On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Virginia’s Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the four-year long American Civil War. The seminal saga in the eighty-one-year history of the United States had divided the country and claimed over 600,000 lives.

The most famous shot of the Civil War, however, was not fired from the battlefield, nor was the most famous life lost that of a general or soldier. Few events could eclipse the ending of what remains America’s most deadly war, but the shot fired at Ford’s Theatre five days after the surrender pushed Appomattox to below the newspaper fold.

On the evening of April 14, one of America’s most noted actors became one of the most infamous figures in American history. Even those who slept through history class know John Wilkes Booth as the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln.

Many self-described history buffs, however, do not know that Lincoln’s assassination was part of a larger conspiracy orchestrated by Booth to revive the Confederate cause. Eliminating the United States’ top three government officials, Booth hoped, would bring the Union to its knees.

Had Booth’s plan succeeded in full, the United States of America could look quite different.

The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln

John Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland into a family of prominent stage actors. He took up the tradition and achieved fame as one of the leading thespians of the time.

If People magazine had been published in the nineteenth century, Booth likely would likely have been on the cover as the sexiest man alive. The leading man had been called the most handsome man in America.

Acting, however, was merely Booth’s profession; his passion was politics, and he was a known Confederate sympathizer. No one, however, knew how ardent the actor was in his hatred of the North.

John Wilkes Booth

Although Abraham Lincoln had never met Booth personally, the President was an admirer of the actor. Some historians say Lincoln invited Booth on several occasions to the White House, but the most handsome man in America never took up the invitation from perhaps the most homely man in America.

Neither Lincoln nor anyone in his inner circle harbored any suspicions about Booth. The actor successfully kept the magnitude of his vitriol against the President hidden.

President Abraham Lincoln

Booth had concocted a plan to kidnap Lincoln in March 1864. He and a group of cohorts were to abduct the President as he returned from a play at Washington, D.C.’s Campbell Military Hospital. Booth hoped holding the President hostage would force the North into resuming the exchange of prisoners of war.

Unbeknownst to Booth, Lincoln changed his plans, foregoing the play to attend a ceremony at the National Hotel, where, ironically, Booth was living at the time. Had he learned of the President’s alteration, he may have been able to attack Lincoln at the hotel.

National Hotel

Washington D.C.

On year later, Booth was present as Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865. He wrote in his diary afterward, “What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, to kill the President on Inauguration day!”

Five weeks later, on April 11, Booth attended Lincoln’s speech at the White House in which the President promoted voting rights for blacks. Booth told a friend, “That means n*gger citizenship . . . That is the last speech he will ever give.”

Four days later, Booth backed up his words as the famed thespian performed his most famous act.

Lincoln’s Second Inauguration

Booth’s visiting Washington’s Ford’s Theatre on the morning of April 14 proved fortuitous for him. He was told President Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant were to attend the play Our American Cousin at the theatre that evening.

Ford’s Theatre

Booth hastily contacted Lewis Powell and George Atzerdot. The group met at the boarding house of Confederate sympathizer Mary Surratt, where weapons had been stored.

The Surratt Boarding House

Powell had been a Confederate soldier in the Civil War and Atzerodt, a German immigrant, had acted as a boatman for Confederate spies. Both had been recruited by Booth in his original plan to abduct Lincoln in March 1864.

This time, Booth was not content to kidnap. His hatred toward Lincoln was at its zenith and nothing short of the President’s death would suffice. Lincoln, however, was not to be the only victim.

Booth’s plan was for him to kill President Lincoln and General Grant, Atzerodt to dispose of Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Powell to take out Secretary of State William Seward. With the three top officials of the North dead, Booth hoped to resurrect the South.

David Herold, another Booth acquaintance, was brought into the plot to guide Powell, who was unfamiliar with Washington, to the Seward house and then to a rendezvous with Booth in Maryland.

                  George Atzerdot        Lewis Powell           David Herold

Booth planned to shoot Lincoln and Grant as they watched the play from the Presidential Box at Ford’s Theatre. He learned, however, that Grant had changed his mind and declined the President’s offer for him and his wife to Julia to attend. Several other couples declined invitations until Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris, accepted.

Though disappointed, Booth remained steadfast in carrying out his plan. Killing General Grant would have been the icing on the cake. Booth, however, still had his eyes on the main prize of President Lincoln.

Presidential Box

Ford’s Theatre

Booth assumed the entrance of the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre would be guarded. To his surprise, security was light as only one person, Policeman John Parker, was assigned to the area, and he went to a nearby tavern during the play’s intermission.

Some accounts hold that Parker stayed at the tavern for the remainder of the evening although others contend he returned to the theatre. By all accounts, however, he was not at his post when he was most needed.

Policeman John Parker

Booth knew Our American Cousin by heart and planned his shooting of the President to coincide with the laughter generated from one of the funniest lines of the play: “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!” As he predicted, the President, First Lady, and their guests were laughing after the line was uttered.

No one noticed Booth as he entered the presidential box. He opened the door, stepped forward, and shot Lincoln from behind with a Derringer gun. The bullet entered the President’s skull behind his left ear, passed through his brain, and came to rest near the front of the skull after fracturing both orbital plates.

Booth Strikes

After shooting the President, Booth leaped from the box to the stage. It is most frequently written that he shouted the Virginia state motto, Sic semper tyrannis! (“Thus always to tyrants”) either from the box or from the stage, although some witness accounts state otherwise.

In the course of the twelve-foot drop from balcony to stage, Booth’s spurs became entangled on the Treasury flag decorating the box, breaking his left leg as he landed awkwardly. As he stumbled across the stage, many in the audience recognized him and thought he was part of the play. Booth staggered across the stage and exited through a side door, where a horse was stationed outside in the alleyway.

In the process, he stabbed two people with a Bowie knife.

Booth Leaps From The Box . . .

Booth then climbed into the saddle and fled Ford’s Theatre.

Unaware the President had been shot, an army sentry questioned Booth at the Navy Yard Bridge leading out of Washington. Booth told the sentry he was rushing home to the nearby town of Charles. Although it was forbidden for civilians to cross the bridge after 9:00 p.m., the sentry acquiesced and allowed Booth through.

. . . And Flees The Theatre

As Booth made his getaway, chaos erupted at Ford’s Theatre.

Responding to Mary Lincoln’s screams, several doctors in the audience rushed to the President’s aid. Many people had seen Booth with the knife and initially believed he had stabbed Lincoln. Upon inspection, it was learned the President had no stab wounds but had instead been shot.

Lincoln was carried to the nearby home of local tailor William Peterson where he lingered for nine hours before succumbing to his wounds.

With numerous doctors and government officials in the room and his son Robert at his side, President Abraham Lincoln was pronounced dead at 7:22 a.m. on the morning of April 15. The sixteenth President of the United States of America became the country’s first President to be assassinated. Mary Todd Lincoln was too grief stricken to be with her husband in his final moments.

As the man who had commanded America through its most strenuous period drew his last breath, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton somberly said either “Now he belongs to the ages” or “Now he belongs to the angels.”

The Death Of The President

The hunt for Booth and his conspirators became the largest in United States history.

The bounty on the assassin’s head was $100,000, the equivalent of nearly $1 million dollars today.

From Most Handsome To Most Wanted

After retrieving weapons including guns and field glasses stored for them at a tavern owned by Marty Surratt in Surrattsville, Maryland, Booth and Herold headed fifteen miles south to the home of Doctor Samuel Mudd in Bryantown. There, Dr. Mudd splinted Booth’s broken leg and made him a pair of crutches.

Dr. Samuel Mudd

After a day at Mudd’s home, Booth and Herold hired a local man to guide them to Samuel Cox’s house. Cox, in turn, took them to Thomas Jones, another Confederate sympathizer who hid Booth and Herold for five days until they could cross the Potomac River on the afternoon of April 24.

Booth and Herold ultimately made it to the home of Richard Garrett, a tobacco farmer in King George County, Virginia. Booth told Garrett he was a wounded Confederate soldier.

The Fugitives’ Route

Booth and Herold were sleeping when soldiers from the 16th New York Cavalry descended upon the Garrett farm on April 26. The soldiers surrounded the barn and ordered the men to surrender. Herold complied, but Booth steadfastly refused to come out of the barn yelling, “I will not be taken alive!”

As Booth scrambled to the back of the barn, the soldiers set it ablaze. Sergeant Boston Corbett caught a glimpse of the most wanted man in America and crept behind the barn. Against Secretary Stanton’s order to take Booth alive, Corbett shot the fugitive in the back of the head. Booth succumbed to the wound two hours later.

An autopsy showed Corbett’s shot to Booth had been only an inch below the spot where Booth had shot Lincoln.

The End Of The Road For The Assassin

Vice President Andrew Johnson stayed at the Kirkwood House when he was in Washington D.C. As President Lincoln was attending the play at Ford’s Theatre, Johnson was in his ground floor apartment at the five-story hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Vice President Andrew Johnson

George Atzerodt had rented the room directly above Vice President Johnson. As Booth was shooting Lincoln, Atzerodt was to shoot Johnson in his room.

The nerves of Booth’s cohort, however, got the better of him. He became inebriated and wandered the streets that evening. When he sobered up the following day, he learned he was a wanted man. He hid at his cousin’s farm in Germantown, Maryland, twenty-five miles northwest of Washington, where he was arrested on April 20.

Atzerodt Fails To Act

Booth had assigned Lewis Powell to kill Secretary of State William Seward, who figured to be the easiest target as he was confined to bed after suffering a broken jaw and arm in a carriage accident.

Secretary Of State William Seward

Herold guided an armed Powell to Seward’s home. Powell told Seward’s servant and family that he had medicine from Seward’s physician, and that his instructions were to personally administer to him.

Powell made his way up the stairs to Seward’s third-floor bedroom where he was met by Seward’s son, Frederick, the Assistant Secretary of State. Powell repeated his claim, but the younger Seward denied him entry to his father’s room.

Powell then turned as if to start downstairs, but then turned again and drew his gun. He pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired. Powell then bludgeoned Frederick unconscious with it and made his way to Seward’s bed where he stabbed the Secretary of State in his face and neck. Seward’s other son, Augustus, and Sergeant George Robinson, a soldier assigned to Seward, heard the screams of Seward’s daughter Fanny. As they entered the room, Powell stabbed them both before running downstairs and out of the home.

The Attack on Seward

The commotion had frightened Herold, who ran off, abandoning Powell to find his own way in an unfamiliar city. He did not find his way back to the Surratt house until April 17. When he arrived, Mary Suratt was being questioned by military investigators who recognized and arrested Powell.

Powell Acts 

But Does Not Succeed

Secretary Seward recovered from his wounds, but had noticeable scars on his face for the remainder of his life.

Seward Is Scarred 

But Survives

Booth’s principal accomplices in the Lincoln assassination, David Herold, Lewis Powell, and George Atzerodt, were hanged on July 7, 1865.

Powell, Herold, And Atzerdot Are Executed

Mary Surratt was executed with them, becoming the first woman put to death by the United States government. After her death sentence was imposed, five jurors signed a letter recommending clemency, but it was ignored. Andrew Johnson, now the President, later claimed he never received the letter.

Surratt’s execution was controversial, not only due to her gender, but also because of the doubts surrounding her actual knowledge of the plot.  Because she owned the boarding house where Booth and his conspirators orchestrated the assassination of President Lincoln, she was believed to have provided the weapons used in the crime. Whether she knew for what exact crime they would be used is debated.

Mary Surratt

Samuel Mudd was sentenced to life in prison but was pardoned by President Johnson in 1869. He was a southern sympathizer who knew Booth, but it is muddy as to whether the doctor knew of the assassination plot and that he had treated the most wanted man in America. He probably suspected Booth had done something illicit but likely did not know, and did not want to know, the exact nature.

In any event, Dr. Mudd’s name became eponymous to the phrase “His name is Mudd.”

Several others were arrested for their perceived roles in the Lincoln assassination and received sentences of varying degrees.

Dr. Mudd Is Pardoned

If Atzerodt and Powell had done to their targets what Booth did to his, Booth’s hope of the South rebounding could have come to fruition and the United States could looked decidedly different today.

In addition, Secretary Seward was the only prominent person advocating for the United States acquiring Alaska. “Seward’s Folly” was purchased by America in 1867, two years after the Secretary of State was left for dead.

If Seward had been killed, Alaska may still be part of Russia.

Seward’s Folly

Ironically, the legislation creating the Secret Service was on Abraham Lincoln’s desk on the evening he was assassinated. The agency now synonymous with protecting the President was formally established ten weeks later, but it was not initially assigned that duty.

Only in 1902, a year after William McKinley became the second American President to be assassinated, was the Secret Service assigned to guard the President.

The Secret Service was originally created to investigate and eliminate the counterfeiting of currency, which it, in addition to protecting the President, still does today.

Birth Of The Secret Service

Samuel Seymour, the last surviving witness to the Lincoln assassination, appeared on the television game show I’ve Got a Secret in 1956.

 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/627/abraham-lincoln#

SOURCES:

• Civil War Magazine
• History. com
• Historical Archives
• Library of Congress
• Smithsonian Magazine