Christian Rath (October 22, 1831 – February 14, 1920) was a German-American soldier and businessman. Among his duties as an officer in the U.S. Army was to act as the executioner for several of the conspirators in the

assassination of Abraham Lincoln On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play '' Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in th ...

Early life

Rath was born to Johann Adam and Anna Marie (Schlee) Rath in

Pfalzgrafenweiler Pfalzgrafenweiler is a municipality in the district of Freudenstadt in Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The Counts of Tübingen had a large castle located at Pfalzgrafenweiler in the 13th and 14th centuries. Between 1972 and 1975, the mu ...

Landkreis Freudenstadt Freudenstadt is a ''Landkreis'' (district) in the middle of Baden-Württemberg, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European U ...

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

, in modern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. At the age of 18, he left home to participate in the

revolutionary movement A revolutionary movement (or revolutionary social movement) is a specific type of social movement dedicated to carrying out a revolution. Charles Tilly defines it as "a social movement advancing exclusive competing claims to control of the stat ...

sweeping the region at that time. At the age of 19, he emigrated to the United States. He served in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

for a brief time, and then settled in

Jackson, Michigan Jackson is the only city and county seat of Jackson County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 33,534, down from 36,316 at the 2000 census. Located along Interstate 94 and U.S. Route 127, it is approx ...

U.S. Army service

After the outbreak of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

, Rath enlisted in the

17th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment The 17th Michigan Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Service The 17th Michigan Infantry was organized at Detroit, Michigan, between August 8 and 22, 1862. Most of the soldi ...

Execution of Lincoln conspirators

While detailed to the staff of Major General

John F. Hartranft John Frederick Hartranft (December 16, 1830 – October 17, 1889) was the United States military officer who read the death warrant to the individuals who were executed on July 7, 1865 for conspiring to assassinate American President Abraham Lin ...

, Rath was assigned various duties related to the executions by

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary' ...

Mary Surratt Mary Elizabeth Jenkins SurrattCashin, p. 287.Steers, 2010, p. 516. (1820 or May 1823 – July 7, 1865) was an American boarding house owner in Washington D.C., Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy (crime), ...

Lewis Paine Lewis Thornton Powell (April 22, 1844 – July 7, 1865), also known as Lewis Payne and Lewis Paine, was an American Confederate soldier who attempted to assassinate William Henry Seward as part of the Lincoln assassination plot. Wounded at th ...

David Herold David Edgar Herold (June 16, 1842 – July 7, 1865) was an American pharmacist's assistant and accomplice of John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. After the shooting, Herold accompanied Booth to the home of ...

, and

George Atzerodt George Andrew Atzerodt (June 12, 1835 – July 7, 1865) was a German American repairman, Confederate sympathizer, and conspirator with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln. He was assigned to assassinat ...

on July 7, 1865, due their guilty verdicts stemming from the

. These duties included making and hanging the nooses, giving the command for the prisoners to be hung, and arranging for their bodies to be put into coffins and buried.

Later life

Rath was discharged from the Union Army on July 19, 1865, twelve days after his participation in the execution, and returned to his home in Jackson, Michigan.

References

1831 births 1920 deaths Union Army officers Emigrants from the German Confederation to the United States People associated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln American executioners People from Jackson, Michigan People of Michigan in the American Civil War Shoemakers {{US-army-bio-stub