Originally, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, had formulated a plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. After attending an April 11th speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and determined to assassinate the President. Learning that the President and the First Lady would be attending Ford’s Theater, he laid his plans, assigning his co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President An-drew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward.
Without his main bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865. As a lone bodyguard wan-dered, and Lincoln sat in his state box (Box 7) in the balcony, Booth crept up behind the President and waited for what he thought would be the funni-est line of the play, hoping the laughter would muffle the noise of the gun-shot.
When the laughter began, Booth jumped into the box and aimed a sin-gle-shot, round-slug .44 caliber Der-ringer at his head, firing at point-blank range. Booth then leapt to the stage and shouted “Sic simper tyran-nis!” (Latin: Thus always to tyrants) and escaped, despite a broken leg suffered in the leap.
A twelve-day manhunt ensued, in which Booth was chased by Federal agents. He was eventually cornered in a Virginia barn house and shot, dying of his wounds soon after.
The President was taken across the street from the theater to the Peter-sen House, where he lay in a coma for nine hours before dying. Several phy-sicians attended Lincoln. Using a probe, they located some fragments of Lincoln’s skull and the ball lodged six inches inside his brain. Lincoln never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 7:22:10 am, April 15th, 1865. He was the first US President to be assassinated, or to lie in state.
Without his main bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865. As a lone bodyguard wan-dered, and Lincoln sat in his state box (Box 7) in the balcony, Booth crept up behind the President and waited for what he thought would be the funni-est line of the play, hoping the laughter would muffle the noise of the gun-shot.
When the laughter began, Booth jumped into the box and aimed a sin-gle-shot, round-slug .44 caliber Der-ringer at his head, firing at point-blank range. Booth then leapt to the stage and shouted “Sic simper tyran-nis!” (Latin: Thus always to tyrants) and escaped, despite a broken leg suffered in the leap.
A twelve-day manhunt ensued, in which Booth was chased by Federal agents. He was eventually cornered in a Virginia barn house and shot, dying of his wounds soon after.
The President was taken across the street from the theater to the Peter-sen House, where he lay in a coma for nine hours before dying. Several phy-sicians attended Lincoln. Using a probe, they located some fragments of Lincoln’s skull and the ball lodged six inches inside his brain. Lincoln never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at 7:22:10 am, April 15th, 1865. He was the first US President to be assassinated, or to lie in state.
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