford's Theater. We all know how the evening ended
for the first couple, but this seems like the right
time to revisit that box and the people sitting beside
them when John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. I'm Patty Steele,
(00:23):
the worst or maybe the second worst seat in the house.
That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back, Okay.
It's April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five. After General Robert E.
Lee surrendered the Confederate forces on April tenth, the Civil
War is finally over. It had been a brutal four
(00:46):
year battle, with the war beginning just weeks after President
Abe Lincoln took office in eighteen sixty one and ending
just over a month after he was sworn in for
his second term. Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd decide
that very much that a night at the theater to
see a major star in a hit comedy is just
what they need as the National Nightmayer winds down. But
(01:09):
they need another couple to go with them that evening.
Sounds like a great invite. Being invited by the Lincolns
to go see the final performance of our American cousin
on that misty good Friday evening in eighteen sixty five.
Mister Lincoln first asks General Ulysses S. Grant and his
wife to go with them, but Julia Grant tells her
(01:29):
husband they can't go because they have an afternoon train
to Philadelphia to visit their kids in South Jersey. Another
major reason Julia's intense dislike for Missus Lincoln, who'd always
treated her badly. Problem is word had already hit the
afternoon papers that General Grant and his wife would be
there with the Lincolns, and that's what they ran with.
(01:51):
So when the Grants sent their regrets that afternoon, the
hunt was on for a replacement couple. Here's the thing.
Due to the holiday and a again Mary Todd's difficult reputation,
over a dozen people turned down the chance to go
to Ford's theater that night. Finally, the last choice is
a guy named Major Henry Rathbone, sort of a nobody
(02:13):
bud engaged to a young friend of Missus Lincoln's Clara Harris.
What seems like a lucky invite turns out to be
a tough break for Henry and Clara, because that night
pretty much destroyed their lives. It turns out the actor
John Wilkes Booth, a Rabbit sympathizer with the Confederate Cause,
has this plan to totally throw the government into chaos.
(02:35):
He wants to kill both Lincoln and Grant at Ford's theater,
while his co conspirators unsuccessfully try to kill the Vice
President and the Secretary of State. Vice President Johnson was
living in a hotel in DC, and the Booth cohort
assigned to take him out took a room there too,
but he went to the hotel's oyster bar for a
(02:56):
little liquid courage, and the alcohol confused him. He finally
chickened out and he just rode away. On the other hand,
Secretary Seward was viciously attacked by another conspirator. He was
at home, lying in bed, recovering from a carriage accident
which left him with broken bones, including a broken jaw.
The attacker raced at him with a dagger and began
(03:18):
flailing away. Seward's throat was badly cut, but Fortunately, the
surgical collar for his broken jaw had leather and heavy
metal supports, and it prevented the knife from hitting Sewart's
jugular vein. He survived and actually continued on as Secretary
of State until eighteen sixty nine. So, anyway back to
that good Friday evening performance. The Lincolns with Henry and
(03:42):
Clara get to the theater after the play has already started,
and Lincoln has one bodyguard with him, but that guard
leaves after Lincoln settles in and he goes to grab
a drink at the tavern next door. He never comes
back to the theater. Ironically, he didn't lose his job
as a presidential bodyguard until three years later when he
fell asleep on the job. So let's back up. What
(04:04):
the president has no protection at all? Well, keep in
mind there was no such thing as a Secret Service
until earlier that very same day, when Lincoln officially signed
off on its creation. How ironic is that the president
is on his own? It's the third act. John Wilkes Booth,
who knows, probably still thinking he'd get Lincoln and Grant
(04:26):
in one attack, knows where in the play to expect
a big laugh from the audience so that everybody would
be distracted, he slips into the President's box. He pulls
out a small, single shot pistol and shoots Lincoln in
the head, right behind his left ear. Brain matter begins
to ooze out, but very little blood. The scene is
chaotic and confusing. The audience, still laughing at the play,
(04:50):
at first thinks the screams they hear are part of
the show, but Mary Todd is screaming at the top
of her lungs as Henry Rathbone tries to grab Booth.
Problem is, Booth also has a dagger in the darkness
with only dim gaslights flickering on the stage below. Does
Booth still think the other man in the box in
a Yankee officer's uniform as General Grant. Booth plunges the
(05:15):
dagger into the inside of Henry's arm, slicing the soft
flesh right to the bone from his shoulder down to
his elbow. Henry is gushing blood, but again tries to
grab Booth. That grab causes Booth to catch his boot
spurs on a flag and trip, likely breaking his leg
as he jumps awkwardly twelve feet down to the stage
(05:37):
and runs across it. To escape. How does this last
minute invite to the theater change Henry's life? Well interesting,
Most of the historic evidence from the assassination that contains blood,
like clothing, furniture, and programs, is likely Henry's blood. Lincoln
didn't bleed much, but Henry almost bled out well eventually
(05:59):
his wounds here. But what about the rest of him?
His mind, his emotions. Can you imagine the non stop
guild who was Abraham Lincoln, worshiped by the masses, who
only became greater in death in the weeks and months
it followed. Clara tells a friend in every hotel and
restaurant were stared at like we're zoo animals. Henry just
(06:21):
can't forgive himself for not saving Lincoln, or at least
capturing Booth alive. But it's worse than that. Now, today
we'd see him as a victim too. But it's eighteen
sixty five. People are angry and not so sympathetic. A
lot of folks blame Henry for not preventing the assassination,
and a number of them even think he was part
(06:42):
of the conspiracy. Of course, it doesn't help that both
Grant and Lincoln's regular bodyguard told the press they wished
they had been there to save Lincoln, making Henry feel
like he just wasn't up to the job. In reality,
no one could have saved Lincoln. Booth slipped behind him
quietly and delivered one deadly shot before anyone even knew
(07:03):
he was there. Interesting sidebar, Henry and Clara had actually
grown up as brother and sister from the time they
were little kids. Her father, a widower, had married his
mother a widow and blended their families. Henry and Clara
had fallen in love, which even in those days, was
considered a little odd, but it wasn't illegal anyway. Two
(07:23):
years after the assassination, the pair marry and they have
three children. But between his horrifying Civil War PTSD at
his knight at Ford Theater, Henry is gradually losing his mind.
They need to escape all those staring eyes, so they
decide to get out of the country. Despite his mental instability,
Henry has offered a job as a US consul to Germany,
(07:47):
But as the old saying goes, wherever you go, there
you are, Henry becomes sicker and more delusional. He's convinced
that Clara is cheating on him and planning to take
the children away. Finally, one night, just before Christmas eighteen
eighty three, he tells Clara somebody's in the house attempting
to kidnap the children. She tries to calm him down,
(08:09):
but also tells her sister to stay in the children's
room and lock the door. A little later, Clara is
getting ready to go to bed. That's when Henry attacks her.
He shoots her three times in the chest and then
viciously stabs her, repeatedly piercing her heart. He can't get
to the children, so he takes the knife and in
(08:30):
a frenzy, stabs himself in the chest over and over
five times. Amazingly, he survives. He tries to claim an
intruder had attacked his wife, but clearly others on the
scene knew differently. After recovering from his wounds, he's declared insane.
Henry Rathbone's story doesn't end until nineteen eleven, almost fifty
(08:51):
years after Lincoln's murder and three decades after killing his wife,
when he dies in a German asylum for the criminally insane.
He's buried next to Clara in Germany. At the end
of the day, everybody in that box at Ford's Theater
became a victim of John Wilkes Booth, including a young
couple Henry and Clara, who had eagerly accepted an invitation
(09:15):
to the theater. I hope you like the Backstory with
Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I'd love it if
you'd subscribe or follow for free to get new episodes
delivered automatically, and feel free to dm me if you
have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook,
It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm
(09:40):
Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premier Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
(10:03):
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know
Well, it was exactly one hundred and sixty one years
ago tonight that Abraham Lincoln climbed into a carriage with
his wife Mary Todd and headed to the Presidential Box
at Ford's Theater. We all know how the evening ended
for the first couple, but this seems like the right
time to revisit that box and the people sitting beside
them when John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. I'm Patty Steele,
(00:23):
the worst or maybe the second worst seat in the house.
That's next on the backstory. The backstory is back, Okay.
It's April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five. After General Robert E.
Lee surrendered the Confederate forces on April tenth, the Civil
War is finally over. It had been a brutal four
(00:46):
year battle, with the war beginning just weeks after President
Abe Lincoln took office in eighteen sixty one and ending
just over a month after he was sworn in for
his second term. Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd decide
that very much that a night at the theater to
see a major star in a hit comedy is just
what they need as the National Nightmayer winds down. But
(01:09):
they need another couple to go with them that evening.
Sounds like a great invite. Being invited by the Lincolns
to go see the final performance of our American cousin
on that misty good Friday evening in eighteen sixty five.
Mister Lincoln first asks General Ulysses S. Grant and his
wife to go with them, but Julia Grant tells her
(01:29):
husband they can't go because they have an afternoon train
to Philadelphia to visit their kids in South Jersey. Another
major reason Julia's intense dislike for Missus Lincoln, who'd always
treated her badly. Problem is word had already hit the
afternoon papers that General Grant and his wife would be
there with the Lincolns, and that's what they ran with.
(01:51):
So when the Grants sent their regrets that afternoon, the
hunt was on for a replacement couple. Here's the thing.
Due to the holiday and a again Mary Todd's difficult reputation,
over a dozen people turned down the chance to go
to Ford's theater that night. Finally, the last choice is
a guy named Major Henry Rathbone, sort of a nobody
(02:13):
bud engaged to a young friend of Missus Lincoln's Clara Harris.
What seems like a lucky invite turns out to be
a tough break for Henry and Clara, because that night
pretty much destroyed their lives. It turns out the actor
John Wilkes Booth, a Rabbit sympathizer with the Confederate Cause,
has this plan to totally throw the government into chaos.
(02:35):
He wants to kill both Lincoln and Grant at Ford's theater,
while his co conspirators unsuccessfully try to kill the Vice
President and the Secretary of State. Vice President Johnson was
living in a hotel in DC, and the Booth cohort
assigned to take him out took a room there too,
but he went to the hotel's oyster bar for a
(02:56):
little liquid courage, and the alcohol confused him. He finally
chickened out and he just rode away. On the other hand,
Secretary Seward was viciously attacked by another conspirator. He was
at home, lying in bed, recovering from a carriage accident
which left him with broken bones, including a broken jaw.
The attacker raced at him with a dagger and began
(03:18):
flailing away. Seward's throat was badly cut, but Fortunately, the
surgical collar for his broken jaw had leather and heavy
metal supports, and it prevented the knife from hitting Sewart's
jugular vein. He survived and actually continued on as Secretary
of State until eighteen sixty nine. So, anyway back to
that good Friday evening performance. The Lincolns with Henry and
(03:42):
Clara get to the theater after the play has already started,
and Lincoln has one bodyguard with him, but that guard
leaves after Lincoln settles in and he goes to grab
a drink at the tavern next door. He never comes
back to the theater. Ironically, he didn't lose his job
as a presidential bodyguard until three years later when he
fell asleep on the job. So let's back up. What
(04:04):
the president has no protection at all? Well, keep in
mind there was no such thing as a Secret Service
until earlier that very same day, when Lincoln officially signed
off on its creation. How ironic is that the president
is on his own? It's the third act. John Wilkes Booth,
who knows, probably still thinking he'd get Lincoln and Grant
(04:26):
in one attack, knows where in the play to expect
a big laugh from the audience so that everybody would
be distracted, he slips into the President's box. He pulls
out a small, single shot pistol and shoots Lincoln in
the head, right behind his left ear. Brain matter begins
to ooze out, but very little blood. The scene is
chaotic and confusing. The audience, still laughing at the play,
(04:50):
at first thinks the screams they hear are part of
the show, but Mary Todd is screaming at the top
of her lungs as Henry Rathbone tries to grab Booth.
Problem is, Booth also has a dagger in the darkness
with only dim gaslights flickering on the stage below. Does
Booth still think the other man in the box in
a Yankee officer's uniform as General Grant. Booth plunges the
(05:15):
dagger into the inside of Henry's arm, slicing the soft
flesh right to the bone from his shoulder down to
his elbow. Henry is gushing blood, but again tries to
grab Booth. That grab causes Booth to catch his boot
spurs on a flag and trip, likely breaking his leg
as he jumps awkwardly twelve feet down to the stage
(05:37):
and runs across it. To escape. How does this last
minute invite to the theater change Henry's life? Well interesting,
Most of the historic evidence from the assassination that contains blood,
like clothing, furniture, and programs, is likely Henry's blood. Lincoln
didn't bleed much, but Henry almost bled out well eventually
(05:59):
his wounds here. But what about the rest of him?
His mind, his emotions. Can you imagine the non stop
guild who was Abraham Lincoln, worshiped by the masses, who
only became greater in death in the weeks and months
it followed. Clara tells a friend in every hotel and
restaurant were stared at like we're zoo animals. Henry just
(06:21):
can't forgive himself for not saving Lincoln, or at least
capturing Booth alive. But it's worse than that. Now, today
we'd see him as a victim too. But it's eighteen
sixty five. People are angry and not so sympathetic. A
lot of folks blame Henry for not preventing the assassination,
and a number of them even think he was part
(06:42):
of the conspiracy. Of course, it doesn't help that both
Grant and Lincoln's regular bodyguard told the press they wished
they had been there to save Lincoln, making Henry feel
like he just wasn't up to the job. In reality,
no one could have saved Lincoln. Booth slipped behind him
quietly and delivered one deadly shot before anyone even knew
(07:03):
he was there. Interesting sidebar, Henry and Clara had actually
grown up as brother and sister from the time they
were little kids. Her father, a widower, had married his
mother a widow and blended their families. Henry and Clara
had fallen in love, which even in those days, was
considered a little odd, but it wasn't illegal anyway. Two
(07:23):
years after the assassination, the pair marry and they have
three children. But between his horrifying Civil War PTSD at
his knight at Ford Theater, Henry is gradually losing his mind.
They need to escape all those staring eyes, so they
decide to get out of the country. Despite his mental instability,
Henry has offered a job as a US consul to Germany,
(07:47):
But as the old saying goes, wherever you go, there
you are, Henry becomes sicker and more delusional. He's convinced
that Clara is cheating on him and planning to take
the children away. Finally, one night, just before Christmas eighteen
eighty three, he tells Clara somebody's in the house attempting
to kidnap the children. She tries to calm him down,
(08:09):
but also tells her sister to stay in the children's
room and lock the door. A little later, Clara is
getting ready to go to bed. That's when Henry attacks her.
He shoots her three times in the chest and then
viciously stabs her, repeatedly piercing her heart. He can't get
to the children, so he takes the knife and in
(08:30):
a frenzy, stabs himself in the chest over and over
five times. Amazingly, he survives. He tries to claim an
intruder had attacked his wife, but clearly others on the
scene knew differently. After recovering from his wounds, he's declared insane.
Henry Rathbone's story doesn't end until nineteen eleven, almost fifty
(08:51):
years after Lincoln's murder and three decades after killing his wife,
when he dies in a German asylum for the criminally insane.
He's buried next to Clara in Germany. At the end
of the day, everybody in that box at Ford's Theater
became a victim of John Wilkes Booth, including a young
couple Henry and Clara, who had eagerly accepted an invitation
(09:15):
to the theater. I hope you like the Backstory with
Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I'd love it if
you'd subscribe or follow for free to get new episodes
delivered automatically, and feel free to dm me if you
have a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook,
It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm
(09:40):
Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premier Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
(10:03):
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know
Elvis Duran and the Morning Show ON DEMAND News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Kingdom of Fraud
It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of Kingdom of Fraud completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!