He was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809.
His parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln.
He was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until he was assassinated on April 1865.
In the Summer of 1864, John Wilkes Booth, met with confederate spies.
They decided they were going to kidnap President Lincoln.
The plot was to abduct Lincoln, bring him to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and use him as a bargaining chip to secure the release of rebel prisoners.
On March 17, 1865, Booth and his fellow conspirators hid along a country road in Washington, D.C.
Lincoln was going to go to the matinee performance of a play at Campbell Hospital to benefit wounded soldiers.
Lincoln had changed his plans and never showed.
After the fall of Richmond and General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Booth decided to kill Lincoln instead.
Booth and his conspirators plotted to not only kill Lincoln, but Grant, Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson.
Ulysses S. Grant accepted Lincoln’s invitation to attend Ford’s Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865.
Grant backed out at the last minute, or he would have possibly been killed as well.
George Atzerodt failed to follow through on his assignment to slay Johnson at his residence in the Kirkwood House hotel.
At the same time Booth shot Lincoln, Lewis Powell stormed Seward’s house and repeatedly stabbed him.
Seward was already bedridden from a near fatal accident.
Seward somehow survived the savage attack.
On the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.
The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army effectively ending the American Civil War.
Laura Keene, the actress, dashed into the Presidential box and had President’s head on her lap before the doctors arrived.
Did you know that Lincoln almost didn't go to the theater that night?
His wife was ill, but they felt obligated to go since Grant wasn't going.
Where was Lincoln's bodyguard?
Why, not where he should have been, of course.
Lincoln's bodyguard was said to be at the saloon during the intermission of the play.
Where was the secret service?
Didn't exist yet.
Lincoln signed a bill that night creating the agency.
Abraham Lincoln's wife thought that the vice president had something to do with the assassination.
Booth had mysteriously called on Johnson at the Kirkwood House hours before the shooting and left a handwritten calling card that read: “Don’t wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.”
The first lady, wrote to a friend, believed
“that miserable inebriate Johnson had cognizance of my husband’s death.
Why was that card of Booth’s found in his box? Some acquaintance certainly existed.”
Atzerodt’s failure to attack Johnson was even seen by some as proof.
Some people think that the guests he had in his box with him that night were cursed.
After Lincoln was shot, Rathbone was trying to subdue Booth.
Booth slashed Rathbone’s left arm from his elbow to his shoulder.
Rathbone recovered from the stab wounds.
After marrying his step sister Harris, he grew increasingly erratic.
Two days before Christmas, he fatally shot and stabbed his wife.
He then attempted to stab himself to death.
He survived his wounds again.
He lived out the remaining three decades of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane.
Lincoln's wife was also institutionalized.
Mary Surratt had a quickened and flawed trial.
People worried that taking there time would stir up sympathizers for the Confederate cause and cripple the nation.
No one knows for sure if she was involved.
Surratt was seen with Booth that day. She allegedly told the housekeeper to prepare guns for visitors that night.
Surratt was hung for it.
This is an interesting video.
No comments:
Post a Comment