Major Henry Rathbone

In honor of President's day, I planned to write something about Abraham Lincoln.  But the  blog took a radical turn when I remembered a story that I heard about Major Henry Rathbone.  He and his fiance, Clara Harris, were the invited guests of Abraham Lincoln to the play at Ford's Theater.  They were seated right next to Mary Todd Lincoln and were in close proximity to the President when John Wilkes Booth entered the room.  Lincoln was shot first and Major Rathbone stood up in order to protect him.  Booth stabbed Rathbone and then made his escape.  He bled profusely and almost died that night due to the fact that every doctor's attention was toward the comatose president.  Luckily, a doctor was prevailed to tend to him at Clara's insistence.  Until recently, that was all that I knew about Major Henry Rathbone.  I never thought about what happened to him later in life, but upon investigation, I realized that his life took a permanently tragic turn that night at the theater.  


Rathbone always felt guilty that he had been unable to save the President's life.  He felt that things could have been different if he had just stood up a little sooner.  His mental state began to slowly deteriorate.  He still married Clara, however, and they went on to have three children.  He retired from the Army two years later.  Rathbone and his family moved to Germany in 1882 when he was appointed to the US Consul in Hanover.  By 1883, his mind had become deranged with overwhelming guilt.  He shot Clara (just like Abraham Lincoln has been shot) and tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself (just like he had been that fateful night at Ford's Theater).  Clara died, but Rathbone's injury was treated.  He was admitted into an asylum for the criminally insane and remained there until his death in 1911.    

Major Henry Rathbone is standing on the left