A Truly Awkward Etiquette Dilemma

The photo was found on the body of John Wilkes Booth after he was killed by pursuing Federal troops in April of 1865. The public domain image is of Lucy Hale, the daughter of U.S. Senator John P. Hale and the secret fiancee of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln in 1865. By 1882, she was the wife of William Chandler, Secretary of the Navy.

    

Etiquette at the Capital

The appointment of Mr. Chandler to the naval portfolio has developed an interesting phase of Washington social life, which set gossips agog with speculation. It will be remembered that when J. Wilkes Booth was shot, the picture of a beautiful young lady, a reigning society belle, was found on his person. The origin of this portrait was recognized in the person of Miss Hale, the daughter of a leading politician and statesman, and a lady of whom Booth had become deeply and seriously enamored. 

What encouragement he had received was not precisely known, but there was enough between them to form the basis of a good many romances, which afterward appeared in the public press. Miss Hale afterward became Mrs. Chandler, and is now the wife of the Secretary of the Navy. The same whirligig of time which has brought this about has also made the then young son of the martyred Lincoln, Secretary of War. 

It now appears that, according to etiquette, it is the duty of the Secretary of War to escort the wife of his confrère in rank to dinner. On state occasions he must take the wife of the Secretary of the Navy. Secretary Lincoln, in short, must escort the one-time sweetheart of the assassin of his distinguished father, therefore society is shocked. – San Jose Mercury-News, April 1882

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