geeky
Charles Leale (shown in the picture below) was a young Army surgeon who happened to be in attendance at Ford's Theater the night Lincoln was shot. Leale made his way through the crowd to the door at the rear of the Presidential box. At first the door would not open, but inside the box Major Henry Rathbone saw a notch carved in the door and a wooden brace jammed there by assassin John Wilkes Booth. Rathbone removed the brace to open the door and let Leale in. The young doctor found Rathbone bleeding profusely from a deep gash that ran the length of his upper left arm. But his priority was the President. He passed Rathbone by and stepped forward to find Lincoln slumped forward in his chair, held by Mary, who was sobbing. Lincoln had no pulse and Leale believed him to be dead. Leale lowered the President to the floor.
A second doctor in the audience, Charles Sabin Taft, was lifted bodily from the stage over the railing and into the box. Taft and Leale cut away Lincoln's blood-stained collar and opened his shirt, and Leale, feeling around by hand, discovered the bullet hole in the back of his head by his left ear. Leale attempted to remove the bullet. He was unable to do so, but dislodged a clot of blood in the wound which improved Lincoln's breathing. Leale discovered that if he continued to release blood clots at a specific time, Lincoln would still breathe. He saw that the bullet had entered Lincoln's skull, fractured part of it badly and went through the left side of his brain. On noticing this, Leale told those present, "his wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover."
Leale, Taft, and Albert King, another doctor from the audience, quickly consulted and decided that the President had to be moved, but that a bumpy carriage ride across town to the White House was out of the question. They chose to carry Lincoln across the street and find a house. The three doctors and some soldiers who had been in the audience carried the President out the front entrance of Ford's Theatre. Across the street, a man was holding a lantern and calling "Bring him in here! Bring him in here!" The man was Henry Safford, a boarder at William Petersen's boarding house. The men carried Lincoln into the boarding house and into the first-floor bedroom, where they laid him diagonally on the bed because his tall frame would not fit normally on the smaller bed.
A vigil began at the Petersen House. The three physicians were joined by Surgeon General of the United States Army Joseph K. Barnes, his assistant Major Charles Henry Crane, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Dr. Robert K. Stone. Stone was Lincoln's personal physician. The President's 22 year old son Robert Lincoln, who home been at the White House that evening, arrived at the Petersen House after learning of the shooting at about midnight. Lincoln's 12 year old son Tad, who had attended Grover's Theater to see Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, was not allowed to go to the Petersen House, but he was at Grover's Theater when the play was interrupted to report the news of the President's assassination.
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton came and took charge of the scene. Mary Lincoln was so unhinged by the experience of the assassination that Stanton ordered her out of the room. He is said to have shouted, "take that woman out of here and do not let her in here again!" While Mary Lincoln sobbed in the front parlor, Stanton set up in the rear parlor, running the United States government for several hours, sending and receiving telegrams, taking reports from witnesses, and issuing orders for the pursuit of the assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Nothing more could be done for the President. At 7:22 a.m. 10 seconds on April 15, 1865, he died. He was fifty-six years old. Mary Lincoln was not present at the time of his death. The crowd around the bed knelt for a prayer, and when they were finished, Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the ages". (There is some disagreement among historians as to Stanton's words after Lincoln died. All agree that he began "Now he belongs to the..." with some stating he said ages while others believe he said angels.)
Lincoln's body was wrapped in a US flag and taken in the rain to the White House by Union officers, while the city's church bells rang. Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President at 10:00 am that morning. Lincoln's body lay in state in the East Room, and then in the Capitol Rotunda from April 19 through April 21. For three weeks, his funeral train brought the body to cities across the North for large-scale memorials attended by hundreds of thousands, as well as many people who gathered in informal trackside tributes with bands, bonfires and hymn singing. On May 3, 1865 the train arrived in Springfield, Illinois where Lincoln was interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery.