Who Saved Abraham Lincoln, Killed His Own Wife.

At 10:14 pm, at the climax of the show, an unidentified person entered the presidential box, and shortly thereafter, a gunshot echoed, causing panic among the audience. Frightened screams enveloped the theater as people began to realize the president was shot in the back of the head.

The perpetrator was none other than the famed actor John Wilkes Booth. Major Henry Rathbone leaped from his chair, and rushed to apprehend Booth, but was slashed badly with a dagger. Rathbone later stated that the look of rage on Booth’s face frightened him.

Rathbone grabbed Booth once more as he prepared to leave from the box’s sill by seizing his coat, but he still managed to escape by falling awkwardly to the stage. The fall had possibly broken his leg, but despite this, Booth managed to flee and remain at large for the next 12 days.

Rathbone took Mary Lincoln to the Peterson house across the street where the president had been transported. Despite his terrible wound, he passed out shortly after because of blood loss, and Clara arrived shortly after.

She held her fiancé’s head in her lap while he went in and out of consciousness. When the surgeon who had been attending Lincoln finally saw Rathbone, it was learned that his wound was far more serious than had been initially thought.

Booth had nearly severed an artery and slashed him to the bone. Rathbone was escorted home while Clara stayed with Mary Lincoln for the next eight hours until the president passed away at 7:22 am.

Before we talk about Rathbone’s deteriorating state after the attack, let’s briefly look at Rathbone’s background. Henry Rathbone was born in Albany, New York, to an influential merchant and rich businessman named Jared Al Rathbone, who eventually became Albany’s first elected mayor.

When his father died, Rathbone inherited two hundred thousand dollars, equivalent to six million dollars in today’s money. Four years later, his widowed mother married Ira Harris, who was also a widower with four children. Harris was also an influential figure as he was appointed to the United States Senate from New York.

After William H. Seward became Lincoln’s Secretary of State, Ira Harris became Rathbone’s stepfather, and his daughter Clara became Rathbone’s stepsister. As a result of this marriage, Clara Harris and Rathbone developed a close friendship and later fell in love. Shortly before the American Civil War, the two became engaged. Rathbone studied law at Union College and worked in an Albany legal firm, where he was notorious for missing many lectures.

He joined the New York National Guard in 1858 and served as a judge advocate. Soon after, he was chosen to serve as an observer in Europe during the Second Italian War of Independence. At the commencement of the American Civil War, he joined the Union Army and served as a captain in the 12th Infantry Regiment at the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg.

In the years that followed, Rathbone’s physical wound healed, but his mental health deteriorated as he lamented his inability to stop the assassination attempt. On July 11, 1867, he married Clara, and the couple had three children. Rathbone resigned from the army in 1870, having risen to the rank of private colonel.

After his resignation, he struggled to find and keep a job due to his mental instability. The night of the assassination kept playing in his mind, especially on the anniversary of Lincoln’s death, as interviewers would seek after him, and afterward, he would numb himself by drinking and gambling.

This eventually became a reason for him to feel inadequate and convince himself that Harris was unfaithful to him. He resented the attention she paid to their children, and he threatened her, suspecting that she was going to divorce him and take the children.

To a degree, Clara was sympathetic to her husband’s plight. In a letter she had sent to a friend, she wrote, “I understand his distress. In every hotel we’re in, as soon as people get wind of our presence, we feel ourselves becoming objects of morbid scrutiny.” She added, “Henry imagines that the whispering is more malicious than it can possibly be.”

By today’s medical standards, Henry Rathbone is believed to have suffered from schizophrenia or a severe type of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his witnessing Lincoln’s assassination. However, there were no mental health therapies available at that time that could treat Rathbone’s psychological disorders, which meant he didn’t receive any help for the intrusive thoughts that tormented his mind, and this became worse after each passing year.

The Rathbones moved to Germany in 1882 after Henry was appointed as the United States Consul in Hanover. Perhaps Clara saw this as a chance for a fresh start, a chance to get away from Henry’s paranoia-inducing eyes and covertly pointed fingers. However, it was there on December 23, 1883, that Henry’s insanity reached its climax.

Henry attacked his children two days before Christmas. Early in the morning, Clara distracted Henry in order to protect their children, and this is when Henry shot Clara multiple times, stabbing her, and then plunging the same knife five times into his own chest in an attempt to kill himself. Henry Rathbone survived his attempted suicide, but Clara Rathbone died as a result of her injuries.

The revelation that the hero of Lincoln’s assassination had turned into a killer in a fit of rage made front-page news on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was committed to a mental institution in Hildesheim, where he spent the next 27 years of his life. Henry died in August 1911 at the age of 74 and was buried alongside Clara in a city cemetery in Hanover.