Lincoln assassination-night medical records found

This affecting NPR story talks about the last hours of Abraham Lincoln, as told through recently discovered medical records at the U.S. Surgeon General's archives that were created by the doctor who attended the president as he died from a mortal wound by assassin John Wilkes Booth.

Army surgeon Charles Leale happened to be at Ford's Theater the night of the shooting, and stayed with Lincoln until his death several hours later. For some reason, his hand-written notes of the events of the night remained unnoticed for nearly 150 years, until a researcher going through boxes of records discovered them.

As the researcher says, "I've been thinking of it as sort of hiding in plain sight. It was there in a box, opened to any researchers who looked. And I don't know how well traversed the records of the surgeon general are, but I would suspect that people have used them, just maybe not this box from the L's from 1865, I guess."

It's a reminder of how much history is still out there, waiting to be uncovered by people who are paying attention enough to understand they may have found something fascinating, that may even have value. People like that are my favorites, and the kinds of folks I often end up doing business with.