As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
It is unsettling for me, every time I read of death, for I feel the imprint of all those there and the dying in the words. So I type this unsettled, 12 hours after I finished reading Carl Sandberg's last words of Lincoln at War.
There were amazing men when Lincoln lay dying. His son Robert at his bedside. Sec of War Edwin Stanton who literally became the Government for those hours in securing the nation if this was another Confederate insurrection to ordering Mrs. Lincoln who was going nuts, "to get that woman out of this room and do not let her back in here".
To someone who is forgotten the better Angels of all of our souls in a very young man named Dr. Charles Leale, who happened to be at Ford's Theatre, for a glimpse of the man he admired and had voted for president, but when calls were made for, for a doctor, this young army surgeon appeared and was the first and last caregiver to Abraham Lincoln.
Sandberg's account is detailed and it is troubling. When Lincoln was shot in the back of the head, Boothe meant it to be an immediate and lethal shot. When Dr. Leale appeared, he had the President placed on the floor and thought he had been stabbed as Boothe had waved a dagger on stage before fleeing.
It was quite amazing in this 20 something young man as he honestly knew more about doctoring than most doctors do today. Lincoln was not breathing well and his pulse was slow, so the doctor respirated him, actually blowing into Lincoln's lungs through his open mouth. He stabilized Lincoln as best he could with others, and then began a search for the wound, and it was then he discovered the bullet wound to the back of the head. It was then Dr. Leale knew the President would not survive and pronounced it was a mortal wound and he would die.
The blood clots were forming in the wound hole, which is how the wound was discovered, and by this the brain was swelling in the pressure, so Dr. Leale cleaned the clots out and Lincoln's motor functions recovered in breathing and heart.
There was talk of taking him to the White House, but the Doctor stated Lincoln would not survive the trip, so it was decided to move him to a house across the street, and the Soldiers were ordered and they yelled at the crowd in the hall, "you sons of bitches get out of the way".
The streets were packed, and again a saber with an officer had to clear the way. It took a half hour to get Lincoln to a room, and Dr. Leale again cleaned the blood clots from the wound to assist the President. The first house was locked, but a man at the next house with a candle beckoned the now 6 Soldiers carrying the body with Dr. Leale cradling the head to the room where Lincoln would die.
The Truth of this is, Dr. Leale should not have cleaned out the wound channel, as President Lincoln would then have expired like President Richard Nixon from a stroke, where the brain swells and compresses the brain stem where heart and breathing are, and the person dies as peaceful as possible.
As it was, Lincoln labored for almost 7 hours in dying. A pillow or morphine would have been much kinder.
Yet in the coming of the Cabinet, Senators, and family, Dr. Leale was the kindest of all. He knew the pupils were unresponsive. Abraham Lincoln was blind and deaf as that part of his brain was destroyed. Yet Dr. Leale continued to hold the President's hand in the kindness that if Lincoln could feel and would be aware that he was not shut out from the world, and human contact was still there.
It was Dr. Leale who was the professional, who began summoning Lincoln's personal doctor, the Surgeon General and other members of the Cabinet. He was most remarkable.
Someone tried giving Lincoln brandy, against Dr. Leale's displeasure, which had the doctor clearing the airway, as he had with his fingers when he first treated Lincoln, That was not repeated, but the President labored on. By 1 AM the side of his face and eye were discolored by the bruising of the pistol shot.
He had been undressed and examined for further wounds and none were found. A probe was moved into the bullet channel, a bone was found, and then perhaps the bullet, and it was deemed to leave the bullet were it was.
As the night progressed Lincoln grew cold in his legs and feet, and hot water bottlers were brought. About an hour before his death, the breathing would cease, he would struggle, the pulse would fade and then start, and the bullet wound had stopped seeping. The body was shutting down, he had lost all the fluids he could and the wound was clotting in the interior.
Several times people checked their watches thinking Lincoln had died, but he once again started breathing as the death rattle was heard.
In the above, you can read the last moments of Lincoln. The body was carried back to the White House by Soldiers. Dr. Leale in the misty rain had wandered off into the streets and crowds now that his patient was dead. He looked at his white starched cuffs he was wearing and they were now soggy and stained with Lincoln's blood. He would keep the cuffs all his life in remembrance of Abraham Lincoln.
One can not be affected by the human suffering in all those involved in this. It simply is unsettling, but thank God Dr. Leale was the angel of our better natures there.
Nuff Said
agtG
