Clara
Harris,
the daughter of the New York senator, Ira
Harris, was born in 1845. When her mother died her father remarried
the mother of Major Henry Rathbone.
On 14th April, 1865, Mary Lincoln, the
wife of Abraham Lincoln, invited Clara
and Henry Rathbone, to the Ford Theatre
to see the play Our American Cousin.
John Parker, a constable in the Washington
Metropolitan Police Force, was detailed to sit on the chair outside
the presidential box. During the third act Parker left to get a drink.
Soon afterwards, John Wilkes Booth, entered
Lincoln's box and shot the president in the back of the head. Henry
Rathbone grabbed Booth but he was slashed with a hunting knife.
Despite a bad wound in his left arm, Rathbone continued to struggle
with Booth and as a result he was unable to jump cleanly from the
State Box. Booth then jumped to the stage eleven feet below at an
awkward angle and as a result fractured his ankle. However, he was
able to hobble out and get on his horse and escape.
In 1867 Clara married Henry Rathbone
and over the next few years the couple had three children. When Grover
Cleveland became president he appointed Rathbone as his consul
to Germany.
Rathbone's behaviour became more erratic and he appeared to become
jealous of his wife's attentions to the children. On 23rd December,
1883, Rathbone murdered Clara and attempted to commit suicide. He
survived and after being found guilty of murder was committed to an
asylum for the criminally insane. Henry
Rathbone died in the asylum in 1911.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
