No one was more stunned by the events at Ford's Theatre on Good Friday, 1865 than journeyman actor Harry Hawk. Principal comedian and company manager for Laura Keene's tour of Our American Cousin, Hawk was standing alone stage center when John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger. He had timed his shot to take place as the audience laughter peaked after the most dependable joke in the play, delivered by Hawk as Asa Trenchard.

Anyone who knew Booth or had been part of the play was immediately suspected as a potential conspirator. With others of the company, Hawk spent the night in prison and was hauled before Secretary of War Stanton, who interrogated witnesses in the parlor of the house where Lincoln lay dying. A Union soldier who had lost a leg and was boarding next door, Corporal James Tanner, was pressed into service to take testimony because of his knowledge of shorthand. This comes from Hawk's testimony:

I only had one glance at him as he was rushing towards me with a dagger and I turned and ran and after I ran up a flight of stairs, I turned and exclaimed: ‘My God! That’s John Booth!’ In my own mind, I do not have any doubt but that it was Booth. I could say it if I was on my deathbed.

Harry Hawk knew Booth and recalled greeting him as he sat casually reading his mail in front of Ford's Theatre earlier in the day. Booth's more famous brother, the actor Edwin Booth, was a friend of Hawk's. Out of respect for the actor, Hawk never spoke publicly about the events until after the death of his celebrated friend more than a quarter of a century later.