heard the sound of something falling out on the stage, followed by jumps crossing the floor.” It was Booth running down the narrow passage-way toward Withers, carrying a knife.

”‘Let me pass!’ Booth kept repeating. I was willing to let him do so, but he kept pushing and shoving me backward in such a hysterical manner that I couldn’t get out of his way.

“He made a rush at me. As he jumped forward, we collided and his waving dagger cut a gash through the left side of my coat.” Dumbfounded, made no move to defend himself. “Booth’s arms were waving, and, again, the dagger cut into my clothes - this time, on my shoulder, inflicting a slight flesh wound in my neck. The man was growing frantic at the delay. Every minute was precious to him.

”‘Damn you!’ he cried, and gave me a tremendous shove, knocking me sprawling to the floor.” Booth rushed for the stage door. “As I lay there on the floor, I wondered in a vague sort of way what I had done to Booth that he should want to murder me.” Upon examining himself later, Withers discovered “to my amazement a six-inch wound, the scar of which I carry with me to this day.”

When telling the story in later years, Withers would show his audience the old black dress coat he had worn that night. Pointing to the rip in the garment where Booth had slashed him, he would say, “To this day, I can feel the blade cutting through to my shoulder. I call it the ‘Booth barometer,’ because, every time the weather begins to fix itself for a northeast storm, that old wound starts to ache …. I can feel Booth’s hot breath in my face, and can see the pale countenance of the martyred president in the box.”

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered Ford’s Theatre closed immediately after Lincoln’s assassination. The members of Ford’s company found themselves out of work with more than two months remaining in the theater season. Withers came to their rescue.

He formed a partnership with Henry B. Phillips, a veteran character actor who had once been Ford’s business manager and stage manager and who, it should be noted, had written the words to “Honor to Our Soldiers” before Withers set it to music. The partners seized the moment, renting the vacant and recently over-hauled Washington Theater and hiring most of Ford’s staff. The box office opened on May 1, a little more than two weeks after the assassination. Not surprisingly, every night, Withers led the audience and cast in singing “Honor to Our Soldiers” with a featured soloist, his 14-year-old sister, Charlotte.

Attendance was disappointing for the first month, until Withers and Phillips came up with a plan to draw

in soldiers passing through town on their way home from war. They engaged the famous actress and spy, Pauline Cushman, to star in her most popular play, A Union Spy: or Pauline of the Cumberland. The soldiers soon made up the largest portion of the audience—enthusiastically singing “Honor to Our Soldiers” along with Cushman every night—but, after she left, business fell off. Theater patrons preferred the spectacular production of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Leonard Grover’s National Theater, advertised as the coolest playhouse in town. Withers and Phillips presented their own version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to no avail.

On the final night of the season, July 5, 1865, a “Grand Complimentary Benefit” was given for Withers and Phillips by an appreciative cast and many prominent citizens, including the mayor. It was their way of saluting the men who had saved the ensemble from being thrown out of work simply because they had been performing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Withers struck up “Honor to Our Soldiers” for the last time, and the music passed into oblivion.

A manuscript copy of the song in Withers’s handwriting remained in his family for many years. When Ford’s Theatre was restored in 1968, Withers’s great-niece, Mrs. John Cimarosa, donated it to the new Lincoln Museum in the theater’s basement. However, the manuscript was consigned to National Park Service vaults, where it remained unseen and unheard for the next 21 years. This past spring, however, on the 125th anniversary of Lincoln’s death, the sheet music went on exhibit in the newly refurbished Lincoln Museum.

When the Park Service planned a musical tribute to Lincoln on the anniversary of his death, Frank Hebblethwaite, the curator for Ford’s Theatre, suggested that “Honor to Our Soldiers” be included. A capacity crowd, some dressed in period costume, came to the theater on April 16 to hear the 13-piece Federal City Silver Cornet Band perform a program of Civil War music. When actors portraying the Lincolns and their theater party arrived (and took their seats in a box across from the one Lincoln had in fact occupied), the band struck up “Hail to the Chief,” just as Withers had the night of April 14, 1865.

Then, a few minutes later, the band finally played “Honor to Our Soldiers” for “Lincoln” for the first time, and the bearded man in the flag-draped box smiled and bowed to the bandleader in appreciation. William Withers would have been proud.