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Speaker 1: Who was sitting with Abe Lincoln at Ford's Theater when

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Speaker 1: he was shot? Talk about wrong place, wrong time. There

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Speaker 1: was a horrifying aftermath for the young couple sitting there.

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Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. The shocking backstory about the worst seat

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Speaker 1: in the house is next. Do you ever wonder who

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Speaker 1: was sitting with Abe Lincoln at Ford's Theater when he

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Speaker 1: was shot? Man? You talk about the worst seat in

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Speaker 1: the house? Right, Well, we all know about the assassination,

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Speaker 1: but there's a backstory that's definitely all about wrong place,

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Speaker 1: wrong time. In a moment, I'll tell you the horrifying

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Speaker 1: aftermath for the less famous folks in that box. It

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Speaker 1: involves a guy named Major Henry Rathbone. Honestly, he was

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Speaker 1: pretty much sort of a nobody. He was there with

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Speaker 1: his fiance Clara Harris. They weren't even supposed to be there,

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Speaker 1: by the way, They were the very last choice over

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Speaker 1: a dozen other people had turned down the invite. First well,

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Speaker 1: word gets out out that General Ulysses S. Grant and

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Speaker 1: his wife would be there as the Lincoln's guests, and

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Speaker 1: that's what the newspapers ran with. But it turns out

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Speaker 1: Grant pulls a no show. Which was kind of a

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Speaker 1: tough break for Henry and Clara because that night pretty

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Speaker 1: much destroyed their lives. John Wilkes Booth has this plan

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Speaker 1: to totally throw the government into complete chaos. He wants

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Speaker 1: to kill both Lincoln and Grant at Ford's while his

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Speaker 1: co conspirators try, I might add, unsuccessfully, to kill the

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Speaker 1: Vice President and the Secretary of State. It's good Friday evening,

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Speaker 1: April eighteen sixty five. The Lincolns, with Henry and Clara

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Speaker 1: get to the theater after the play our American cousin had

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Speaker 1: already started. Lincoln has one bodyguard with him, but the

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Speaker 1: guard leaves after Lincoln settles in and goes to grab

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Speaker 1: a drink at the tavern next door. He never comes

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Speaker 1: back to the theater. Now here's the thing. There was

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Speaker 1: no such thing as the Secret Service until well earlier

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Speaker 1: that very same day, when Lincoln officially signed off on

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Speaker 1: its creation. How ironic is that? Huh? So the president's

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Speaker 1: on his own now it's the third act. John Wilkes Booth,

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Speaker 1: probably still thinking he'd get Lincoln and Grant in one hit,

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Speaker 1: probably didn't even know what Grant didn't show knows where

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Speaker 1: in the play to expect a big laugh from the audience,

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Speaker 1: so everybody's distracted, right. He slips into the President's box,

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Speaker 1: pulls out a small one shot pistol, and shoots Lincoln

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Speaker 1: in the head right behind the ear. I mean, like

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Speaker 1: brain matter starts to ooze out. Pretty creepy. Henry Rathbone

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Speaker 1: tries to grab Booth, but Booth also has a dagger

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Speaker 1: that was meant for Grant. In the darkness, with only

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Speaker 1: dim gas lights flickering on the stage below, does Booth

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Speaker 1: still think it's Grant? He plunges the dagger into the

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Speaker 1: inside of Henry's arm, slicing his arm right to the bone,

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Speaker 1: from his shoulder down to his elbow. Henry is gushing blood,

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Speaker 1: but again he tries to grab Booth, causing Booth to

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Speaker 1: trip and break his leg as he jumps kind of

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Speaker 1: awkwardly twelve feet down to the stage to escape. How

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Speaker 1: does this last minute invite to the theater though, change

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Speaker 1: Henry's life? Well, eventually the wound heals, Well, what about

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Speaker 1: the rest of him? Imagine going through that, his mind,

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Speaker 1: his emotions. Can you really imagine the non stop guilt

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Speaker 1: you would feel. I mean, it was Abraham Lincoln for

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Speaker 1: God's sake, Clara tells a friend in every hotel and

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Speaker 1: restaurant were stared at like we're zoo animals. Henry just

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Speaker 1: can't forgive himself for not saving Lincoln or at least

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Speaker 1: capturing Booth alive. But it's worse than that, because a

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Speaker 1: lot of people blame him for not preventing the assassination,

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Speaker 1: and if you even think he was part of the conspiracy.

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Speaker 1: Of course, it doesn't help that Grant says publicly he

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Speaker 1: wishes he'd been there to try to save Lincoln, and that,

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Speaker 1: of course makes Henry feel like he simply wasn't up

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Speaker 1: to the job. Eventually, Henry and Clara marry and they

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Speaker 1: have kids, but Henry is gradually losing his mind. They

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Speaker 1: decide they need to escape. They decide to get out

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Speaker 1: of the country, and they choose Germany. But as the

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Speaker 1: old saying goes, wherever you go, there you are, Henry

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Speaker 1: becomes sicker and more delusional. Finally, one night, just before

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Speaker 1: Christmas eighteen eighty three, so this is like eighteen years later,

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Speaker 1: Clara goes to bed and Henry attacks her. He stabs

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Speaker 1: and shoots her to death. Then he goes after the children,

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Speaker 1: but fortunately a servant gets them out of the house

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Speaker 1: in a frenzy. Henry stabs himself in the chest over

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Speaker 1: and over, but he survives. Henry Rathbone's story ends not

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Speaker 1: until nineteen eleven, almost fifty years after Lincoln's murder, and

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Speaker 1: three decades almost after killing his wife, when he dies

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Speaker 1: in a German asylum for the criminal insane. At the

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Speaker 1: end of the day, everybody in that box at Ford's

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Speaker 1: Theater became a victim of John Wilkespooth. I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions.

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Speaker 1: Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our executive producer is Steve

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Speaker 1: Goldstein of Amplified Media. We're out with new episodes twice

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Speaker 1: a week. Thanks for listening to The Backstory, the pieces

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Speaker 1: of history you didn't know you needed to know.