Lithograph, "Death-Bed of the Martyr President," circa 1930 (Reproduction of an 1865 Print)

Abraham Lincoln's assassination in April 1865 plunged Americans into deep mourning. Before the existence of newspaper photos and television, lithographs helped people to understand the tragic event. This print depicts a room of the Petersen House, where the president died, across the street from Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Not all of these people were actually in the room the morning Lincoln died.

This lithograph print shows a representation of the tragic event of Abraham Lincoln's death. It occurred in a room of the Petersen House, a boardinghouse across the street from Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., where the president had been shot. The group of people shown gathered at the president's deathbed includes Mrs. Lincoln, their two sons, the vice president, cabinet members, the Supreme Court chief justice, a senator, and the surgeon general. Not all of these people were actually in the room the morning Lincoln died. But sentiment about Lincoln sold well. So, the people were changed to appeal to popular taste.

A key printed below the image identified each person depicted at Lincoln's deathbed. Left to right: Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury (replaced Salmon P. Chase in 1864); James Speed, Attorney General; Andrew Johnson, Vice President; Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts; Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy; Robert Lincoln, oldest son; Joseph K. Barnes, Surgeon General; Mary Todd Lincoln, wife; Thomas (Tad) Lincoln, youngest son; Clara Harris (she and her fiancé, Henry Rathbone, had shared the President's box with the Lincolns at Ford's Theater the previous night).