This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com
Have you ever watched THE WEST WING? I’m a big fan of the show. Love it. There’s a moment early in season two, where President Bartlet, who has been shot by an assassin and is recovering in the hospital. As he sits in his hospital bed, Abbey Bartlet, his wife, and the head of the Secret Service tell the greatest fictional president of all time that the injury count on the scene was low because the gunmen chose the wrong guns for what they wanted to do. President Bartlet looks at them and says “We don’t know what the injury count is yet”.
What he meant in that moment, as becomes clear a moment later, is that no one knows what the lasting effects of the assassination attempt would have on those involved. The bodily injuries would heal, but the mental trauma of the moment wouldn’t.
When I think of Henry Rathbone, I think of those words.
Henry Rathbone was living a pretty great life, all things considered. Born in Albany, New York in the summer of 1837 to Jared and Pauline Rathbone, Henry grew up with his three siblings living a privileged life. When he was a wee lad, Henry’s pop, who was already a super successful businessman, was appointed to the office of mayor. Sadly, Jared Rathbone died in 1845 at the all too young age of 54. Fatherless at 8, Henry found himself real damn rich; his father left him two hundred thousand dollars. That would be over six million dollars today.
The widow Pauline Rathbone, possibly envisioning the day THE BRADY BUNCH would arrive on American television, took her four kids and married the widower Ira Harris who had four kids of his own. Through this marriage, super rich Henry met the love of his life, Clara Harris. The Harris-Rathbone fortunes formed into one giant fortune, enough to help Ira get himself elected a Senator from the great state of New York. In 1861, much like today, it was weird to fall in love with your stepsister, but that didn’t keep Henry and Clara from turning themselves into a parody of a French film. Fall in love they did, and just before America went to war with itself, the two became engaged.
During the Civil War, rich kids like Henry had the chance to pay the government three hundred dollars to get out of being drafted. With his loot, Henry could have paid the fee easy squeezy, but he chose to instead join his Northern brethren in battle. Henry Rathbone, with his degree from Union College, joined the US Army as a Captain in the 12th Infantry, taking part in eleven battles, including Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia. By the end of the war in 1865, Rathbone had made his way up to the rank of Major.
Try as he might, Abraham Lincoln just couldn’t find anyone who wanted to join he and Mary Todd for a night of theater. Ulysses S. Grant and his wife had declined, as had Thomas Eckhert and his wife Emma. Mary Todd suggested they invite Senator Harris’ daughter, who was in DC with her fiance. Henry and Clara, who had been friendly with the Lincolns in the past, happily accepted the invitation.
The two couples were enjoying their evening watching OUR AMERICAN COUSIN at the Ford Theater. They were so enraptured with the play that none of them noticed when John Frederick Parker, the police officer assigned to keep anyone from entering the Presidential Box, went off to the bar for a few drinks. None of them heard the famed actor John Wilkes Booth enter, his Philadelphia Deringer hidden in his pocket. They didn’t hear Booth pull back the hammer of his pistol. None of them knew that standing just inches away from the President was his killer.
When the shot rang out, Henry turned to see President Lincoln fall forward with Booth standing behind him, smoke still rising off the tiny gun. Mary Todd Lincoln cried out, as did many others in the theater. Henry leapt to action. He grabbed Booth and the men struggled. Booth pulled out his dagger and hit Henry in the left arm, cutting him from elbow to shoulder. As Henry stepped back, Booth made for a quick escape by leaping out of the box and onto the stage. Before the murderer could jump, Henry grabbed Booth’s coat, causing Booth to lose his balance on the sill of the box. Booth fell to the stage, breaking his leg. As he stood up, as everyone in the theater looked at him, Booth yelled out “Sic semper tyrannis!” and ran off.
Lincoln was still alive, but it was clear he wouldn’t be for much longer. A group of men carried Lincoln out of the theater and across the street to the home of William Peterson and laid him on the bed he would die on. Henry and Clara stayed with Mary Todd at the theater until she was able to gather herself and join her dying husband.
As Henry helped the shocked Mary Todd enter the Peterson house, he fell to the ground. Henry was taken to a chair where he would spend much of the night passing in and out of consciousness. It was hours before a doctor discovered that Henry’s wound was deathly serious; Booth’s swipe had cut deep into Henry’s left arm, almost hitting bone. The dagger had severed an artery just above the elbow and Henry had lost a massive amount of blood. The doctor patched up Henry’s arm and a few men took him home. Clara, her dress covered in her husband’s blood, stayed with Mary Todd, holding vigil over the dying President.
Henry Rathbone couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since that night at the theater. That night he failed to save Abraham Lincoln. No one blamed Henry for what had happened, after all, how could he have known? No, it was John Wilkes Booth who was to blame; he and his accomplices. Mary Todd Lincoln held a special hatred for John Frederick Parker for leaving his post. But no one hated Henry. Afterall, he almost died trying to stop Booth. If Henry hadn’t caused Booth to break his leg, Booth may well have escaped justice. Henry was a hero.
He didn’t feel like a hero though. Henry Rathbone looked in the mirror and he saw the face of the man who let the President die.
Others could see it in Henry’s face; he was never fully in the present anymore. Part of his mind was always at the Ford Theater, replaying the events of that night. Clara saw it in his eyes on their wedding day. She saw it in his eyes when each of their three children were born. She saw it in his eyes every day. The sadness welling up inside Henry. The sadness that was slowly turning into madness.
Henry resigned from the Army in 1870. He had become paranoid and was certain that others were plotting against him. Every shadow, every dark alley, hid a potential assassin. When he would close his eyes, he would see John Wilkes Booth’s face. Henry’s mood worsened, and he would often give in to fits of anger. His mental state put a great strain on his marriage; Clara wanted to leave him, but it would have been socially unacceptable. After all, they were wealthy, and Henry was a hero. Still, Clara could not continue living with the man she loved if it meant watching him go mad. Hoping that European doctors could be a better help than American ones, Henry and Clara, along with their young children, moved to Germany in 1882.
Clara Harris Rathbone slept in her room. It had been a little over a year since the move to Germany, and Henry wasn’t getting better. The man Clara had loved since she was a child, the only man she had ever loved, was losing his mind. His delusions and paranoia had convinced him that Clara was having multiple affairs. More to it, Henry was certain that Clara was planning to murder him. She knew this because Henry openly spoke of it. No longer could Clara find love in her husband’s eyes. When she looked at him, what looked back was the face of a man filled with rage. They no longer slept in the same room.
Still, it was two days before Christmas, and the children were excited for the holiday. Clara would do what she had been doing for the last year; she would put on a fake smile and pretend that everything was fine.
When her bedroom door creaked open, Clara woke up expecting it to be one of her children. Maybe little Clara Pauline, all of eleven, had suffered a nightmare. Or perhaps Gerald woke up thirsty.
Clara turned to see who had come to her room. Standing in the doorway was Henry, gun in hand.
Clara sat up. She was terrified, but she didn’t show it. Henry had made a decision, and he wanted her to know. He knew that she was going to leave him, and he knew she would take the children with her. Henry wouldn’t allow that. Clara could leave if she wanted, but she would not take his children.
Clara swore to Henry that she was not going to leave him. She swore to him that she still loved him. She begged him to put down the gun.
Henry pointed the gun at Clara and pulled the trigger, killing his wife with a single shot to the head. He then headed to the kitchen to get a knife. A gun, he surmised, would be too violent a death for his children. When he went to their rooms, Henry found his path blocked by the servants of the house. He yelled at them to move away. He demanded they listen. The groundskeeper moved forward and tried to pull the knife from Henry. Henry stepped back and stabbed himself in the chest. He stabbed again. And again.
Henry Rathbone sustained five knife wounds to the chest before the groundskeeper was able to pull the knife from his grasp.
Still, Henry Rathbone lived.
Henry Rathbone, who had fought for the North in the Civil War, who attempted to apprehend the assassin John Wilkes Booth, who slowly went mad because of an event he had no control over, spent the next twenty seven years in a mental institution in Germany. He had no visitors.
When he died in 1911, no one attended Henry’s funeral and few articles were written about his passing. He was interred next to Clara at the Hanover Cemetery in Germany. In 1952 the management of the Hanover Cemetery dug up the graves of Henry and Clara in order to dispose of their remains and make room for new graves. No one protested the decision.
We so often focus on the big events, on the moments where the world changed, that we lose focus of the people who have to live with those events forever. Henry and Clara Rathbone lived with the events of April 14, 1865 for the rest of their destroyed lives. In textbooks and movies, they are an afterthought. They are the forgotten victims, the injuries we don’t know.