Author Description

Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, perhaps our county’s most significant and pivotal crime spawned many mysteries. That evening at Ford’s Theatre flags were used to decorate the box where President Lincoln and guests including General Ulysses S. Grant would sit. These flags have been described as silent witnesses to the tragedy. The stories, legends, and mysteries of these flags are many. Did one trip the assassin, causing him land awkwardly on the stage below? Was one of the flags used to cushion the dying president’s head, staining the fabric with the martyr’s blood? What became of them after the assassination? Where are they today?