Posted on 04/14/2025 3:53:25 AM PDT by DFG
President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next morning.
Booth, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president 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 hatched a desperate plan to save the Confederacy.
Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater on April 14, Booth plotted the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into a paralyzing disarray.
On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward’s home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled.
Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered Lincoln’s private theater box unnoticed, and shot the president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Although Booth had broken his left leg jumping from Lincoln’s box, he succeeded in escaping Washington.
The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a cheap lodging house opposite Ford’s Theater. At about 7:22 the next morning, he died—the first U.S. president to be assassinated.
Booth was a well-regarded actor who was particularly loved in the South before the Civil War. During the war, he stayed in the North and became increasingly bitter when audiences weren’t as enamored of him as they were in Dixie. Along with friends Samuel Arnold, Michael O’Laughlin and John Surratt, Booth conspired to kidnap Lincoln and deliver him to the South.
On March 17, along with George Atzerodt, David Herold and Lewis Powell, the group met in a Washington bar to plot the abduction of the president three days later. However, when the president changed his plans, the scheme was scuttled. Shortly afterward, the South surrendered to the Union and the conspirators altered their plan. They decided to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward on the same evening.
When April 14 came around, Atzerodt backed out of his part to kill Johnson. Upset, Booth went to drink at a saloon near Ford’s Theatre. At about 10 p.m. he walked into the theater and up to the president’s box. Lincoln’s guard, John Parker, was not there because he had gotten bored with the play and left his post to get a beer. Booth easily slipped in and shot the president in the back of the head. The president’s friend, Major Rathbone, attempted to grab Booth but was slashed by Booth’s knife. Booth injured his leg badly when he jumped to the stage to escape, but he managed to hobble outside to his horse.
Meanwhile, Lewis Powell forced his way into William Seward’s house and stabbed the secretary of state several times before fleeing. Booth rode to Maryland with David Herold and stopped at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who placed splints on Booth’s leg. They hid in a barn on Richard Garrett’s farm as thousands of Union troops combed the area looking for them. The other conspirators were captured, except for John Surratt, who fled to Canada.
When the troops finally caught up with Booth and Herold on April 26, they gave them the option of surrendering before the barn was burned down. Herold decided to surrender, but Booth remained in the barn as it went up in flames. Booth was then shot and killed in the burning barn by Corporal Boston Corbett. On July 7, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and John Surratt’s mother, Mary, were hanged in Washington. The execution of Mary Surratt is believed by some to have been a miscarriage of justice. Although there was proof of Surratt’s involvement in the original abduction conspiracy, it is clear that her deeds were minor compared to those of the others who were executed.
Her son John was eventually tracked down in Egypt and brought back to trial, but he managed, with the help of clever lawyers, to win an acquittal.
The writer got this wrong: “The president’s friend, Major Rathbone”. Rathbone was the escort for Mrs. Lincoln’s friend. The President had never met the major before.
He favored leniency towards them, and the radicals who took over after he was gone wanted vengeance for his death, and wanted to punish the South to the maximum extent.
He likely would have held back some of their worst impulses.
The extent of the damage to his brain is likely not known. I don't know if there exists drawings and/or descriptions of the injury, but without detailed knowledge, I doubt medical people could make a prediction as to whether he could have been saved.
Modern medicine could have kept him alive longer, perhaps indefinitely, but whether he could recover back to normal is less likely.
The War of Northern Aggression.
Lincoln suspended habeus corpus.
He shit down newspapers for political position in violation of the First Amendment.
He began us on the course of an imperial federal government.
He pursued a war that killed over half a million American men.
Slavery would have died out - as it had in other countries - over time.
Africans were hardly the first peoples to be enslaved.
Had he not been killed would he have been remembered so fondly?
Another inaccuracy was a scene showing Stanton going to a U. S. Army Hospital in Washington, D. C. in 1865, to speak to Surgeon General Dr. William A. Hammond. Stanton had already fired Hammond in August 1863, so he wasn't even in that post at the time. The reason Hammond was fired was because he tried to cut through the red tape of getting supplies and trying new treatments, and Stanton refused his requests on everything. Hammond defied Stanton and did what he thought was best for the soldiers.
Casting was horrible. They had Patton Oswalt playing Detective Lafayette Baker.
An excellent book on John Wilkes Booth, the conspiracy plot, the assassination and the chase for Booth is "American Brutus" written by Michael W. Kauffman, and published in 2005. It is extensively sourced, and very well written. Kauffman had already been researching the Lincoln Assassination 1969 when he wrote the book. He has given lectures and been a consultant on various history programs dealing with the assassination. He also regularly volunteered as a guide for the bus tour of Booth's Escape Route Tour conducted by the Surratt Society, who also saved and preserved the Surratt House Museum in Clinton, Maryland.
Shot at very close range I believe. I don't think he could have been saved with modern surgery either.
I watched it too, but it was horrible, full of historical inaccuracies from the beginning to end. You'd probably be better off reading the book. At least that got good reviews.
Thank you for recommending “American Brutus”. I put this book in my Amazon cart for future reading.
I read “Manhunt” a few years ago but have not seen the Apple TV series. Thanks for warning me. I will avoid it.
Ford's Theatre was eventually turned into government offices. In July 1893 the whole inside of the building collapsed. 22 people died. What we see today is all rebuilt and not original.
The Collapse of Ford's Theatre
Many years ago, an historian acquaintance who lived, and worked in the D.C. area took me to Ford's Theatre. I'd been there years before with my kids. He knew the head Ranger in charge of the site, and the Ranger took us around the theatre, and allowed us to access the President's box. I have no clue if the box was spared in the collapse, so what I saw that day may only be the reproduction created when the building was put back together.
You're welcome for the book recommendation. And I'd avoid the TV series like the plague.
Clara Harris was the socialite daughter of then Senator Ira Harris (R-NY).
Photography wasn’t easy back then.
The Confederacy started the war
In 1991 wife and I spent 12 days in DC doing tourist stuff ( got a $25 a night fancy hotel room from the hotel company I worked at).
We visited Ford’s Theater. The “door” Boothe went through was supposedly the original. It was not. .
The “hole” Boothe shot him through was bored with a tool. It was perfectly round.
I commented to the guide, “man, Boothe was a good carver”.
She laughed. We all knew it was just a prop.
Just like the “bloody pillow” on his death bed.
So people say, and I used to believe that. Over the years, I learned more and more about how the war really started, and what I found out is Lincoln started it. Deliberately.
The "elite" would have loved him, but likely not so much the common man.
Then again, had he stayed in power, one of his pet projects that he worked on quite a lot, was getting the blacks to leave the country.
As the entire country, both North and South, were unreformed racists, he would have persisted in this plan, likely succeeded to some extent or other, and the general white population would have applauded him for it.
But this is speculation.
The South would have probably been better served had Lincoln lived and Johnson died.
It was trivial for dead people that wouldn’t move. Note (Gardner?) took numerous high quality pics of all the other assassination members while in custody, as well as the execution of them, the hanging at the Washington Navy yard. Photography was common.
It’s my understanding Ford’s Theater is basically a complete fabrication, it was basically gutted and recreated. It had been turned into a warehouse for a while.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
