Lincoln Assassination 150th Anniversary: Part 1
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- On this week's 150th anniversary of the assassination of this country's 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, KYW Newsradio explores Philadelphia's place in the dramatic events that shocked the nation and changed history.
Some of the most important artifacts of the tragedy in April, 1865 are housed right in Center City Philadelphia.
Most of what we know about Lincoln's assassination comes from the meticulous notes of James Tanner, the stenographer summoned to the Peterson House after the shooting to observe and take eyewitness accounts from those who saw the assassination.
His original notes are stored in a light and climate-controlled vault in the Union League on Broad Street.
"It's one of the great treasures in our collection," says Jim Mundy, director of education and programming for the League's foundations.
The collection, though, includes several important artifacts from the assassination, including a piece of the shirt Lincoln was wearing when he was shot.
They are on display in an exhibit at the Union League's Heritage Center, called "1865: Triumph and Tragedy," which is free and open to the from Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3 to 6.
The most unusual item in the exhibit is on loan from the Mutter Museum -- John Wilkes Booth's thorax. The doctor who performed the autopsy on Booth was a member of the College of Physicians and sent the museum the, um, souvenir.
The Tanner manuscript is not on display because of the special care necessary to preserve it.
A gift from Tanner to the League, the manuscript holds what Mundy considers the most remarkable account of the assassination, testimony from tavern owner James Ferguson, who was sitting in the box directly across from Lincoln's.
"I saw Mr. Booth go to the door of the private box the president occupied," reads the slightly faded cursive script. "I then heard the report of a pistol and saw Mrs. Lincoln catch him (Lincoln) around the neck."
