The conspirators wanted to kill Lincoln, Seward and VP Andrew Johnson at the same time so that the federal government would be decapitated. Atzerodt, who was to kill Johnson, chickened out of the task at the last minute. Payne/Powell did not succeed in killing Seward due to the intervention at his home. I was always amazed by the fact that Lincoln had but one bodyguard at Ford’s Theater who was in the theater bar drinking at the time Wilkes Booth entered the box where Lincoln was seated.
I don’t remember the name of Lincoln’s guard but he was a real flake and incompetent in many instances.
I don’t remember the name of Lincoln’s guard but he was a real flake and incompetent in many instances.
https://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/burnett/lincoln3.htm#planning
14 APRIL 1865
Ford Theatre
On the evening of the 14th of April, 1865, Major Rathbone and Miss Harris of Washington joined the President and Mrs Lincoln and drove with them in the President’s carriage to Ford’s Theatre, reaching there about half past eight. When the President reached the theatre and the fact became known, the actors stopped playing, the band struck up Hail to the Chief, and the audience rose and received him with cheers and shouts rocking chair of applause. The party passed to the right into the President’s box in the second tier which was on the left of the stage. The President seated himself in an armchair which had been provided for him that afternoon by Mr Ford to the left of the box, and nearest the audience. Mrs Lincoln sat next on the right of the President and on her right was Miss Harris,and immediately behind her sat Major Rathbone.
Spangler About nine o’clock of that evening, Booth rode into the alley in the rear of the threatre and called upon Spangler, a stage carpenter employee of the theatre, to hold his horse. Spangler sent a young man named Burrows, another employee. Booth stepped into the theatre through the rear door, took a brief survey of the house, passed out the same way, and soon after appeared at the front.
There he held a private and hurried conversation with two or three persons. Just before 10 o’clock, he went into a saloon near the threatre and took a drink of Whiskey. He then came out and joined his confederates, the parties he had been conversing with, and then passed into the passage leading to the stage from the street.
At this time, one of the confederates stepped into the vestibule of the theatre, looked at the clock, came out and called the time, started up the street, was gone a few minutes, returned, looked at the clock and called the time again. By this time Booth had reappeared in front of the theatre. Presently the same party who had called the time came and looked at the clock and called the time again in a loud voice, “ten minutes past ten.” He then started up the street, and Booth passed into the theatre.
As stated, this was about ten minutes past 10 o’clock, and was during the second scene of the third act of “Our American Cousin,” then being performed by Laura Keene and her company at Ford’s Theatre.
Booth passed to the right up near to the president’s box, where he stopped a moment and leaned against the wall. He then stepped down one step, placed his hand on the door of the passage leading to the President’s box and his knee against it, and pushed the door open. He then placed a brace against the door on the inside, which had previously been prepared by him or some one of his confederates for the purpose of preventing an entrance of intrusion from the outside; passed along the passageway to the door on the left opening into the President’s box, stopped and looked through a hole which had been cut in the door to see the President’s position and if his attention was concentrated upon the stage; softly pushed the door open and entered, no one observing him; then, standing within two or three feet of the President, fired.
shooting
The ball entered the back part of the left side of the President. The pistol used was a large sized derringer, about six inches in length, carrying a large handmade ball. Upon hearing the discharge of the pistol, Major Rathbone looked around and saw through the smoke a man between the door and the President. At the same time he heard the man shout some word which he thought was “freedom!” Another witness thought he shouted “Revenge for the South!”
Booth, the moment he fired, dropped his pistol and drew a long knife. Major Rathbone instantly sprang upon him and seized him. Booth wrestled himself from the major’s grasp, and made a violent thrust at his breast with the knife, which Rathbone parried, receiving a wound in his left arm between the elbow and the shoulder about one and one half inches deep and several inches in length.
Booth then rushed to the front of the box, Major Rathbone attempting to seize him again, but only caught his clothes as he was going over the railing. Booth put his left hand on the railing, holding in his right hand the knife point downward, leaped over and down to the stage about twelve feet. As he was going over or descending, the spur on his right foot caught in the flag, which had been draped in front of the President’s box in honor of his presence, and clung to it, causing his left foot to partially turn under him as he struck the stage, and thereby one of the bones of his left leg was broken.
Had it not been for this accident, Booth doubtless would have made his escape into Virginia within the Confederate lines, possibly out of the country. Thus it was that the national flag was a mute instrument in the vengeance that overtook the President’s murderer. Booth as he fled across the stage, partially turned facing the audience, threw up his hand holding the gleaming knife and shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!”
In taking the statements of persons at the theatre who had witnessed the tragedy, an Irishman in the second row said that Booth shouted as he fled across the stage, “I’m sick, send for McManus!