“They Held Lincoln’s Life in Their Hands” — Article from the online historical journal, Emerging Civil War, regarding Jacob J. Soles, Private in the Union Army. He helped carry President Abraham Lincoln from Ford’s Theater to the Petersen House in Washington DC, moments after the President had been mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth on the evening of April 14,1865. Lincoln died the next morning. Soles returned home to reside in North Versailles, Pennsylvania. He worked in the local coal mines and suffered the loss of an eye due to an accident. But he lived on to the age of 90 years. He died in early 1936 and was buried in Monongahela Cemetery of North Braddock.
Grave marker of Jacob Soles, a Union soldier who helped carry mortally wounded President Lincoln from Ford’s Theater to his death bed in Petersen House.