Reward poster
A massive $100,000 was offered as a reward for the
capture of Booth and his coconspirators. Pictured
among them is Mary Surratt’s son, John, who
escaped conviction by fleeing the country.THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLNLincoln’s death plunged the nation into
mourning and opened new wounds at a time
when old ones had not yet started to heal.POLITICAL AFTERSHOCKS
Vice President Andrew Johnson became
president. Thus a Southern Democrat,
drafted to attract swing voters in 1864, now
headed a Republican administration.
Lacking Lincoln’s political and moral authority,
he was ill-equipped for the task of
Reconstruction 340–41 ❯❯.THE FATE OF THE CONSPIRATORS
Eight suspects went on trial. Held in isolation,
their heads were covered in cotton-lined canvas
hoods with a slit for eating but no ear or
eyeholes. Powell, Herold, Atzerodt, and Mary
Surratt were condemned to death and hanged
on July 7, 1865. Three others received
sentences of life imprisonment, while another,
a carpenter at Ford’s Theatre accused of
assisting in Booth’s escape, got six years.outside. He then fled the city.
Booth’s two accomplices were less
successful. Powell entered William
Seward’s house and managed to
make his way to the bedroom
where the statesman was lying
injured, having broken his arm
and jaw in a carriage accident
nine days earlier. When his gun
jammed, Powell pulled a knife
and stabbed his victim repeatedly,
but not fatally. The brace
supporting Seward’s broken arm
diverted the worst of the blows,
When help arrived, Powell broke
off the attack, exited the house,
and, like Booth, escaped on
a waiting horse. Seward
subsequently made a full
recovery. As for Atzerodt, his
courage simply failed him.
He spent the evening drinking
in the bar of the hotel where
the vice president was staying,
then wandered off into the
night without having even
approached his target.Lincoln fights for survival
Meanwhile, desperate attempts
were being made to save
Lincoln’s life. Too badly injured
to be taken back to the White
House, he was carried instead
to a boarding house across the
street from the theater. But
there was little the doctors
could do. Fatally wounded
by a single bullet to the brain,
the president died early the
following morning without
having regained
consciousness. The hunt
for the conspirators
now began to intensify.Capturing the culprits
Powell was the first to be
apprehended, three days
after the attack, when he
returned to the boarding
house where the plot had
been hatched. Powell found
federal agents sent to arrest the owner,
a Confederate sympathizer named
Mary Surratt, waiting for him there.
Atzerodt was tracked down three days
later on a Maryland farm some 25 miles
(40km) from the capital. John Wilkes
Booth managed to evade capture until
April 26, when he was traced to a barn
in Virginia and shot dead. Others who
were party to the plot were also
arrested, including David Herold. He
had accompanied Booth on his flight,AFTER
“But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain
lies, / Fallen cold and dead.”
WALT WHITMAN, FROM HIS POEM, O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!, 1865but chose to surrender to the pursuing
troops rather than die trapped in the
Virginia barn as it burned around him.Toward a united country
Lincoln’s murder was unprecedented
at the time—no previous president
had ever been assassinated. His
death deprived the nation of sound
leadership, while his successor,
Andrew Johnson, was generally
considered lacking in wise counsel.
Some Unreconciled Confederates
applauded Booth’s deed; however, the
bulk of the nation was united in grief.
Although federal authorities were at
first suspicious of a Confederate
conspiracy, Lincoln’s death helped
bind the nation in common sympathy.Lincoln’s hat
Despite his impressive height of 6ft 4in (1.9m), Lincoln
was renowned for wearing tall or high hats. On the night
of his assassination, he wore this one, now in the
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.