DK - The American Civil War

The Assassination of Lincoln

With the war effectively won and the Union virtually restored, the nation needed a leader of vision

to heal the wounds of four years in which brother had fought brother. John Wilkes Booth’s

murderous action on Good Friday of 1865 removed the man best fitted for the task.

COLLAPSE OF THE CONFEDERACY 1865

BEFORE

President Lincoln had every reason to be
optimistic in the wake of Robert E. Lee’s
surrender at Appomattox Court House.
But within six days, fate cruelly intervened.

THE FIRST CONSPIRACY
Although the president had no way of knowing,
John Wilkes Booth and a band of Southern
sympathizers had made plans to kidnap
Lincoln the previous year. Their hopes had been
to hold the president as a bargaining tool in
order to gain the release of Confederate
prisoners of war ❮❮ 256–57. At the time the
plot was aborted, but the conspirators
remained in contact.

PUNCTURED HOPES
The dawning prospect of peace ❮❮ 312–13
brought great relief to Lincoln, who was intent
on promoting reconciliation with the Rebel
states. Yet the very news that cheered the
president only reignited the anger of his
enemies. A speech in which Lincoln lent his
support to the cause of black enfranchisement
unwittingly sealed his fate. Booth was now
determined to silence him forever.

L

incoln was in an upbeat mood on

the morning of Good Friday, April

14, 1865; a political colleague

remarked that he had never seen the

president looking so happy. Although

he was very aware of the challenges

that lay ahead, the knowledge that the

war was almost over gave him good

reason to celebrate. Yet he was not

free of personal anxieties.

A portentous dream

Just three days before, Lincoln had

described to his wife and friends a

dream in which he had wandered

through the rooms of a deserted

White House only to find a body

laid out in state. When he asked

an attendant who it was that

had died, he was told it was the

president, killed by an assassin.

“I slept no more that night,”

Lincoln told his audience, “and

although it was only a dream,

I have been strangely annoyed

by it ever since.”

Lincoln had good reason to be disturbed.

From the beginning of his presidency,

he had received hate mail, some of

which contained threats on his

life. Now lurked John Wilkes

Booth. The 26-year-old, a

member of a celebrated

American acting

dynasty, was one of the

nation’s leading players and a

familiar face around Washington, D.C.,

where he often performed. A passionate

supporter of the Confederate cause, the

Maryland-born actor was eager to leave

his mark on history through some great,

dramatic act. He had gathered around

him a group of followers who shared

his hatred of the president, and over a

period of months they had discussed

various ways of doing him harm.

The plot takes shape

News of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox

brought matters to a head. The day

before, Booth had heard Lincoln give

an impromptu

speech from a

window of the

White House,

in which the

president gave his

support to the enfranchisement of black

voters. For Booth, who was an ardent

advocate of slavery, this was the final

straw and it was time to act.

The plot that he and his co-

conspirators hatched was multi-

pronged. Booth took it upon himself

to assassinate Lincoln. A 20-year-old

Confederate veteran named Lewis

Powell was assigned the task of killing

Secretary of State William Seward,

while 29-year-old George Atzerodt,

the German-born owner of a Maryland

carriage-repair business, was instructed

to murder Vice President Andrew

Johnson. The warped goal was to

remove the Union’s top leadership

in one bloody night, thereby avenging

the Confederate defeat and giving the

South a chance to rally and gather

new forces to continue the struggle.

The timing of the attack was settled

when Booth heard that Lincoln was to

attend a performance of a comedy, Our

American Cousin, at Ford’s Theatre in

Washington on the Good Friday

evening. Initially, the President’s

intention had been to take

along General Ulysses S. Grant and his

wife as guests of himself and the First

Lady, but the general—no great lover of

social occasions—had made an excuse

and left town to visit relatives. In their

place, Mary Todd Lincoln invited a

friend of the family, Major Henry

Rathbone, and his fiancée, Clara Harris.

The events of the evening

Booth knew the theater well, having

performed there on many occasions.

A familiar figure backstage, he had no

trouble in gaining access to the building

and wandering around its corridors at

will. In the course of the day he took

the precaution of drilling a small spy

hole in the door of the presidential

box, to provide him with a view

of what was

happening inside.

That evening, he

waited until the

play was well

underway before

taking action. He knew the script

himself, and had settled on one line as

a cue for his deed—it always got a good

reaction from the audience, and Booth

hoped he could count on the laughter

in the theater to help conceal the sound

of the shot. Stealing into the

presidential box with his pistol, he shot

Lincoln in the head at the chosen

moment, and then leaped down onto

the stage, shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis”

(“Thus always to tyrants”), to the

astonishment of the theatergoers. Upon

landing, he broke his leg, but managed

to limp to a horse he had waiting

The assassination

A print captures the moment that John Wilkes Booth

fired the fatal shot. Taking no chances, the assassin

holds a knife as he takes aim at President Lincoln’s head.

Booth’s derringer pistol

Ideal because of its size, Booth’s weapon was

this single-shot, muzzle-loading pocket pistol.

It was recovered from the presidential box

after Booth had fled Ford’s Theatre.

Bird’s head grip

Trigger guard

Owner of the boarding house where the

conspirators met, Mary Surratt, hanged for

her alleged part in the plot, was the first

woman executed by the U.S. government.