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Flag that adorned Lincoln's box at Ford's Theater found

Friday, July 6, 2001

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A flag that adorned Abraham Lincoln's box at Ford's Theater the night he was assassinated -- and may have been the banner that caused John Wilkes Booth to break his leg -- has been discovered in a dusty corner of the Connecticut Historical Society.

The regimental flag was authenticated by Civil War experts and was put on display at the historical society yesterday, three years after its discovery.

The 6-foot-square silk flag, with 13 stripes and a painted eagle and 35 stars on a field of blue, hung on a pole to the left of the president in the Washington theater the night of April 14, 1865, according to Civil War experts.

Period illustrations suggest Lincoln, after being shot, might have clutched the flag.

It also may have been the banner that snagged Booth's spur as the assassin leaped from Lincoln's balcony-level box. Booth broke his leg in the leap.

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