Dr. Charles Augustus Leale M.D. (March 26, 1842 – June 13, 1932) was a surgeon in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was the first doctor to be admitted into the presidential box at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865 after John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head with a Philadelphia Deringer pistol.
At the time, he was a 23 year old surgeon in charge of the Wounded Commissioned Officers' Ward at the United States Army General Hospital in Armory Square, Washington, DC.[1] Just two months earlier, he'd graduated in medicine from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York. He married a daughter of Yonkers, New York industrialist John Copcutt (1805-1895) at the historic John Copcutt Mansion.[2]
A few days before Lincoln's assassination, he took a brief break from his exhausting job and took a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue for some fresh air. He noticed a crowd of people heading towards the White House. He discovered Lincoln giving his last public address to the public and was intrigued by the President's facial features. Soon after, Leale learned out that Lincoln was going to Ford's Theatre to see the play Our American Cousin. "After completing his duties... Leale changed to civilian clothes and rushed to the Theater, not to see the play, but to study President Lincoln's face and facial expressions."[3] He asked for a seat in the orchestra so he would have an unhindered view, but had arrived late and was given a seat in the dress circle (near the front, same side and 40 ft away from the President's box).
There was an interruption in the play when Lincoln arrived: the orchestra played "Hail to the Chief," and the audience gave a standing ovation. Leale could see the full face of the President as he stood only a few aisles behind him.
The play was interrupted once more when John Wilkes Booth jumped down from the presidential box to the stage. Leale, seeing this, immediately rushed to the President's box. When he arrived, he found Lincoln slumped in his armchair supported by Mrs. Lincoln, who was weeping frantically. Leale received permission to take charge. Leale discovered Lincoln with his eyes open, paralyzed, and with a weak pulse. He laid the president down and initially thinking that he had been stabbed, searched for wounds in his body. Finding none, he further detected that his pupils were dilated and finally found "a large clot of blood about one inch below the superior curved line and an inch and a half to the left of the median line of the occipital bone in the back of the skull,"[4] that showed that he had been shot. After examining the wound, Leale then performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but realized that if the blood clot in the back of his head was removed, his patient was able to respire, and continued to release the clot periodically. His assessment of the dire condition of the President, "His wound is mortal; it is impossible for him to recover," was announced to the entire country.
Army surgeon Dr. Charles S. Taft and Dr. Albert F. A. King of Washington then joined Leale and conceded that President Lincoln would not survive a carriage ride back to the White House. Leale ordered that he be moved to the Petersen House across the street so that he could rest in comfort, instead of the floor at Ford's Theater. There, Lincoln was placed on a bed diagonally, for his 6'4" body was too long to fit lengthwise. Leale gave control over the President to the Lincolns' family physician, Robert K. Stone, and the commander of the Armory Square Hospital, D. W. Bliss. For the rest of the night, he held the President's hand explaining that "Sometimes, recognition and reason return just before departure. I held his hand firmly to let him know, in his blindness, that he had a friend."[5]
What was to be a short observation of the President's face turned into nine hours of close doctoring for Charles Leale, and his proper care was what allowed Lincoln to live until 7:22 A.M. the next morning.
Leale's account of Lincoln's death was not revealed until the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth in 1909. In that year Leale spoke on "Lincoln's Last Hour" to the New York commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.