- Roeliff Brinkerhoff, Union Brigadier General, 64 th Ohio Infantry, Quartermaster, Eyewitness to the Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln - Recollections of a Lifetime by Brinkerhoff, General Roeliff, Publisher: The Robert Clarke Company, First edition. 448pp incl. index. Inscribed on the free front endpaper by Brinkerhoff To my wife to whom the book is also dedicated. Brinkerhoff was the founder and first president of the Ohio Archaeological Society for fifteen years and was president of its successor, the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. His life (June 1828-June 1911) spanned many of the most important events the Mexican war, Texas statehood, California, the anti-slavery period, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, the Civil War an end to Indian Wars, the advent of automobiles and much more. This work, although very personal, is an entertaining and valuable commentary on men and events of the last three quarters of the nineteenth century. (See: Ohio Authors and Their Books 1796 -1950, p. 76.) From Wikipedia: He joined the army in September 1861 as a first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster of the 64th Ohio Infantry. He was known by some accounts as the first officer to join the Sherman Brigade under Brigadier General William Tecumseh Sherman. In December 1861, he was assigned to the depot at Bardstown, Kentucky. Following the capture of Nashville, he was placed in charge of the land and river transportation in that city and after the Battle of Shiloh, he was ordered to the front and placed in charge of the field transportation of the Army of the Ohio. It was following the capture of Corinth that he returned home on sick leave and when he had sufficiently recovered he was ordered to Maine as Chief Quartermaster of the state, where he quickly became friends with Congressman James G. Blaine. He was then transferred to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and placed in charge of transportation and army stores for the Department of the Susquehanna, and then to Washington D.C. as post quartermaster until June, 1865, when he was made a Colonel and inspector of the quartermaster's department. He was retained on duty at the war office with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton until November, when he was ordered to Cincinnati as Chief Quartermaster of the Department of the Ohio. At his own request, Brinkerhoff was mustered out of the volunteers on September 30, 1866. In recognition of Brinkerhoff's service, on December 11, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Brinkerhoff for appointment to the grade of brevet brigadier general to rank from September 20, 1866, and the U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment on February 6, 1867. He was the author of a volume entitled, The Volunteer Quartermaster, a treatise which was considered the standard guide for the officers and employees of the quartermaster's department up until the First World War. Years later when he wrote his memoirs, in this very book, he said it was only by chance he happened to be in the theater that night of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in April, 1865. He had gone with some friends who wanted to get a look at General Grant, who was rumored to be in attendance with President Lincoln. The play commenced and had been in progress quite a while, perhaps half an hour, when the President came in. He was greeted with a storm of applause as he passed to his box. Mr. Lincoln, Brinkerhoff wrote, for the first time during my knowledge of him, seemed cheerful and happy. I had seen him often during his presidential term, commencing with his inauguration in 1861, and a sadder face I never saw. But now the load seemed lifted away and every vestige of care and anxiety had passed away. He seemed to enjoy the play very much.” Colonel Brinkerhoff was seated in the theater diagonally opposite the President’s box—on the same second floor balcony level—where he was able to see everything that transpired, including the moments when John Wilkes Booth slipped quietly across the balcony gallery approaching Mr. Lincoln’s back. In recounting the scene of tragedy that unfolded before him, Mr. Brinkerhoff describes an almost surreal silence and slow motion, as if the shock of it—even 35 years later when he wrote his account—had put him into an altered state, slightly removed from the horror and confusion described by other people in the theater. For a moment there was a stillness of death. The audience seemed paralyzed. No sound whatever came from the box that I heard. It is said in the various accounts that Mrs. Lincoln shrieked. I heard no shriek. Major Rathbun testified that he shouted stop that man. I heard nothing of that kind, and I believe I could have heard a whisper.