Lincoln Assassination 150th Anniversary, Part 2: Ulysses S. Grant's Escape From Death
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot 150 years ago today, in Washington D.C. but smaller dramas connected to that great tragedy unfolded in Philadelphia - including Ulysses S. Grant's escape from death that night.
John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators aimed not just to kill Lincoln but to decapitate the government by killing his vice-president, a cabinet member and General Grant.
Grant was supposed to be in Lincoln's box at Ford theater that night, but Mrs. Grant insisted they go visit their children in South Jersey instead.
So, they boarded a train to Philadelphia.
"When they got to Philadelphia, they would have to take a ferry across the Delaware River," says Brian Kelly, who wrote about the incident in his book Best Little Stories from the Civil War, "and that's when Grant received 3 telegrams in a row informing him that Lincoln had been shot."
"His life was saved," says Dan Rolph of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.
Rolph says many of the details come from their son Jesse's account, including the belief that they were followed onto the train by one of the assassins, who was stymied by a locked door.
"His mother got a letter, no address, no name, but the person said I was there and I'm glad things turned out the way they did, that I didn't do what I was supposed to do," Rolph says.
Dr. Rolph says Grant wished he had gone to the theater, believing he could have stopped Booth.
"There's the what if fact," Rolph says. "He could have either saved Lincoln or he could have been killed, so it's just curious how history would have transpired."