Daily Observations from The Civil War — Day by day writings of the time. Abraham Lincoln's Assassination — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts. Abraham Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, was a Maryland native born in 1838 who remained in the North during the Civil War despite his Confederate sympathies.
As the conflict entered its final stages, he and several associates hatched a plot to kidnap the president and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, Lincoln failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Civil War Potpourri Page.