Memento of Lincoln's Assassination

From his box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., the President and his wife laughed at one of the play's funniest lines. In Act III, the character of the cousin says, "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal--you sockdologizing old man-trap."

A shot rang out during the laughter, and shortly afterwards John Wilkes Booth jumped from the President's box onto the stage. After a few seconds of confusion in which Booth made his escape, the crowd in the theatre quickly realized that Abraham Lincoln had been shot!

Among those present at Ford's Theatre that night was 28-year-old T.D. Bancroft. A veteran of Bleeding Kansas, Bancroft had served with Free State troops led by James Lane and John Brown. By the beginning of the Civil War, Bancroft was in Washington where he became part of Lane's Frontier Guard. This group of Kansas men were called upon to protect Lincoln, even camping out in the East Room of the White House. Bancroft had also attended the President's inauguration and was acquainted with the nation's leader.

On that fateful night at Ford's Theater, Bancroft provided one last service for the President. He was among those who stood at the head of the stairs and kept back the crowd as the fatally wounded Lincoln was carried from his box.

After Lincoln had passed by, Bancroft observed that drops of the President's blood had fallen on a playbill fragment lying on the floor. Bancroft kept this memento until 1901, when he donated it to the Kansas Historical Society. Photographs of the fragment (bottom, left) were sold as a remembrance of the President's assassination (view text on back of photo).

The original playbill fragment is now in the collections of the Society's Kansas Museum of History. Learn more about Lincoln's assassination at the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site.

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