Just imagine the boldness of Booth’s plan and the consequences if it had succeeded. Grant cancelled, or he likely would have been in Lincoln’s box with him. Killing the President and General Grant at the theater with Johnson and Seward killed in their homes. Would the Confederacy used the ensuing chaos to continue the fight? Would resconstruction have been more brutal and unforgiving?
Just amazing to think about how the entire world would have changed if Booth’s plan had worked.
The question then becomes, with what? Lee had surrendered. Johnston was being chased by Sherman. Davis was on the run. Nobody was left to rally around.
Would resconstruction have been more brutal and unforgiving?
I think Southern intransigence would have led to some sort of sanctions. Now whether they would be as severe as Reconstruction was? I doubt it. Reconstruction was also fueled by the memory of a martyred former president and the actions of a weak current one. With Lincoln in office both of those would be missing.
Just amazing to think about how the entire world would have changed if Booth’s plan had worked.
How much for the better would it have been if it had failed entirely?
Problem was, the Confederacy’s best weapon, Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, had surrendered two days earlier, and the Confederate government was running for its life. Johnston was still active in North Carolina, and some of the armies in the West as well, but by April 14, there basically was not a Confederate States of America left.
As harsh as Reconstruction was after Lincoln’s death (Booth giving the Radical Republicans the ammo they needed), I can only imagine how bad it would have been had Grant, the Union’s great war hero, been killed as well. Booth, by doing what he thought was his patriotic duty as a proud son of the South, instead consigned a lot of Southerners to up to twelve years of military rule and economic devastation. I’m as proud a son of Virginia as you’ll find on here, and I’ve no great love for Lincoln, but it would have been better for all parties concerned, North and South, had Booth’s pistol misfired.
}:-)4