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Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

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The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln Papers: Lincoln Assassination: Introduction. Abraham Lincoln Papers On the evening of April 14, 1865, while attending a special performance of the comedy, "Our American Cousin," President Abraham Lincoln was shot.

Lincoln Papers: Lincoln Assassination: Introduction

Accompanying him at Ford's Theater that night were his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, a twenty-eight year-old officer named Major Henry R. Rathbone, and Rathbone's fiancee, Clara Harris. After the play was in progress, a figure with a drawn derringer pistol stepped into the presidential box, aimed, and fired. The president slumped forward. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, dropped the pistol and waved a dagger. A doctor in the audience immediately went upstairs to the box.

At almost the same moment Booth fired the fatal shot, his accomplice, Lewis Paine, attacked Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Henry Seward. Paine escaped into the night, believing his deed complete. There were at least four conspirators in addition to Booth involved in the mayhem. Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On April 9, 1865, General Robert E.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. Two days later Lincoln spoke from the White House to a crowd gathered outside. Booth was present as Lincoln suggested in his speech that voting rights be granted to certain blacks. Infuriated, Booth's plans now turned in the direction of assassination. On the morning of Friday, April 14, 1865, Booth dropped by Ford's Theatre and learned that the president and General Grant were planning to attend the evening performance of Our American Cousin.

The presidential party arrived at Ford's at about 8:30 P.M. 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.

Abraham Lincoln's Assassination — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts

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. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces. In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth came up with a desperate plan to save the Confederacy. Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, Booth—himself a well-known actor at the time—masterminded the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday,[1] April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac, ending the American Civil War. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated,[2] though an unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson 30 years before in 1835.

The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, as part of a larger conspiracy in a bid to revive the Confederate cause. Original plan: Kidnapping the president The Old Soldiers Home, where Booth originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln. Meanwhile, the Confederacy was falling apart. That means citizenship.

Lincoln's nightmare.