{"id":14689,"date":"2021-07-22T19:47:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T23:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/?p=14689"},"modified":"2021-07-23T15:20:27","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T19:20:27","slug":"remembering-the-bridgeport-doctor-that-buried-john-wilkes-booth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/bibliography\/remembering-the-bridgeport-doctor-that-buried-john-wilkes-booth\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the Doctor that Buried John Wilkes Booth"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Carolyn Ivanoff<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

Dr. George Loring Porter in old age. (Library of Congress)<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1936 the City of Bridgeport celebrated its Centennial.\u00a0 As a lasting memento of that celebration, Elsie Nicholas Dannenberg authored The Story of Bridgeport<\/em>.\u00a0 According to the Centennial Committee the volume was to \u201cperpetuate in a fitting manner the history of the founding, growth, and prosperity of our city\u2026(and) to entertain and inform its readers<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 In the volume on the page devoted to Lincoln and Civil War, Dannenberg made a brief, intriguing reference to a then well-known Bridgeport physician, \u201cIncidentally, Dr. George Loring Porter of Bridgeport was the only commissioned officer present at the disposal of the body of Booth<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

George Loring Porter was born in Concord N. H. in 1838.\u00a0 With Civil War raging, he graduated from Jefferson Medical College in March 1862, he passed the Army Medical Examination and entered the Medical Service of the U.S. Army.\u00a0 In May 1862 the young surgeon was treating the wounded when the Union Army retreated down the Shenandoah Valley.\u00a0 Dr. Porter volunteered to stay behind with the wounded.\u00a0 He was captured by Col. Turner Ashby.\u00a0 \u00a0General Stonewall Jackson placed him in charge of wounded Union prisoners and requested he care for Confederate wounded as well.\u00a0 Dr. Porter\u2019s hospital was the white columned Presbyterian church in Strasburg, Virginia where the sick and wounded were put into the pews.\u00a0 Fifty-three years later the Bridgeport, Connecticut physician was invited by the parishioners to return to the hospital church.\u00a0 From the pulpit he slept in as a young assistant-surgeon, he thanked the parishioners for the use of their beloved church, \u201cfor healing and saving men\u2019s bodies.\u201d\u00a0 Porter and the Union prisoners were freed when the Confederates withdrew from Strasburg when the Union army returned.\u00a0 After his release, Dr. Porter was sent to the General Hospital in Winchester, Virginia.\u00a0 He served with Best\u2019s Battery in the Battles of Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, South Mountain and Antietam, and tended wounded men from these battles at hospitals in Frederick, Maryland.<\/p>\n

On November 20, 1862, Dr. Porter married 20 year old Mary Catherine Chaffee in Grace Church in Providence.\u00a0 He immediately received orders to the Army of the Potomac, assigned as Assistant Surgeon of the 5th<\/sup> U.S. Cavalry.\u00a0 His bride did not see him again until more than a year later.\u00a0 For the next two years, Dr. Porter would care for the sick and wounded \u201cwith conspicuous gallantry<\/em>\u201d on the battlefields of the Civil War.\u00a0 His Captain J. W. Mason wrote, \u201cDuring that time the regiment was engaged in many battles losing heavily in killed and wounded.\u00a0 Asst. Surgeon Porter\u2019s faithfulness to the wounded and sick is gratefully remembered by officers and men; and his particular gallantry during the battles of Upperville, Aldie, Va., and Gettysburg, Pa., and Williamsport and Funktown, Md., and Brandy Station, Va., when he took the dead and wounded almost from the hands of the enemy, entitles him to the greatest praise and consideration.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 On his 26th<\/sup> birthday, after two years gallantly caring for the wounded on the terrible battlefields of the war, he was assigned as Medical Officer at the Washington Arsenal.\u00a0 While the bloody battle of the Wilderness was fought and communications were cut, Dr. Porter delayed his assignment for almost two weeks as he performed surgeries and tended to casualties.\u00a0 When he finally left for Washington, he took charge of the wounded going by the same route on the hospital ship he travelled on.<\/p>\n

Dr. Porter had been Assistant Surgeon at the Washington Arsenal for almost a year when John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln at Ford\u2019s Theater on April 14, 1865.\u00a0 The President died the next morning while a manhunt raged for Booth and the other conspirators.\u00a0 Dr. Porter and his wife and their six-month old daughter were quartered in a small house on the banks of the Potomac on the Arsenal Grounds.\u00a0 On the afternoon of April 27th<\/sup> Dr. and Mrs. Porter went for a row on the Potomac.\u00a0 When they returned home in the late afternoon they were confronted by their alarmed nanny, a freed slave who was devoted to the family and remained with the Porters for years in Washington, Providence, and Bridgeport.\u00a0 The frightened woman told the Doctor some soldiers had rowed up to the wharf with a long bundle wrapped in a blanket and thrown it down on the boat house floor.\u00a0 A sentry ordered her to take the baby away at once.\u00a0 She told the incredulous Porters she thought it was the body of John Wilkes Booth.\u00a0 The manhunt for Booth had ended on April 26.\u00a0 Federal troops cornered John Wilkes Booth hiding in the Garrett barn with accomplice David Herold. Herold surrendered to the soldiers, but Booth was shot after the barn was set ablaze. A paralyzed Booth died of his wound a few hours later.\u00a0 His body was taken to Washington where an autopsy was performed.\u00a0 Booth was sewn into a blanket and taken to the U.S. Arsenal at Anacostia, Maryland the next day. \u00a0Doctor Porter received secret verbal orders from the Post Commander to see to the disposal of the body. The doctor chose a military storekeeper and four enlisted men to bury Booth in an unmarked grave in the penitentiary of the arsenal.\u00a0 He was the only commissioned officer on the scene.\u00a0 It was not until 1911 that Dr. Porter, the only living witness of Booth\u2019s clandestine burial, revealed the facts.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Above: 1865 Washington, D.C. Gen. John F. Hartranft and staff, responsible for securing the conspirators at the Arsenal. Left to right: Capt. R.A. Watts, Lt. Col. George W. Frederick, Lt. Col. William H.H. McCall, Lt. D.H. Geissinger, Gen. Hartranft, Asst. Surg. George L. Porter, Col. L.A. Dodd, Capt. Christian Rath. (Library of Congress)<\/p><\/div>\n

On Sunday April 30, 1865, Dr. Porter was ordered to special duty at the Penitentiary reporting to General Hartranft. \u00a0He was ordered by Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton to become the Surgeon-in-Charge of the Lincoln Conspirators.\u00a0 Secretary of War Stanton ordered all the conspirators, except for Mary Surrat, in deference to her age and female sex, stiff braced with iron bars locked between their ankles and arms and \u201cbagged\u201d with padded canvas head coverings to prevent any form of communication.\u00a0 Dr. Porter, the Surgeon in Charge, was ordered to make three examinations a day of the prisoners and report to General Hartranft.\u00a0 The doctor deemed the hoods were physically and psychologically damaging.\u00a0 The prisoners\u2019 faces swelled, circulation was reduced, and their skin was raw and chaffed.\u00a0 Their conditions were torturous.\u00a0 Dr. Porter, through proper channels, protested these conditions.\u00a0 Secretary of War Stanton delayed but finally gave in to Porter\u2019s demands.\u00a0 The conspirators went to trial and four of the conspirators, Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne, David Herold and George Atzerodt were convicted and given the death sentence.\u00a0 On July 7 they were hanged in the prison yard and Dr. Porter along with Doctors Otis and Woodward pronounced them dead after making examinations.\u00a0 The corpses were placed in pine boxes and interred in graves dug next to the gallows in the prison yard. Ten days later, Dr. Porter received orders to transport conspirators Dr. Mudd, Arnold, and O\u2019Laughlin to federal imprisonment at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas.<\/p>\n

In August 1865, Dr. Porter was breveted to the rank of Major in the United States Army for meritorious service.\u00a0 In 1867 Dr. Porter\u2019s happy existence with his growing family at the Washington Arsenal was shattered when he received orders to report to the Commanding General and the Medical Director, Department of the Dakota, for reassignment.\u00a0 Dr. Porter sent his wife and sons to her parents in Providence and crossed the nation to Omaha following the same trail Lewis and Clark blazed sixty-two years before.\u00a0 In Omaha he embarked by steamer to Montana.\u00a0 He walked overland the last part of the trip. \u00a0Eight years before the Battle of Little Big Horn, the Doctor\u2019s diaries were full of incidents of hostile Indians and hardship.\u00a0 There was a pleasant social life at the forts, but primitive conditions, disease, and difficulties made life hard.\u00a0 He tended to the sick and performed his duty.\u00a0 His wife made plans to join him with the boys at Camp Cooke but fearing for their health and safety Dr. Porter resigned his commission in the summer of 1868.\u00a0 He travelled overland for forty-two days to reach the Pacific to travel home by ship crossing the isthmus of Panama.\u00a0 On the advice of another prominent Civil War Surgeon, Dr. Robert Hubbard, he chose Bridgeport, Connecticut as a good place to bring up his family and begin his new life of a civilian doctor and surgeon.<\/p>\n

Throughout his long career in Bridgeport, Dr. Porter was honored as a beloved physician and surgeon, a popular man with a great sense of humor.\u00a0 He was untiring in his efforts to promote the welfare of his city and state.\u00a0 He was one of the founders of Bridgeport Hospital and worked with success to raise Connecticut\u2019s educational requirements for doctors.\u00a0 He loved fishing and gardening, he was a 33rd<\/sup> Degree Mason, a member of the Baptist Church an officer in the Connecticut National Guard, Chairman of the Fairfield County Pension Board, a Visitor to the Connecticut State Asylum for the Insane, a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Loyal Legion; he was in demand for expert legal testimony.\u00a0 He was a president of the Fairfield County Medical Society and president of the Connecticut Medical Society.\u00a0 He was a writer and an historian and a patriotic American.\u00a0 In 1911 he wrote of his experiences with the burial of Booth and the Lincoln Conspirators.\u00a0 As the last living witness, he wanted to set the record straight.\u00a0 His modest home on State Street was a treasure trove of letters from Lincoln, General Grant, actress Laura Keane and messages from Indian Chiefs.\u00a0 He revered George Washington as a soldier, patriot, and Father of the Country.\u00a0 He had more than 500 portraits of Washington.\u00a0 His marriage to Catherine Maria Chaffee in 1862 was a happy one that lasted more than fifty years until she died in 1915.\u00a0 They were blessed with twelve children, seven daughters and five sons.\u00a0 In old age he spent winters in Florida with friends and relatives.\u00a0 One obituary noted that he wore moccasins as it became increasingly difficult for him to be comfortable.\u00a0 He never lost his zest for life, the sun during the day, or the stars at night.\u00a0 He loved the water, and the silvery moon, and people.\u00a0 His daughter-in-law remembered that during his last year he carried a slip of paper in his pocket on which he had written, \u201cI shall grow old but never lose life\u2019s zest, because the road\u2019s last turn will be the best<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 On February 24th<\/sup>, 1919, when he was almost 81 years old, his sister and a friend came to visit him in his room in Stuart, Florida.\u00a0 He rose from his chair to welcome them and resumed his seat next to his sister who put her arms around him.\u00a0 He rested against her and fell asleep.\u00a0 His life had been long and full, and he had made the \u201croad\u2019s last turn.\u201d\u00a0 A beautiful end to a noble and notable life.<\/p>\n

BIBLIOGRAPHY<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer, Bridgeport, CT, May 19, 1911, Dr. Porter\u2019s Story Brings Many Replies<\/em><\/p>\n

Dannenberg, Elsie, Nicholas, The Story of Bridgeport 1836-1936<\/em>, Illustrations by Jess Benton, Published by the Bridgeport Centennial, Inc.<\/p>\n

The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs<\/p>\n

The Miami Herald, Sunday, July 10, 1988, Stuart Hosted Dose of Abe Lincoln-era History<\/em><\/p>\n

Porter, George Loring, The Tragedy of the Nation<\/em>, Scholar Select, reprint<\/p>\n

Porter, Mary, Walker, The Surgeon in Charge<\/em>, Classic Reprint Series, Forgotten Books, 2018<\/p>\n

Proceedings of the Connecticut State Medical Society, 1920, Dr. George Loring Porter Obituary<\/em> by Samuel M. Garlick, M.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carolyn Ivanoff In 1936 the City of Bridgeport celebrated its Centennial.\u00a0 As a lasting memento of that celebration, Elsie Nicholas Dannenberg authored The Story of Bridgeport.\u00a0 According to the Centennial Committee the volume was to \u201cperpetuate in a fitting manner the history of the founding, growth, and prosperity of our city\u2026(and) to entertain and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,255,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bibliography","category-civil-war","category-heroes-and-villains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14689"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14709,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14689\/revisions\/14709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bportlibrary.org\/hc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}