"That woman"

Clara Harris Rathbone

This isn't marketing, but I do love a good backstory. 

The lives of three women were slowly but irrevocably being changed in the days leading up to Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865. 

Julia Grant, wife of Ulysses, had developed an active dislike for Mary Todd Lincoln through the years of the Civil War. Always a controversial and volatile personality, Mrs. Lincoln believed Mrs. Grant had shown her up one night when their husbands were discussing what should be done to Jefferson Davis if captured, and in a rather catty maneuver Mrs. Lincoln said, "Let Mrs. Grant answer this important question." The sarcasm was not lost on Mrs. Grant, who smoothly replied that any such decision should be left up to the wisdom and prudence of the President. Her witty response drew laughter and approval from the men, but Mary Todd Lincoln hated any woman who—real or perceived—played up to her husband. She snubbed Mrs. Grant whenever possible, to the point where Mrs. Grant said she would never again pass another evening with "that woman." No surprise, when the Grants were invited to join the Lincolns at Ford's Theater, they took a pass. (The breach was so acrimonious that Mrs. Lincoln snubbed Julia Grant's condolences even after the assassination).

Clara Harris (pictured) was a young socialite, daughter of judge and senator Ira Harris, who'd become friends with Mrs. Lincoln. As Washington celebrated the end of war, she stood by a window with the First Lady watching the fireworks, noting the President was resting on a sofa, exhausted but quietly elated that the war was finally ended. The Lincolns felt an affection for Clara and her fiance, Henry Rathbone. At the last minute Clara and Henry were invited to Ford's with the Lincolns, and she wore a special white satin dress for the occasion. (It would later be tied to many ghost stories about Lincoln's death). 

Mary Surratt ran a modest boarding house on H Street. Her son John was a Confederate spy and courier who became Booth's righthand man, and invited the conspirators to his mother's boarding house, later described by President Johnson as the "nest" that nurtured the assassins. It's unlikely Mrs. Surratt was committed to Lincoln's death; she'd been struggling to overcome debt ever since the death of her husband, and what living she could eke out from taking lodgers was still not enough.

On April 11, Lincoln delivered an impromptu speech from the White House and John Wilkes Booth stood in the crowd, seething with rage as he heard the President's words, especially when advocating voting rights for newly freed African Americans. "That's the last speech he'll ever make," Booth declared. From that point on, earlier plans to kidnap Lincoln turned to assassination, and when Booth went to collect his mail at Ford's the morning of April 14, he learned the President and First Lady would be attending the evening's performance.