April 14, 1865 President Lincoln Shot

History Channel.com ^ | 4/14/2005 | staff

[kellynla]

At Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally wounds President Abraham Lincoln. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.

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. Slashing an army officer who rushed at him, Booth jumped to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]--the South is avenged!" 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. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, he died--the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Booth, pursued by the army and secret service forces, was finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground. Of the eight other persons eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were hanged and four were jailed.

[4CJ]

;o) We seceded.

[4CJ]

But I'm all for sending down our crabby, whiney, befuddled, left-turn-signal-leaving-on, driving-30-in-a-50-zone senior citizens on down to bask in all that southern hospitality.

Send on on! They've got more manners than the rest of that stay behind!

[conservlib]

Your continuing to repeat that secession was legal does not make it so.

Suppose you found this nice girl to get married to, and you ask her to sign a paper if she ever wants out of this marriage, you will kill her, or lock her in by FORCE!

I think a far more likely scenario than several friendly countries in North America is permanent hostility among them, leading to arms races, cold wars and likely the occasional hot one

Wrong, again. If we had three different countries they would have more in common in culture, religion, history and language. It would be difficult to assume that these three countries would be like us and china, or us, and the USSR. After all, us and Canada get along just fine.((sorry to say that about Canada to the rest of the foaming at mouth on this forum)).

[M. Espinola]

Note that Lincoln, the father of the Income Tax, also died on April 15th.

Is that all you can say about the 16th President?

[antisocial]

We celebrate every day in April, it is Confederate History Month.

[M. Espinola]

"I'd pardon Booth.

Are you serious with that comment as an American?

[streetpreacher]

I think the President's job is too mind the "nation's business". ROTFLOL

[streetpreacher]

The Confederate Capital wasn't in Texas...

[M. Espinola]

"We seceded."

What price was high paid for the act of Confederate secession?

Over half a million Americans dead. A murdered President. Half the nation in ruins, ect, ect.

[streetpreacher]

Don't worry; I'd never call you a BLASFEMIST!

[streetpreacher]

The South is a cultural hell hole, and they can't cook worth a crap!

LOL. Thanks for opening your mouth and removing all doubt.

The North had had more exposure to the outside world and tends to be more progressive.

Had had? What does that mean? Like France? Do you watch the Fab Five?

The lib in your name: liberal or libertarian? Based on the tripe you've written thus far, it makes little difference. You're clearly more refined than "us" dumb Southerners who can't even spell BLASFEMIST correctly!

[streetpreacher]

No, YOU can't see Him... He's just not into you!

[streetpreacher]

Arnold calls Bush and say listen, California would like to be independent of the US. Would you recommend that Bush send the troop to bomb the hell out of California?

Do you really want an HONEST answer to that?

[streetpreacher]

Note that Lincoln, the father of the Income Tax, also died on April 15th.

Now that is ironic!

[streetpreacher]

Lincoln had no mechanism with which to coerce the secessionis...

Wrong again, he could have let them become independent as they wished, and as the original Federal arrangement intended.

Ummm... that doesn't even begin to answer his objection. That refined northern intellect must be too much for this poor southern boy to comprehend.

[antisocial]

Well said!!!

[streetpreacher]

You have been concurred, dude.

What does that look like... being concurred I mean? Dude.

[streetpreacher]

If we had three different countries they would have more in common in culture, religion, history and language.

You mean like North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, North and South Vietnam, Iraq and Kuwait, India and Pakistan (except for religion), all of Europe throughout most it's history?

[4CJ]

What price was high paid for the act of Confederate secession?

Being re-united with liberals at gunpoint.

[GOPcapitalist]

Need I say more?