presidents lived in group homes. this house is an important part of and development -- antebellum and the civil war history. aside from this being the lincoln death house, this is a great museum of immigrant culture in washington and boardinghouse life in washington. i have been coming here for years, making pilgrimages. i started coming here in 1986 when i joined to the reagan administration and i have been coming here for years. and i am very excited that there is going to be a big commemoration for abraham lincoln because in past years i am usually here alone. no one comes to the house on the night of the assassination. no one comes to honor lincoln. i might find one or two people when i sit on the steps of the petersen house and contemplate what happened. couple of years ago, the parks service almost arrested me sitting on the steps because the guard accused me of being a homeless loiterer, and i tried to convince them that i had written books and set on the the -- served on the council of advisors. the national park service police questioned me and said, how do i know that you are not a homeless man who will damage the house? one of them came to his senses and said enjoy your evening. i have had quite a time coming to his house which has been abandoned for the public for a long time with this year will be different. lincoln arrived at the theater at about 8:30 p.m. the play was underway. he was late. no one at the petersen house noticed lincoln arrived. people were going to the bars and taverns to celebrate the victory of the war. it was a quiet night on the street. everyone was inside the theater. the play was underway so the carriage pulled up and stopped in front of the big gaslamp and lincoln went inside. and then around 10:00, 10:15 p.m., the doors to ford's theater burst open. over 1000 people came rushing out the doors screaming. at first some people thought the theater was on fire. then they heard the shots. the president was shot. the president has been killed. burn the theater. find the assassin. that got the attention of the residents of the boardinghouse. the first person who noticed what happened was george francis who lived on the first floor. he came out and walked into the street and he could only get half way across and people were screaming that the president was dead. he walked right up to the president's body as it was being carried across the street. another border, henry, heard the noise, too. he saw the commotion, and he heard the shouts that lincoln had been shot. he could not get to ford's theater. there were so many people were outside in the street. so he retreated, came back to the house, and went up the stairs. he stood at the top of the staircase. he was up there watching as the soldiers pounded on the door of the house next door. they could not get in. he saw there was lincoln in the middle of the street being carried by soldiers and they did not know where to take the president. so he went inside, got a candle, stood at the top of the staircase, and shouted, bring him in here. the doctor heard that and shouted to the officers and soldiers, take the president to that house. so they crossed the street and came up the stairs. and so, as lincoln was being carried up the staircase, he was still alive, unconscious. and the sight of abraham lincoln here at the top of the staircase was the last time the american people saw him alive. the doctor came in this door. and he told saffron, take us to your best room. now, the hallway is narrow. it was already filled with the lincoln entourage, the doctors the soldiers. there was a narrow staircase on the right. he knew the best room was the front parlor, occupied by george and hilda francis, so he reached for the door here. it was locked. he went down to the second door here. this door was locked. hilda francis was inside frantically getting dressed. she had seen the president being brought to the house through the front windows, so she was already dressed for bed, so she wanted to put on clothes. she did not unlock this story either. all that was left was this little room at the back of the hallway which was occupied by a civil war soldier. but he was out for the evening. he led them to the back room here. you can see how narrow the hallway is. there is barely enough room for soldiers to stand on each side of lincoln and carry him down the hallway. they took him into this room and laid him on a spindle bed in the corner. lincoln did not even fit on the bed. he was too tall. the doctor ordered the soldiers to break off the foot of the bed but it would not come off because it is integral to the construction of the bed. the bed would have collapsed. they had no choice but to lay abraham lincoln diagonally. at that point, too many people were in the room. it was hot. the doctor ordered people out. he needed to examine lincoln. he knew that he had been shot in the head but he did not know if he had other wounds. once the doctors were alone, they stripped lincoln naked and examined him on the bed. as the doctors began the examination, they observed he had no other wounds. they thought he might have been stepped because almost everyone saw john wilkes booth flash the dagger on stage after he leaked from the box. he had the single shot behind the left ear. as lincoln was lying on the bed mary lincoln and her entourage , came to the front door of the petersen house and went to the front parlor. we will go that way and see what mary lincoln did. when lincoln was first brought in this house, he had no bodyguards. the army was not here yet. and so strangers came into the house and observed lincoln and lingered in the hallways. it was not until 15 or 20 minutes later that lincoln was under the full protection of the army. the soldiers and officers cleared everyone out that was not known to them. mary lincoln was frantic by then. she came through the house screaming "where is my husband? why didn't he shoot me? " mary lincoln entered this front parlor. and she sat on a horsehair sofa in this room. this was the room of the couple that would evacuate. mary lincoln would spend much of the night of april 14 and the early morning hours of april 15 in this room. she did not spend the night at her husband's side, she was with close friends. she was very upset. she could not stand to see her husband wounded and unconscious . so much of her time was here crying, sobbing. with clara harris, one of her theater guests came in. mary lincoln saw harris' dress covered in blood and she began screaming. "my husband's blood or co-." it was the blood of major rathbone. much of his blood was on his fiancee's dress. mary lincoln was wrong. it was major rathbone's blood. major rathbone came here and he leaned against the wall in the hallway and soon he collapsed and fainted. he was taken home. this is where mary lincoln spent much of the night. secretary of war stanton and secretary wells arrived shortly arrived at the peter petersen house shortly after lincoln was taken here. they had been at the home of secretary of state stewart. they had heard that he had been stabbed to death. he survived the wounds. they heard that lincoln was shot so they rushed over here. the carriage could not push through the crowd. the two most powerful members of the cabinet commanding the entire army and navy had to disembark from the carriage and push their way through to come into the house. stanton came through this room and into the back parlor here which was the bedroom. he decided he could not operate here in front of the first lady. stanton came into the back parlor which was the francis i' bedroom. it was here on a table in the center of this room that the secretary of war began the manhunt for john wilkes booth. witnesses from fort's theater were brought here. stanton questioned them. the union army soldier who knew shorthand sat at this table was with stanton and took the first testimony of witnesses who saw john wilkes booth murder the president. stanton spent the night here organizing the manhunt for john wilkes booth. throughout the night, he sent messengers to the telegraph office and from that office messages were brought back here. this room became the command post for the army of the united states under the secretary of war while lincoln was dying in the back room. stanton was one of lincoln's favorites, he had an iron will. lincoln called him his mars, his god of war. even though they did not get along well before the war, stanton wants humiliated lincoln at a trial lincoln knew that he , was his right hand. he said stanton was the rocky shore on which the waves of rebellion crashed and were broken. he was devastated but threw himself into the work. he was furious fearsome barking , commands, sending orders to hunt for john wilkes booth on trains, boats. orders went out everywhere. catch the assassin, find him. the manhunt which took 12 days began in this room before lincoln even died. once word got out that lincoln was here this became the , magnetic center of attraction for important people in washington. more than 100 people make pilgrimages during the night. some came because they wanted to help. they knew that stanton would need them. some were friends of mary lincoln and wanted to comfort them. others were journalists that were not allowed to enter the house. while this was happening thousands of people gathered in front of the house. some try to peek through the windows or hoist others up so they could look in but the , blinds were closed. throughout the night with regularity official visitors came to the front door of the petersen house and were admitted to see the dying president. more than a dozen doctors came. they knew they could not help lincoln because he was shot through the brain. some came so they could say they saw the great lincoln the night he was assassinated. some came so that they could tell their grandchildren decades later, i was there the night that lincoln died. more people were here than needed to be here. it was certainly appropriate that members of the cabinet come but there were too many people in this little house. mary lincoln would sometimes come out the front door of the parlor and venture to the back. her female friends escorted her down this hallway. by then, the bed had been pulled away from the wall so the doctors could treat lincoln and observe him. several times during the night mary lincoln sat on the chair right here. next to the bed. she really could not control herself. at one point when it sounded like lincoln was gasping and about to die she let out a , terrific shriek that so unnerved secretary of war sta nton that he said to take her from the room and do not let her back in. she did not have a lot of fans in washington but it was not right to treat her that way in the presence of her dying husband. she only made a few trips back here that night. she was not present when the president died. lincoln lingered throughout the night. many men would have died within minutes they shut the way he was, but he rallied. and daylight came. around 6:00 in the morning, the secretary of the navy decided to go for a walk. he had decided that some high official should be at lincoln's side throughout the night in the morning hours. and he really left it to the secretary of war. to question witnesses, to begin the manhunt, begin the investigation to see if other cabinet members were marked for death. and wells was here that night more as a mourner and witness to lincoln, rather than a person who was active in the investigation and the activities that night. wells found it hot and oppressive that morning. he walked outside. a light rain had begun. he was astonished to find several thousand people keeping vigil in the streets outside. many of them were black. either freemen who had never been slaves, or freed slaves. men and women, gathering in silence. and wells was touched by that. the street was silent. by that point, there was no shouting, no screaming. a hushed crowd stood outside. they asked wells, how is the president? what is to happen? he could not answer them. he came back and buy 6:30 in the morning it was obvious that , lincoln was not going to last much longer. the breathing became labored less frequent. so the doctors took their pocket watches out because they wanted to mark the moment abraham lincoln died. and that came at 7:22 a.m. -- that is when lincoln's heart made its last beat. the doctors recorded the time. and one of them said, he is dead. he is gone. witnesses say no one spoke for a few minutes. and then the secretary of war said to the reverend, lincoln's minister, will you speak? he said a prayer for lincoln. and then edward stanton pronounced words that were immortal and remembered wrong for the last 150 years. the secretary of war stood in this room and looked at abraham lincoln's body and said, now he belongs to the angels. we remember today as, now he belongs to the ages. but extensive research has revealed that it is best remembered by the stenographer whose pencil broke -- his only lead pencil broke as who's -- he was writing down what was said in this room. but he remembers that stanton said angels. it is characteristic of his temperament and how he viewed his faith, the world. he wouldn't have said something as profound as, now he belongs to the ages. i have no doubt that stanton said now he belongs to the angels. people filtered out of the room one by one. stanton remained here alone with the president. and at that point, he took a small scissors or a razor and he approached lincoln's body. and he cut off a lock of lincoln's hair. not for himself, but for mary jane, the wife of the secretary of the navy. one of mary lincoln's few close friends in washington. and he sealed it in an envelope, wrote her name on it, and later, she framed the lock of hair with dried flowers that adorned lincoln's coffin at the white house funeral. so that was really the first blood relic taken from abraham lincoln in this room by secretary stanton. then, it was time to bring lincoln home to the white house. so the secretary of war sent for what was needed to convey -- take the dead body of a president to the white house. soldiers returned from a military shop a few blocks away carrying a rectangular, plain hide box. a rifle crate with a screwtop lid. and so, when those soldiers rounded the corner and came up 10th street with that box, the crowd moaned because they knew intellectually, that the president had died. they saw the cabinet members leaving. they knew. but the sight of that coffin was the real reputation of their hopes that lincoln could live. so that coffin was taken down this hallway and laid on the floor right here. and before lincoln's body was placed in a coffin, soldiers took a 35-star flag, possibly 36-star flag, and wrapped lincoln's naked body in the colors of the union. if they follow tradition, the stars would have been wrapped over lincoln's face. lincoln had ordered that the flag keep its full complement of stars in the civil war to symbolize that the union was permanent. and lincoln would not have minded being placed in that rough pine box. so stanton stood here as the soldiers took a screwdriver and screwed the lid on that box. there was no sound. you could literally hear the squeaking sound of the screws tightening and the lid being placed on. and the president was carried out this room, through that hall to the front door, down that curving staircase where a simple carriage awaited him at a military escort was there. it was not fancy. there was no bands, no national colors, regimental flags. the officers were all there. the officers were all bareheaded and they escorted lincoln home to the white house. that is not the end of the story of this house, the petersen house. once all the government officials had left, was the -- once the president's body was gone, once stanton left the , house was open. no one was here. it was no longer under guard. anyone could come into this house, and anyone who lived in this house could do whatever they wanted in this room. william petersen was furious that muddy boot tracks had soiled his carpets. and when he came into this room and he saw bloody sheets, bloody towels, he got so angry he opened one of these windows and threw a lot of that material out of the window into the yard behind. two brothers who lived in the house, one was a cameraman, a photographer, the other one a painter. and they decided to bring up a bulky camera and photograph the deathbed. it still had many bloody sheets on it. so, they pushed the bed back into the corner to get a better photograph of the room. they set up the camera and pointed the lens towards that end towards this hallway. the opened the front door so the morning light streamed down this hallway. and they took one or two exposures of abraham lincoln's deathbed, which were lost for a almost 100 years. i consider that photograph to be the most vivid and shocking historical photo in american history. no one knows why they did it. they never tried to commercialize it. they didn't try to make multiple copies, sell them commercially but it is an incredible and touching relic of the mayhem of what happened in this room that night. one interesting thing, even though a photograph was taken in this room shortly after lincoln's body was taken out, or for some reason, we haven't discovered any period photographs from 1865 taken of the petersen house after the assassination. matthew brady went inside ford's theater and took a number of photographs. people took photographs of the stable where booth kept his horses. they photographed other places associated with the assassination, but for some reason, photographers the net -- did not set up their cameras outside of the petersen house and take photos. it is a bit of a historical mystery. i have looked for decades to find period photographs taken of the petersen house, but haven't found any. no one i know has found that he. -- has found any. just one of the lingering mysteries of the assassination. interestingly, private william clark came back the next day the soldier who lived in this room. he was out all night celebrating the union victory. and that night, he slept in the very bed in which abraham lincoln died. he wrote a letter to relatives say, well, i am sleeping in the bed where the president died. the same cover that covered his body now covers me. strangers come, they bed to see the room. they offer money to see it. if you don't watch them, they try to steal things. they try to steal little bits of cloth, something from the room. so souvenir hunters were trying to raid this room within hours of the president's death. some of the pillowcases survived and are in the collection of the park service at ford's theatre. and the sheets were all divided up into little swatches and all over the country in the museums and private collections, one can find little swatches of the sheets that were on abraham lincoln's bed. many of them stained with his blood. this room looked very much like it did the night abraham lincoln was taken here and died the next morning. the carpeting is identical, the wallpaper is identical. in fact, a number of artists came to this room and sketched and described it. we also know from the photographs taken by the brothers what this part of the room looked like. and the bed, of course, is no longer here. that is part of a sad story about the petersen family. in 1871, william petersen was found unconscious on the grounds of the smithsonian institution the oldcastle. he had poisoned himself. the police revived him, and he confessed that he had been taking laudanum often for several years. in 1871 in the front parlor of this house, william petersen's body was laid out. four months after he died, his wife died. and a died and her body was brought to this house and laid out in this house. only six years after abraham lincoln died in their house, both petersens were dead. and both were laid out in this very house. interesting footnote, after an na's death, and auction company was brought in to sell the contents. the auction took place on the site. the two most expensive things at the auction where the sofa in the front room where mary lincoln spent most of the night. that went for $15. in the bed upon which abraham lincoln died sold for $50. which was eight or 10 times what it should have cost as simply a bed. so an early historian to be near -- and souvenir hunter recognized the value of the materials in this house and bought a number of things, including the deathbed and some of the other relics from this back room. the bed was later purchased by a chicago millionaire, charles guenther, for $100,000. it is now at the old chicago historical society. the petersen house had an interesting history after lincoln died. it was not immediately seized upon as an important national monument. the petersens moved back in after a few days. it became a boarding house again. then, a visionary historian, who loved abraham lincoln and was obsessed with honoring lincoln occupied this house. and he created a lincoln museum in the basement and in these rooms. and for a small price, visitors from all over the country could come to the house where lincoln died, which it was known as properly, and come to this room. over decades, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of americans came and visited this room when it was a privately operated museum. it was not until decades later that the national park service took custody of the petersen house and restored it to its original appearance, as it looked on the night abraham lincoln was assassinated. the petersen house is one of my favorite historical sites in washington. partly because it is not gigantic in brand like abraham lincoln's white house. it is not huge like ford's theater. what i like about the petersen house is the intimacy. when i was working on my books about the lincoln assassination, i would often come to the petersen house at hours when i knew there would be very few visitors. i have stood in this room many times by myself and imagined what it must've been like to stand here when abraham lincoln was brought down the hallway and laid on the bed in this room. and the emotion and sadness of that night and morning really comes alive to me when i am in this room. in fact, when i wrote about lincoln coming to the petersen house and dying in this room, i wrote some of my notes while i stood in this room with a notebook and imagined what it must've been like to been here -- to have been here and stand them -- stood in this spot when abraham lincoln was lying on a bed in this room and died the next morning. i really feel lincoln's presents in this house and room. >> next on american history tv a look at the role of the supreme court during reconstruction. university of maryland history professor michael ross lectures on the tensions between president andrew johnson and the republican-dominated congress. southern legislatures, and how hate groups used the 14th amendment to promote whites of premise -- white supremacy. it was in the supreme court chamber and he is introduced by supreme court justice anthony kennedy. this is just under one hour. [applause] >> thank you very >> thank you for coming. my bookmarks -- mira march not trespass on those of the distinguished speaker -- my remarks will not trespass on the distinguished speaker. first, to note that we should all feel privileged to be here today. this is the first in a series of lectures that have been renamed. these are now called the leon silverman supreme court lectures. leon was wonderful. he was the president of the supreme court historical society. i think in 1991 until 2002. he was a fascinating man. he used to