Lincoln Borne By Loving Hands

On the night of April 14, 1865, German-born artist Carl Bersch was sitting on his balcony on Tenth Street in Washington, D.C., across from Ford's Theatre. Bersch was sketching a torchlight parade celebrating General Robert E. Lee's surrender five days earlier. At that moment, a crowd carried the wounded President Abraham Lincoln out of Ford's Theatre and into the Petersen House, where he died at 7:22 a.m. the next morning. Bersch sketched the scene and later turned it into this painting, now on display at Ford's Theatre National Historic Site.