What Happened to the Single Autopsy Photograph of John Wilkes Booth?
The administration, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, ordered that a single photograph be taken of Booth’s corpse, says Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography. On April 27, 1865, many experts agree, famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan took the picture.
It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown.
Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Ed note: On this day in 1865, Booth was cornered in a Virginia barn and shot. He died from his wound the next day. Was Mary Surratt a Lincoln conspirator?
(via smithsonianmag)
Source: smithsonianmag.com
