Charles A. (Charles Augustus) Leale

Born in 1842, Charles Augustus Leale studied medicine in New York and entered service as a Union Army assistant surgeon during the Civil War. Only days into that role, he attended a performance at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, and became the first physician to examine President Abraham Lincoln after he was shot.

Leale quickly recognized that Lincoln’s wound was mortal and helped coordinate the desperate effort to keep the president breathing while he was carried across the street to the Petersen House. His account of that night later became one of the most important firsthand medical descriptions of the assassination and its aftermath.

After the war, he continued his career as a physician and lived until 1932. Though he practiced medicine for many years, he is most often remembered for his calm actions at age 23 during one of the most consequential emergencies in American history.