Several years ago, I had the opportunity of obtaining an extremely rare and unique Lincoln relic. The relic is pictured at the beginning of the chapter and is a piece of old lace that appears to have blood stains on it. The relic came with an old note that says “Lincoln’s Bloodstained Cloth from April 15, 1865.  presented by Dr. Leale of N.Y.” The provenance of this relic can be traced back to the John Hay estate. John Hay was one of Lincoln’s private secretaries. This relic was then owned by Dr. Robert White, the famous Kennedy Collector. When he died, I obtained the relic from his close friend. There was no other information about it except what I just stated. I did not know where the lace came from, what kind of fabric it was originally part of or how the blood stains were caused. The note was all I had to go on at that time. Dr. Leale was an army physician from NY who first attended to Lincoln when he was shot.  In fact, I have interviewed Dr. Leale’s granddaughter, Helen Harper Leale.

Dr. Charles Leale

I first investigated the paper that the relic was placed in and it seems that this paper is consistent with being a blank prescription form that was used in the 1800’s. So, a Doctor would most likely have these with him. The relic is not called a piece of lace but a piece of cloth, so it seemed that it may have had some use.

The question I had was what was this lace once a part of? There were many possibilities. Could it have been from the bed sheets, pillow case, etc. at the Peterson House? Remember, after Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre, he was carried across the street and placed on a bed in the Peterson Boarding House.  

The bed Lincoln died in. This photo was taken just hours afterwards by Julius Ulke

Could it have been part of a dress? Could it be from a handkerchief? The possibilities went on and I continued my investigation. I contacted the world’s leading lace expert, Pat Earnshaw, who lives in the UK. I sent her high resolution scans of the lace. She studied the scans of the lace and determined that this lace was “Bobbin fining on a Leavers machine,” and she felt that this lace would not be found anywhere except on a dress. I also had several experts from the Lace Museum in California study the scans. It seems that their conclusion was that this linen was very dainty and would not be part of any bed items in the Peterson House, i.e. bedspreads, linens, towels, etc. The historians I consulted at Ford’s Theatre also agreed with this.  The Lace Museum staff also thought the most likely possibilities were a dress or lace from a handkerchief.

Dr. Leale did place Lincoln’s head on his white handkerchief when he laid him on the floor to examine him. I asked Helen Harper Leale about this and she did not know anything about this handkerchief. The only relic she knew that Dr. Leale kept were the cuffs from his shirt that were stained with Lincoln’s blood. These cuffs have been displayed at Ford’s Theatre. Now men’s handkerchiefs from that time period did not contain lace. Women’s handkerchiefs did, so it was not likely that this lace was from Dr. Leale’s handkerchief.

The dress possibility was interesting since one of the actors, Laura Keene, who was present when Lincoln was shot, went up to Lincoln’s booth and asked to hold his head. Dr. Leale gave her permission and her dress, which had linen on it, became stained with blood. This dress and parts of it had been displayed in different museums and places throughout the years. It is possible that this piece was from that dress, but how did Dr. Leale obtain it? Right after the assassination, Laura Keene left so fast that they did not even have time to get a deposition from her so I could not place the relic historically in a position where Dr. Leale would have obtained this lace from her. Also, samples of her dress that others have seen do not resemble the lace that is in my possession. I was also told that there was not much lace on her dress.  

Laura Keene as Laura Trenchard in the play “Our American Cousin”
playing the night Lincoln was shot
   

Ford’s Theatre - 1865

I then moved on to other possibilities. In the 1970’s, a large grant by the government allowed the Ford Theatre to be restored to its original condition. The reconstruction was based on a photograph that Mathew Brady took the day after the assassination. This was all they had to go on. 

The Brady photograph is valuable since it is the only thing that gives us the details of the makeup of the theater that night. The next day, the theater was closed, but he was allowed to go in and take this picture. I thought the picture may give me some clue as to the origin of the relic. After studying it for some time I realized that the curtains in the center of each booth were made of fine lace and that this lace curtain in the right booth appeared to be missing.  

Carl Sandburg’s works on the life of Lincoln refer to this fine curtain. He mentioned that when Lincoln was watching the play, he would push the lace curtain to the side so he could see better or to look for someone down in the audience.

Another reference stated that Lincoln was pushing back the curtain when he was shot. Sandburg also described the lace as a fine, tight lace. 

Lincoln was sitting in the booth on the right side.  In the picture you can see the large curtains pulled back at the sides, but in the center there appears to be a fine lace curtain. Why was this missing on the right side? Would my lace relic match this linen curtain?

Unfortunately, we do not know of the existence of any pieces of the curtains in Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot. The curtains completely disappeared right after the assassination, as it was cut up and taken by relic hunters.

I then contacted the person responsible for this reconstruction project. He still owned an embroider company located in West New York. His name was Vincent Mesiano and was just a tremendous and kind person. Vincent sent me a sample of the curtain he reconstructed based on the Brady photograph. This sample had an embroidery pattern on it.

If you compare the reconstruction sample with my relic on the next page, you can see the remarkable similarities. Note that the embroidery pattern is just about identical on both samples, being a 3 petal flower and stem.

Linen Reconstructed by Vincent Mesiano from
the Brady Photograph

Close up of embroider pattern of actual Relic

Could my relic have been part of the curtain hanging in the booth where Lincoln was shot? How would the blood have gotten on it? I then contacted the world’s leading expert on the Kennedy and Lincoln Assassination, Dr. John Latimer. Besides being a Medical Doctor, he is also a ballistics and gun expert. I asked him if the ballistics would have caused blood from the gunshot to splatter on the curtain. He did not think so. The wound was localized. So, where did the blood come from if it was not spattered on by the gun shot?

I still felt that this lace curtain in Ford’s Theatre was the most likely possibility since the probability of the embroider patterns being the same was too great for me to ignore. But, how did the blood get on the linen and why did Dr. Leale have this piece in his possession?

This is where the mystery rested until I remembered that Andrew Jackson Davis used Psycometry in his older age to diagnosis patients. Psycometry is defined as the reading of objects by touch and generally refers to the ability to gain impressions and information about an object, or anything connected to it, by holding it in your hand. A person with this ability is called a Psychometrist. This term was first coined in 1842 by Joseph R. Buchanan, an American physiologist, who claimed it could be used to measure the “soul of all things.” Buchanan further said that the past is entombed in the present.

A very good friend of mine is a retired Pediatrician who lives in the Great Lakes Area. He told me that a good friend of his is an engineer and is one of the best psycometrists in the country. I was going to visit my friend in a few weeks and asked him to set up a lunch with his psychometrist friend. When we met for the first time, I handed him the relic and the only information he had about it was the handwritten note that came with it. He said:  “This is authentic.  It does have the actual blood of Lincoln.” I then asked him where it came from. He said “It was used like a cheese cloth by the Doctors to try to stop the bleeding on Lincoln’s head. He explained it came from a linen curtain that was pulled down and used for this purpose. 

This is interesting since Dr. Leale did not want to cause any pressure build up in the brain. To prevent this, he would remove the blood clots as they formed. Blood clots would close off the wound and cause a pressure build up in the brain. If this happened, the President would stop breathing.

Dr. Leale must have pulled down this curtain to use as a cheese cloth because it was so porous and dainty and it would not close off the wound or cause any pressure build up in the brain. It would just absorb the blood as it oozed out from the wound.  So, this type of cloth would have been perfect to use for that type of wound in which you did not want anything to cause a pressure build up. He used what was available and this lace curtain was right in front of him so he must have ripped it down and used its pieces for this purpose. It makes perfect sense now. He could not have found any better cloth to suit his purposes. Maybe this curtain was also used to wrap around the President’s head when he was carried across the street to the Peterson House.

That could be a good explanation for why the linen curtain was missing in the Brady photo of Lincoln’s booth. After the President died (Dr. Leale was present with him the entire time), he must have kept a piece of this cloth as a relic and put it in a piece of paper he had in this pocket, which would be a prescription blank. People at that time were very interested in preserving relics of this kind. This seemed logical to me. Physicians I discussed this with also agreed. I think the mystery of this relic is solved due to the use of psycometry. We know that police detectives sometimes use psycometry to solve crimes by locating bodies and other objects. So, I think this is a legitimate method to use to acquire additional information.