Lincoln's Bloodstained Gloves (assassination night)

A concession to custom

Lincoln is said to have disliked wearing gloves. But a politician of his standing was expected to have them, and he made the concession by carrying at least two pairs with him at all times. On the evening of April 14, 1865, he wore a pair of white leather gloves to Ford's Theatre.

The Lincolns arrived at about 8:30 p.m. with Major Henry R. Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris. The orchestra leader, William Withers, stopped the play already in progress and struck up "Hail to the Chief," and the house rose in applause. Lincoln bowed from the box rail, settled into a rocking chair brought up by Harry Ford, brother of the theater's owner, took off his gloves and slipped them into the left pocket of his coat as the comedy "Our American Cousin" picked up again.

The gloves measure about 9 inches each and are stamped with the size "9 1/4." Each carries a "T" stamped on its clasp. They were made of white kid leather in the 1860s; time has turned them yellow, and the leather has flaked and cracked in places.

Five days after Appomattox

The night at Ford's Theatre came five days after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War. Lincoln had begun his second term only on March 4, with the second inaugural address.

Shortly after the third act began, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, entered the box and shot the president in the back of the head with a .44-caliber Deringer during the play's biggest laugh line. Rathbone grappled with him and was slashed with a knife. Booth leapt to the stage, his spur catching in one of the flags draped across the box, shouted "Sic semper tyrannis!" and escaped.

Dr. Charles Leale reached the box first, followed by Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, who was lifted up from the orchestra. Lincoln's coat, its left shoulder soaked with blood, was removed. He was carried to a boarding house across the street, where the wound had to be cleaned through the night, and he died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15. Vice President Andrew Johnson became the 17th president that morning.

From a widow's room to a dining room wall

Lincoln's body was taken to the White House for an autopsy. His clothes, with the gloves still in the left coat pocket, were given to his eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who passed them to his mother.

Mary Todd Lincoln's finances deteriorated in the years after the assassination, and in 1868 she made a public appeal for aid. One of those who answered was Captain Benjamin Richardson, an old family friend and collector of presidential relics who had already bought George Washington's coach and hoped to open a presidential museum. Accounts differ on the terms: the auction catalog describes the gloves and a handkerchief as a gift delivered to Richardson by Lincoln's son Tad, while a 2026 Chicago Sun-Times report says Mrs. Lincoln sold them to him in 1868.

Richardson framed the gloves and hung them in his dining room for several years. After his death they passed to his granddaughter, Ella Gouverneur, who lent them to the Bushwick Avenue Congregational Church in Brooklyn for an exhibition reported in The New York Times on February 11, 1929. A 1925 Brooklyn Eagle article had already published a photograph of the gloves and the handkerchief. They then descended to Gouverneur's daughter, Theresa Osterhoudt, and appeared in Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt's 1965 history of the assassination and its aftermath, "Twenty Days."

In 1990 the California collector Louise Taper bought them from a Richardson descendant. They were exhibited at the Huntington Library in "The Last Best Hope of Earth" from October 1993 to August 1994, and at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield in "Blood on the Moon" from April to October 2005.

A debt, a disputed hat and an auction

In 2007 Taper sold the gloves and the rest of her Lincoln collection to the Lincoln Presidential Foundation, which was formed to stock the then-new, state-run Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Reports put the deal at $25 million, financed with a $23 million loan. The plan was to transfer the collection to the museum once the loan was repaid. That never happened.

The relationship soured, in part over a stovepipe hat that had been billed as one of only three surviving hats worn by Lincoln and was once appraised at $6.5 million. The Chicago Sun-Times raised doubts about its authenticity in 2012, and a 2019 report by the state historian found that the hat did not appear to be Lincoln's size and had once been sold to an antique shop for $1. A legislative effort to help retire what was then a $9 million debt failed in 2019, and in 2022 the Taper collection was moved out of the museum.

On May 21, 2025, the foundation offered 144 items, less than 10% of its 1,540-piece collection, at auction in Chicago to pay off the remaining loan. The gloves, estimated at $800,000 to $1.2 million, were the top lot: the hammer fell at $1.2 million, and the result including the buyer's premium was $1,512,500, widely reported as $1.52 million. The handkerchief from the same pocket brought $826,000. In all, 136 of the 144 items sold for nearly $7.9 million with fees.

Taper said she was appalled to see her former collection "dispersed to the wind." "My intent was for these historic items to reside in a place for the public to enjoy and learn from," she said.

What they look like now, and where they went

The condition is honest about what the gloves have been through. The elastic bands at the wrists have come loose but are still present, both linings have archival repairs, and a split at the base of the right palm was repaired long ago. Each glove is soiled and unevenly darkened, with brown stains near the right thumb and at the base of the left glove.

The buyer was not named. In the summer of 2026 the gloves reappeared about 2,000 miles from Springfield, on loan to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, as part of an exhibition marking the nation's 250th anniversary that opened May 22 and ran through September 13. The museum, which declined to identify the owner, said the gloves were the first case visitors wanted to see.

"Of course, it's a loss for the people of Illinois," said Jacob Friefeld, director of the Center for Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield. "And of course, it's his blood. What's more Lincoln than his blood, right?"

Timeline

1. Mar 4, 1865

   Lincoln begins his second term with his second inaugural address.

2. Apr 14, 1865

   Lincoln removes the gloves and puts them in his left coat pocket at Ford's Theatre; he is shot during the third act.

3. Apr 15, 1865

   Lincoln dies at 7:22 a.m.; his clothes, gloves still in the pocket, go to Robert Todd Lincoln and then to Mary Todd Lincoln.

4. 1868

   After Mary Todd Lincoln's public appeal for aid, the gloves and a handkerchief go to collector Capt. Benjamin Richardson (sources differ on whether by gift or sale).

5. Mar 22, 1925

   The Brooklyn Eagle publishes a photograph of the gloves and the handkerchief.

6. Feb 11, 1929

   The New York Times reports their exhibition at the Bushwick Avenue Congregational Church, lent by Richardson's granddaughter Ella Gouverneur.

7. 1965

   The gloves are illustrated in Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt's "Twenty Days."

8. 1990

   Collector Louise Taper buys the gloves from a Richardson descendant.

9. Oct 1993

   The gloves go on view at the Huntington Library in "The Last Best Hope of Earth," through August 1994.

10. Apr 19, 2005

    "Blood on the Moon" opens at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, with the gloves on display through October 16.

11. 2007

    The Lincoln Presidential Foundation buys Taper's collection with a $23 million loan.

12. 2012

    Doubts are published about the authenticity of the collection's stovepipe hat.

13. 2019

    A legislative effort to help retire the foundation's debt fails.

14. 2022

    The Taper collection is moved out of the Lincoln museum in Springfield.

15. May 21, 2025

    The gloves sell at auction in Chicago for $1,512,500 including premium, to an anonymous buyer.

16. May 22, 2026

    The gloves go on loan display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, through September 13.

The world in 1865

• Mar 3, 1865

  Congress authorizes the Freedmen's Bureau.

• Apr 9, 1865

  Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

• Apr 15, 1865

  Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th president.

• Jun 19, 1865

  Union Gen. Gordon Granger announces the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas, the event now marked as Juneteenth.

• Jul 5, 1865

  The U.S. Secret Service is founded.

• Jul 7, 1865

  Four people condemned in the assassination conspiracy, including Mary Surratt, are hanged.

• Nov 18, 1865

  Mark Twain's jumping-frog story is first published in New York.

• Dec 18, 1865

  The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, is declared ratified.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Lincoln's Bloodstained Gloves (assassination night) is number 55 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (54 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Lincoln reportedly disliked gloves but carried at least two pairs at all times because custom expected it of a public man.
• The handkerchief from the same coat pocket sold in the same auction for $826,000.
• Lincoln's widow's 1868 appeal for money brought in Capt. Benjamin Richardson, who already owned George Washington's coach.
• For several years the gloves hung framed in Richardson's dining room.
• A wanted poster for the assassination conspirators in the same sale, estimated at no more than $120,000, sold for $762,500.
• The buyer stayed anonymous, but lent the gloves to the Reagan presidential museum, where staff said visitors went to their case first.