Kipling provenance connected to the death of Abraham Lincoln

These two volumes are part of a set of Rudyard Kipling's works: The Writings in Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in the early 1900s (Puck of Pook's Hill, Volume XXIII, 1906 and Actions and Reactions, Volume XXIV, 1909). Their shared history of ownership, or provenance, leads to some remarkable history that occurred a half-century before as Abraham Lincoln lay dying.

A previous owner, presumed to be the original owner of these books, was a lawyer from Philadelphia named James A. Tanner. I was glad that he showed ownership in two different ways that served to corroborate what my research was turning up for that name. One, a hand-written gift inscription, the other a business ink stamp.

    

James A. Tanner of Philadelphia is associated with the Tanner Manuscript I found at the Heritage Center of The Union League of Philadelphia. His father was James R. Tanner, a government stenographer who recorded witness testimony to Lincoln's assassination. His notes comprise the Tanner Manuscript. His son, James A. Tanner, who owned these Kipling books, preserved the manuscript in bound form.

His father had served for the Union during the Civil War and lost both his legs. He continued to serve in Washington, D.C. as a stenographer. After Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre, he was taken across the street to the residence of William and Anna Petersen and placed in a back bedroom. James Tanner lived next door and was summoned to the Petersen House to record witness testimony given to Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, David Kellogg Cartter. Tanner was present when Lincoln finally died. A more detailed account of that evening can be be read here:

http://www.historynet.com/lincolns-last-witness-james-tanner-and-the-assassination-of-lincoln.htm

After recording testimony that night, Tanner took his shorthand notes back home to write a report for Stanton. He didn't like his first draft and rewrote it and presented it to the Secretary of War. Some time later, that copy was lost, but Tanner still had his first copy. In 1905 his son, James A. Tanner, helped to preserve the document by mounting each page on linen and binding the papers into the book shown in the link above (Tanner Manuscript).


.....