The operation lasted almost an hour. A cut about five inches long was made. It was found necessary to turn up the stomach of the President in order to trace the course of the bullet. The bullet’s opening in the front wall of the stomach was small and it was carefully closed with sutures, after which a search was made for the hole in the back wall of the stomach. This hole, where the bullet went out of the stomach, was larger than the hole in the front wall of the stomach; in fact, it was a wound over an inch in diameter, jagged and ragged. It was sewed up in three layers. This wound was larger than the wound where the bullet entered the stomach, because the bullet, in its course, forced tissues through ahead of it. In turning up the stomach, an act that was absolutely necessary, and was performed by Dr. Mann with rare skill, the danger was that some of the contents of the stomach might go into the abdominal cavity, and as a result cause peritonitis. It so happened that there was little in the President’s stomach at the time of the operation. Moreover, subsequent developments tended to show that this feature of the operation was successful and that none of the contents of the stomach entered the abdominal cavity. If any of the contents had entered the cavity the probability is that peritonitis would have set in. The weapon used by the assassin proved to be a five-barreled double-action revolver of 32 caliber. Every chamber contained a bullet, and three remained in the weapon after the shooting. It was at first reported that the weapon was a derringer, but this proved to be incorrect. Many of the accounts of the assassination vary in detail, which is quite natural under the excitement of the moment, and the fact that no two persons see and hear alike. One account, given by an eye-witness, which differs in some respects from the one with which this chapter begins, is as follows: “It was about four o’clock, near the close of the reception in the Temple of Music, and the President, in his customary cordial manner, was reaching forward, with a pleasant smile, to take the hands of the good-natured crowd that was pushing forward. A six-foot colored man, who proved to be a waiter in the Plaza, named James F. Parker, had just shaken hands with the President and was smiling all over with enjoyment, when suddenly, behind him, pressed forward the slight figure of a smooth-faced but muscular young man, whose eyes were wild and glaring, whose head was drooping, and who seemed to me to have sprung up from the floor, as I had not observed him before. The President took no special notice of him, but simply stooped over to shake his hand, without looking, apparently, at the individual.