Continuing on with my fascination with Hill connections to the Lincoln assassination, I recently came across what is essentially a footnote to a previous article on the Booth autopsy. It turns out that one of the surgeons assisting in the autopsy had a much closer connection to the assassination than I would have expected. He was also one of the few witnesses to write about his experiences immediately after the event, giving a particularly useful account of the events.
The story actually begins a few hours before the President’s murder. It is well-documented that Mr. Lincoln spent part of his last day at the Washington Navy Yard. This is what George Brainard Todd (pic) wrote about that day, right after it was done:
Yesterday about 3 P.M. the President and wife drove down to the navy yard and paid our ship a visit, going all over her, accompanied by us all. Both seemed very happy, and so expressed themselves, – glad that this war was over, or so near its end, and then drove back to the White House.
This occurred aboard Dr. Todd’s ship, the USS Montauk, one of the Civil War’s famous monitors. Todd, who had graduated from the Albany Medical School, had originally been mustered into the NY 12th Volunteer Infantry Regiment as an Assistant Surgeon. He switched to the Navy in the same capacity later in the war.
Todd would then be at Ford’s Theater that evening:
About 10.25 P.M. a man came in and walked slowly along the side on which the “Pres” box was and I heard a man say, “There’s Booth” and I turned my head to look at him. He was still walking very slow and was near the box door when he stopped took a card from his pocket, wrote something on it, and gave it to the usher who took it to the box. In a minute the door was opened and he walked in. No sooner had the door closed than I heard the report of a pistol, and on the instant, Booth jumped out of the box onto the stage, holding in his hand a large knife and shouted so as to be heard all over the house, “Sic Semper Tyrannis” (“So always with tyrants”) and fled behind the scenes.
Little did Todd know that he would be part of the coda of the tale. After Booth had been shot, brought back to D.C. and placed on the Montauk, the post mortem took place. Louis Dieterich, a local clerk who was friends with Todd, managed to get on board. Dieterich’s story was printed in the Nebraska Advertiser of April 14, 1899.
“Just before the post mortem examination Dr. Todd lifted the big tarpaulin that was laid over the body on the upper deck, and showed me the face of the dead man. It was calm and peaceful as a baby’s, and it was John Wilkes Booth. It is all nonsense to say that he was not there. I saw him and touched his head. It was cold and dead; and it was Booth. I know what I know, and I saw Booth lying there. The gunboat was anchored between the arsenal and the navy yard, but nearer the yard than the arsenal.”
At least, this is Dieterich’s claim; most sources indicate that attendance on board the Montauk was strictly regulated at this time.
Detail of the picture “A torpedo exploding under the ‘Montauk,’ in the Ogeechee River” from Harper’s Weekly, March 28, 1863 (LOC)
By contrast, Todd’s presence is well-documented. In an article that ran in the Washington Evening Star on July 7 of 1865, he is listed as one of the people assisting Surgeon General Joseph Barnes. By the time the article ran, however, Todd had already been reassigned to South Carolina. He died not ten years later, still a naval surgeon, while trying to stop an outbreak of yellow fever at the Pensacola Navy Yard. His obituary in the Baltimore Sun did not mention his brush with history, but did talk about character:
His self possession in danger, his devotion to duty, and his patience in the surgery of resection, with the desire to save limbs to the wounded, commanded the encomiums of his superiors, and the gratitude of the unfortunate.
He was buried in Fayetteville, near his birthplace of Marcellus, New York.