preview

What Role Did Clara Harris Play In Lincoln's Assassination

Good Essays
Open Document

Clara Harris “In every hotel we’re in, as soon as people get wind of our presence, we feel ourselves become objects of morbid scrutiny..Whenever we were in the dining room, we began to feel like zoo animals. Henry… imagines that the whispering is more pointed and malicious than it can possibly be.” Quote from Clara Harris’ journal entry of Henry Rathbone’s guilt of the assassination. What part did Clara Harris play in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? Clara Harris was born on September 9, 1834 in Albany, New York. She was one of the four children of Senator Ira Harris, his first wife was Louisa Tubbs Harris. Clara’s mother died in 1845. At ages 13 and 11, Clara and Henry were raised in the same household. Clara’s father married, widow …show more content…

Before this, Julia and Ulysses S. Grant were invited, but they turned down the invitation. So, Clara and Henry accepted a last-minute invitation to see the play with the Lincoln’s. When John Wilkes Booth shot the president, Clara’s fiance’, Henry was the first line of defense after John Wilkes Booth attacked. Henry jumped to attack Booth, but Booth used his knife to slash Henry’s left arm open from elbow to shoulder. Henry Rathbone was also hurt, but he tried another attempt to stop Booth, but ignored. John Wilkes Booth jumped off the box and made an easy escape out of the back of the theatre. Then, Henry collapsed to the ground, weak from all the blood-loss, and Clara and Mary Todd Lincoln began to scream. In the theatre, the audience was alerted by the noise John Wilkes Booth was making while escaping. Clara was quite covered in Henry Rathbone’s blood, while she was trying to stop the blood with her handkerchief. Mary Todd Lincoln was broken-hearted and she accidentally mistook Henry’s blood for Abraham Lincoln’s. The screaming from the box spread throughout the theatre and the doctors in the house were located and rushed to the president. President Lincoln was moved to a house across the street from the theatre. Abraham Lincoln then died the next day at 7:22 am on April 15, 1865, he was surrounded by loved ones and well-known citizens, including Clara. …show more content…

At first, Mary Todd Lincoln thought that the blood on the dress was Lincoln’s but it was not, it was Henry’s. Clara washed all the blood from her, but not from the dress. She could not get rid of it or eliminate it and instead, she placed it in the back of her closet, wanting to forget about it. In 1866, the day a year after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Clara woke up in the night to the sound of a low laughter from the closet with the dress in it. It turned out to be Abraham Lincoln’s laughter coming from the closet. Clara kept the dress in their summer home in Albany, New York. This sound was repeated a year later when some guests stayed in the room. So, then Clara sealed the closet with bricks after believing that she saw Abraham Lincoln’s ghost. Then, Clara’s and Henry’s older son, Henry Riggs Rathbone, attempt to end of what he felt was a curse on his family. He broke into the bricked closet and burned the dress into ashes. The residents in the house then, saw a blood-soaked young women sobbing and standing with Abraham Lincoln. In 1910, 45 years later, after Abraham Lincoln’s deathbed and one before Major Henry Rathbone’s. The dress was shut from the world, buried, but not forgotten. Later, residents of the house declared to hear a gunshot on the anniversary of the

Get Access
Related
Get Access