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Lincoln Borne by Loving Hands
Carl Bersch, 1865
On the night of April 14th, artist Carl Bersch sat on his balcony sketching a torchlight procession on 10th Street as crowds gathered to celebrate the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant.
As he sketched, Bersch noticed commotion on the street and stood witness as a group of men carried the wounded Abraham Lincoln from Ford's Theatre into the Petersen House where he died the next morning. Bersch captured the moment on his sketch pad and later painted it in oil onto his canvas. Lincoln Borne by Loving Hands is the only known artistic representation by an eyewitness to the scene outside of Ford's Theatre on the night the president was assassinated. The painting was donated to the federal government in 1977 by the artist's granddaughter, Gerda Fischer Vey. |