On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The weapon he used was a.44 caliber single-shot derringer handgun. The president was hurried to a boarding house across the street to wait for the surgeon general while Booth rode away on his horse. Sadly, the 56-year-old 16th president of the United States passed on the following morning.The assassination of Abraham Lincoln has remained infamous throughout history for a variety of reasons. The attack was public, which sparked a tense manhunt. Perhaps more crucially, the American Civil War had been raging for four years until Confederate General Robert E. Lee finally gave up his army five days earlier, putting an end to the struggle. Lincoln pledged to the Union in his inaugural address to "preserve, protect, and defend" it, but he would not live to see his country recover.
That evening, Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln went to see the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater. The items in the president's pockets on his final night have been kept by the Library of Congress. What he had was this:Watch the video up top to discover more information on the objects in his pockets, which also contain two sets of eyeglasses and a pocket knife. The president also had a watch fob and a linen handkerchief with "A. Lincoln" imprinted in crimson on it. There are some more intriguing items even if these seem pretty straightforward.First, according to the Library of Congress, the president carried newspaper clippings, some of which were favorable to him and his views. It's almost like seeing what people were saying about the government on Twitter in the 19th century.
Even more puzzling was the fact that Abraham Lincoln only had a $5 Confederate note in his brown leather wallet the night before he passed away. Clark Evans, Head of Reference Services in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, said: "We don't know with absolute certainty, but just a few days earlier, Richmond had fallen, and Lincoln did actually travel to Richmond and this was likely passed onto him as a souvenir."
The items in President Lincoln's pockets were given to his son, Robert Todd, after his death, and they stayed in the Lincoln family for more than 70 years. They were eventually put on display at the Library of Congress, where they continue to be the most popular item in the collection.
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