SWATCH OF LAURA KEENE'S COSTUME
This one I'd never heard of before.
After Booth fled Ford's Theatre, actress and star of the show Our American Cousin, Laura Keene, rushed to the President's Box where she discovered Dr.Charles Leale had laid Lincoln on the floor. She knelt beside the unconscious president and cradled his head in her lap.
Blood and brain matter oozed from the bullet wound onto her silken costume, staining its floral pattern.
Laura Keene cherished this relic, but it soon became the object of morbid curiosity. Strangers tried to cut swatches of it as gruesome keepsakes. Unfortunately, the dress has disappeared to history, but somehow, five of those swatches survived and have become legendary among collectors.
There is a picture of one of the swatches with the article and the whereabouts of it was unknown until it surfaced in the 1990s and the author acquired it.
According to a letter he got along with it from Keen's grandson, it was given to a family friend The bright floral pattern remains today just as bright as it had been 150 years ago when it was made by dressmaker Jamie Bullock. But the bloodstains have long-since faded to a pale rust-brown.
--Old Secesh
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