[1] After Lincoln's assassination (while Crook was off duty), he continued to work in the White House for a total of more than 50 years, serving 12 presidents.

[4] When one was reassigned as the White House doorkeeper, Crook, then a member of the Washington Police Force and a former Union Army soldier,[2] was selected as his replacement, beginning January 4, 1865.

Crook tried to persuade the president not to attend a performance of a play, Our American Cousin, at Ford's Theater that night, or at least allow him to go along as an extra bodyguard, but Lincoln said he had promised his wife they would go.

I thought of it at that moment and, a few hours later, when the news flashed over Washington that he had been shot, his last words were so burned into my being that they can never be forgotten.

[2] On January 5, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson and the members of the White House staff celebrated his 50 years of service and presented him with a cane.