Disturbing Details Found In John Wilkes Booth's Autopsy

While enrolled in a course called "Civil War and Medicine," sophomore Acadia Parker of Binghamton University began research for her final project on Civil War-era autopsies (via BingUNews). The greenhorn historian paid a visit to the National Archives Research Center and began thumbing through authentic Civil War autopsy reports alphabetically. Far from the digital scrolling of modern research, Parker was able to appreciate how these original documents carried visceral characteristics, describing that "they smell like old tobacco and they have bloodstains on them."

With barely a semester of historical research experience, Parker started with A and soon found herself under "Assassinations." Before she realized, there in her hand was John Wilkes Booth's autopsy report, followed shortly by Abraham Lincoln's.

Civil War-era autopsies usually contain a couple of lines describing the events leading to death. Parker found 19th century doctors wrote about Booth's death with the same medical analysis and language used today. While medical documentation is usually dry, the pain of a heartbroken nation seemed to seep in around the edges of the autopsy written by Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes. The emotionally charged text and the events surrounding this particular autopsy are both intriguing and disturbing.

Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes arrived at the Montauk in the late morning of April 27, 1865. Just two weeks prior, he had directed President Abraham Lincoln's autopsy (via Smithsonian Institution). Now, Barnes was to be one of the three surgeons to perform an autopsy on the man who assassinated the president. Barnes side-stepped proper military etiquette, boarding the ship without announcement to or acknowledgment of the officers. After this breach of protocol, Barnes "walks up to the corpse and commences to cut adrift the wrappings," said Lieutenant-Commander E.E. Stone (via Naval History and Heritage Command). The autopsy began unceremoniously.

The body was that of a haggard man, with a shaved mustache, a fractured and reset leg, and a large wound in the neck (via Indiana State University). Doctors concluded the cause of death was a conoidal pistol ball that ripped through Booth's neck. The ball struck low, "passing through the bony bridge of fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae — severing the spinal chord (sic)," Barnes described in a report to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

Barnes went on to say, "paralysis of the entire body was immediate." In a remarkably impassioned line for a medical report, the surgeon asserted that "all the horrors of consciousness of suffering and death must have been present to the assassin during the two hours he lingered" (per The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion). Though the physicians weren't present in Booth's last moments, they were able to accurately describe them.

According to official records, there were only three civilians on the Montauk around the time of the autopsy and one of them was a young hotel clerk named Charles Dawson (via Indiana State University). The military officers had the clerk identify the body (via Indiana State University). Booth was a regular at the National Hotel, staying whenever he toured through D.C. (via Clio). As Booth signed the register, Dawson recalled seeing a small tattoo on the guest's hand. Dawson had chided Booth, saying, "what a fool you were to disfigure that pretty hand in such a way" (per The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography).

During the Civil War, tattooing your initials on yourself became a bona fide trend, allowing soldiers to rest in peace knowing their body would be identified and sent home using new post-mortem formaldehyde techniques (via Atlas Obscura). The hotel clerk remembered the India ink letters J.W.B., but was inconsistent in remembering their location on the body (via Indiana State University). These were the same initials of the alias Booth used after the assassination.

The rest of the witnesses were conveniently military officers on the ship, who happened to have intimate knowledge of the general appearance of the actor. Though there were numerous witnesses and acquaintances of Booth in Washington D.C., and an unconfirmed rumor that a number of co-conspirators were being held in the hull of the Montauk, none of Booth's local stage coworkers or family were contacted.

The body of Booth was buried and re-buried a number of times before it was released back to the Booth family (via Roger J. Norton) though missing some noticeable elements. In what was most likely a lengthy and challenging dissection for the young doctor, Joseph Woodward removed the cervical vertebrae and spinal cord where the bullet had passed. He then wrapped the fourth and fifth vertebrae in cloth and sent them to the newly established Army Medical Museum, never to be reunited with the rest of the body. They remain in the collection to this day at what is now called the National Museum of Health and Medicine.

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered a single photograph be taken of the corpse (via Smithsonian) by the non-military photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant (via Indiana State University). After taking the photo, the assistant was escorted by the government detective James A. Wardell, to have the print developed and delivered to the War Department.

Wardell handed the print to the chief of the secret service, Colonel Baker. "I gave him the plate and print," said Wardell, "and he stepped to one side and pulled it from the envelope. He looked at it and then dismissed me." Since that day, no one has confirmed the location or has claimed to have seen the picture, fueling conspiracy theories that Booth had survived (via "The Ghosts of Fredericksburg — and Nearby Environs").