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Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 | Posted by Editor - Blog News Service

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865 Abraham Lincoln was shoot

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln, one of the last major events in the American Civil War, took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater with his wife and two guests.

Lincoln’s assassin, actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, had also plotted with fellow conspirators, Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt, to kill William H. Seward (then Secretary of State) and Vice President Andrew Johnson respectively. Although Booth succeeded in killing Lincoln, the larger plot failed. Seward was attacked, but recovered from his wounds, and Johnson’s would-be assassin fled Washington, D.C. upon losing his nerve.

In the fall of 1860, John Wilkes Booth reportedly became a Knights of the Golden Circle initiate in Baltimore.[3] Booth attended Lincoln’s second inauguration on March 4, 1865, as the invited guest of his secret fiancée Lucy Hale, the daughter of John P. Hale, soon to be United States Ambassador to Spain. Booth remarked afterwards, “What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, to kill the President on Inauguration day!”

On March 17, 1865, Booth told his conspirators that Lincoln would be attending a play, Still Waters Run Deep, at Campbell Military Hospital. He assembled his team in a restaurant at the edge of town, evidently intending that they should soon join him on a stretch of road nearby and ambush the president on his way back from the hospital. But after going out to check on Lincoln, Booth returned with the news that Lincoln had not gone there after all. Instead, the president was at the National Hotel attending a ceremony in which the officers of the 142nd Indiana were presenting their governor with a captured Confederate Battle Flag. Ironically, Booth lived at the National Hotel, meaning that if Booth was not waiting at the hospital he could have killed Lincoln then.

On April 11, 1865, Booth attended a speech outside the White House in which Lincoln gave support for the idea of voting rights for blacks. Furious at the prospect, Booth changed to a plan for assassination: “That is the last speech he will ever give”.

Three days prior to his assassination, Abraham Lincoln related a dream he had to his wife and a few friends. According to Ward Hill Lamon, one of the friends who was present for the conversation, the president said: “About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers, ‘The President,’ was his answer; ‘he was killed by an assassin.’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.”

Meanwhile, the Confederacy was falling apart. On April 3, Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, fell to the Union army. On April 9, the Army of Northern Virginia, the first army of the Confederacy, surrendered to the Army of the Potomac at Appomatox Court House. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the rest of his government were in full flight. Although many Southerners had given up hope, Booth continued to believe in his cause.

On April 14, Booth’s morning started at the stroke of midnight. Lying wide awake in his bed at the National Hotel, he wrote his mother that all was well, but that he was “in haste”. In his diary, he wrote that “Our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done”.

Abraham Lincoln’s day started well for the first time in a long time. Hugh McCulloch, the new Secretary of the Treasury, remarked on that morning: “I never saw Mr. Lincoln so cheerful and happy”. No one could miss the difference. For months the President had looked pale and haggard. Lincoln himself told people how happy he was. This caused the First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln some concern as she believed that saying such things out loud was bad luck. Lincoln paid her no heed. Lincoln met with his Cabinet that day and later had a brief meeting with Vice President Johnson, the first between the two since Johnson had shown up drunk to take the vice presidential oath on Inauguration Day.

At around noon while visiting Ford’s to pick up his mail, Booth overheard that the President and General Grant would be attending the Ford Theatre to watch Our American Cousin that night. Booth determined that this was the perfect opportunity to do that something “decisive” for which he was looking. Booth knew the theater’s layout, having performed there several times, as recently as the previous month. Booth believed that if he and the others could kill the President, Grant, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward, at the same time, he could upend the Union government for a long-enough time so that the Confederacy could mount a resurgence.

That same afternoon Booth went to Mary Surratt’s boarding house in Washington, D.C. and asked her to deliver a package to her tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland. He also requested Surratt to tell her tenant who resided there to have the guns and ammunition that Booth had previously stored at the tavern ready to be picked up that evening. She complied with Booth’s request and, along with Louis J. Weichmann, her boarder and son’s friend, she made the trip. This exchange would lead directly to Mary Surratt’s execution three months later. At 7 o’clock that night Booth met with his fellow conspirators. Booth assigned Powell to kill Seward, Atzerodt to kill Johnson, and David E. Herold to guide Powell to the Seward house and then lead him out of the city to rendezvous with Booth in Maryland. Booth would shoot Lincoln with his single-shot derringer and then stab Grant with a knife. They were all to strike simultaneously, shortly after 10 o’clock. Atzerodt wanted nothing to do with it, saying he had signed up for a kidnapping, not a killing. Booth told him he was too far in to back out.

Contrary to the information Booth read in the newspaper, General and Mrs. Grant had declined the invitation to see the play with the Lincolns, as Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant did not like each other. Several other people were invited to join them, until finally Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris (daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris) accepted the invitation.

“What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?” The president replied, “She won’t think anything about it”. Those were the last words ever spoken by Abraham Lincoln. It was about 10:15 p.m.

The box was supposed to be guarded by a policeman named John Frederick Parker who, by all accounts, was a curious choice for a bodyguard. During the intermission, Parker went to a nearby tavern with Lincoln’s footman and coachman. It is unclear whether he ever returned to the theatre, but he was certainly not at his post when Booth entered the box.

Booth knew the play, and waited for the right moment, one where actor Harry Hawk would be onstage as “cousin Asa”, where there would be laughter to muffle the sound of a gunshot, when Hawk said to the insufferable Mrs Mountchessington, “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!” Booth raced forward and shot the president in the back of the head.Lincoln slumped over in his rocking chair, unconscious. Mary reached out and caught him, then screamed. Rathbone jumped from his seat and tried to prevent Booth from escaping, but Booth stabbed the Major violently in the arm with a knife. Rathbone quickly recovered and tried to grab Booth as he was preparing to jump from the sill of the box. Booth again stabbed at Rathbone, and then attempted to vault over the rail and down to the stage. His riding spur caught on the Treasury flag decorating the box, Booth jumped on the stage and landed awkwardly on his left foot, fracturing his left fibula just above the ankle. He raised himself up and, holding a knife over his head, yelled, “Sic semper tyrannis!” the Latin Virginia state motto, meaning “Thus always to tyrants”. Other accounts state that he also uttered “The South is avenged!” He then ran across the stage, and went out the door onto the horse he had waiting outside. Some of the men in the audience chased after him, but failed to catch him. Booth struck “Peanuts” Burroughs in the forehead with the handle of his knife, leaped onto the horse, kicked Burroughs in the face with his good leg, and rode away. He headed toward the Navy Yard Bridge to meet up with Herold and Powell.

Mary Lincoln’s and Clara Harris’ screams and Rathbone’s cries of “Stop that man!” caused the audience to understand that this was not part of the show, and pandemonium broke out in Ford’s Theatre. Dr. Charles Leale, a young Army surgeon on liberty for the night and attending the play, made his way through the crowd to the door at the rear of the Presidential box. It would not open. Finally Rathbone saw a notch carved in the door and a wooden brace jammed there to hold the door shut. Booth had carved the notch there earlier in the day and noiselessly put the brace up against the door after entering the box to kill Lincoln. Rathbone shouted to Leale, who stepped back from the door, allowing Rathbone to remove the brace and open the door.

Leale entered the box to find Rathbone bleeding profusely from a deep gash that ran the length of his upper left arm. Nonetheless, he passed Rathbone by and stepped forward to find Lincoln slumped forward in his chair, held up by Mary, who was sobbing. Lincoln had no pulse and Leale believed him to be dead. Leale lowered the President to the floor. A second doctor in the audience, Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, was lifted bodily from the stage over the railing and into the box. Taft and Leale cut away Lincoln’s blood-stained collar and opened his shirt, and Leale, feeling around by hand, discovered the bullet hole in the back of the head by the left ear. Leale removed a clot of blood in the wound and Lincoln’s breathing improved. Still, Leale knew it made no difference: “His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover”.

Leale, Taft, and another doctor from the audience, Dr. Albert King, quickly consulted and decided that while the President must be moved, a bumpy carriage ride across town to the White House was out of the question. After briefly considering Peter Taltavull’s Star Saloon next door, they chose to carry Lincoln across the street and find a house. The three doctors and some soldiers who had been in the audience carried the President out the front entrance of Ford’s. Across the street, a man was holding a lantern and calling “Bring him in here! Bring him in here!” The man was Henry Safford, a boarder at William Petersen’s boarding house opposite Ford’s. The men carried Lincoln into the boarding house and into the first-floor bedroom, where they laid him diagonally on the bed because he was too tall to lie straight.

A vigil began at the Petersen House. The three physicians already in attendance were joined by Surgeon General of the United States Army Dr. Joseph K. Barnes, Dr. Charles Henry Crane, Dr. Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Dr. Robert K. Stone. Crane was a Major and Barnes’ assistant. Stone was Lincoln’s personal physician. Robert Lincoln, who had stayed home, arrived at the Petersen House after being told of the shooting at about midnight. Tad Lincoln, who had attended Grover’s Theater to see Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, was not allowed to go to the Peterson House. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton came and took charge of the scene. Mary Lincoln was so unhinged by the experience of the assassination that Stanton ordered her out of the room by shouting, “Take that woman out of here and do not let her in here again!” While Mary Lincoln sobbed in the front parlor, Stanton set up shop in the rear parlor, effectively running the United States government for several hours, sending and receiving telegrams, taking reports from witnesses, and issuing orders for the pursuit of Booth. Nothing more could be done for President Lincoln. At 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died. He was 56 years old. Mary Lincoln was not present at the time of his death. The crowd around the bed knelt for a prayer, and when they were finished, Stanton said “Now he belongs to the ages”. There is some disagreement among historians as to Stanton’s words after Lincoln died. All agree that he began “Now he belongs to the…” with some stating he said “ages” while others believe he said “angels”.

Abraham Lincoln was the first American President to be assassinated. His assassination had a long-lasting impact upon the United States, and he was mourned around the country. As a result of his assassination, there were attacks in many cities against those who expressed support for Booth. On the Easter Sunday after Lincoln’s death, clergymen around the country praised Lincoln in their sermons. Millions of people came to Lincoln’s funeral procession in Washington, D.C. on April 19, 1865, and as his body was transported 1,700 miles (2,700 km) through New York to Springfield, Illinois. His body and funeral train were viewed by millions along the route. Among those who viewed the funeral procession was future president Theodore Roosevelt.
Lincoln’s funeral procession in New York City

After Lincoln’s death, Ulysses S. Grant called him, “Incontestably the greatest man I ever knew”. Southern-born Elizabeth Blair said that, “Those of southern born sympathies know now they have lost a friend willing and more powerful to protect and serve them than they can now ever hope to find again”. Andrew Johnson was sworn in as President following Lincoln’s death. Johnson became one of the least popular presidents in American history. He was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868 but the Senate failed to convict him by one vote. William Seward recovered from his wounds and continued to serve as Secretary of State throughout Johnson’s presidency. He later negotiated the Alaska Purchase, then known as Seward’s Folly, by which the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. The town of Seward, Alaska and Alaska’s Seward Peninsula are named after him.

Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris married two years after the assassination, and Rathbone went on to become the US consul to Hanover, Germany. However, Rathbone later went mad and, in 1883, shot Clara and then stabbed her to death. He spent the rest of his life in a German asylum for the criminally insane.
President Warren G. Harding speaks at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial

John Ford tried to reopen his theater a couple of months after the murder but a wave of outrage forced him to cancel. In 1866, the federal government purchased the building from Ford, tore out the insides, and turned it into an office building. In 1893, the inner structure collapsed, killing 22 clerks. It was later used as a warehouse, then it lay empty until it was restored to its 1865 appearance. Ford’s Theatre reopened in 1968 both as a museum of the assassination and a working playhouse. The Presidential Box is never occupied. The Petersen House was purchased in 1896 as the “House Where Lincoln Died;” it was the first piece of real estate ever acquired by the federal government as a memorial.[citation needed] Today, Ford’s and the Petersen House are operated together as the Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site.

The Army Medical Museum, now named the National Museum of Health and Medicine, has retained in its collection several artifacts relating to the assassination. Currently on display are the bullet that hit Lincoln, the probe used by Barnes, pieces of Lincoln’s skull and hair, and the surgeon’s cuff stained with Lincoln’s blood. The chair in which Lincoln was shot is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan.

Abraham Lincoln was honored on the centennial of his birth when his portrait was placed on the U.S. one-cent coin in 1909. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was opened in 1922.

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