Home First reading of Emancipation Proclamation before the cabinet, July 22, 1862. L to R Edwin Stanton, Salmon Chase, Lincoln, Gideon Wells, Caleb Smith, William Seward, Montgomery Blair, Edward Bates. First reading of Emancipation Proclamation before the cabinet, July 22, 1862. L to R Edwin Stanton, Salmon Chase, Lincoln, Gideon Wells, Caleb Smith, William Seward, Montgomery Blair, Edward Bates.

First reading of Emancipation Proclamation before the cabinet, July 22, 1862. L to R Edwin Stanton, Salmon Chase, Lincoln, Gideon Wells, Caleb Smith, William Seward, Montgomery Blair, Edward Bates.

First reading of Emancipation Proclamation before the cabinet, July 22, 1862. L to R Edwin Stanton, Salmon Chase, Lincoln, Gideon Wells, Caleb Smith, William Seward, Montgomery Blair, Edward Bates.
Stage and seating of Ford’s Theatre. The theater is infamous as the site of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.