Barb’s Burblings

There was an interesting article in the Post Magazine today about Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. If you somehow missed who these people are (and how could that be?), they’re the couple who attended Our American Cousin with Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln the night the President was shot. Major Rathbone tried to stop Booth from getting away and was stabbed for his efforts; the blood on Miss Harris’s dress that kept upsetting Mrs. Lincoln that night was most likely that of Rathbone–Harris’s fiance. Anyway, Harris and Rathbone got married, and, years later, Rathbone wound up killing Harris, then stabbing himself. (He survived.)

It’s amazing how far reaching one act can be–and beyond the obvious. The Lincoln assassination was a tragedy for the country; our history would be so incredibly different if Lincoln had seen out his second term. But you see its influence in this story. These two people, who are so associated with that event…it’s entirely possible that Rathbone’s insanity was helped along by the assassination. I doubt it was all PTSD; his medical history seems to indicate that he had problems before April 14, 1865. But the combination of shooting and stabbing that he used to kill her…it was too reminiscent of Booth going into that theater box with a gun and a knife.