The Lincoln Assassination The Lincoln Assassination President Abraham Lincoln led the United States through its most terrible crisis. In the midst of the Civil War, he spoke memorably of the ideals upon which the American government was founded. At the end of the war, he appealed to people's nobler instincts, speaking words of reconciliation and healing. On the evening of April 14 1865, Abe and his wife Mary attended a play called "Our American Cousin" starring Laura Keene at Ford's Theater. Henry R. Rathbone, an Army Major, and Clara Harris accompanied them. The play was a comedy, which Lincoln thought was very funny, about a Yankee boy. Lincoln's bodyguard, who had a very bad record, had snuck down to watch the play and later left. During the third act, a man stepped into the President's box. The man had a small one shot .44 caliber muzzle-loading Derringer pistol. He pointed it at Abe Lincoln's head and shot. Major Rathbone turned around to see John Wilkes Booth with a smoking pistol and a hunting knife. Rathbone jumped at Booth, but he got cut on Booth's knife. Booth jumped from the President's box to the stage. One of his spurs from his boot got caught on the cloth draped over the ledge of the box. He tumbled onto the stage and broke his left shinbone. Laura Keene shouted, "The President is shot, the President is shot!" The bullet entered the back of his skull and was now wedged behind his right eye. He was carried across the street to Peterson's Boarding House where he died the next morning at 7:22. He was groaning but he was still unconscious and Mary cried on him the whole night. Already the dominant symbol of the Civil War, he became a martyred hero on his sudden and violent death. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police blotter lists the assassination among the more mundane police business of April 14, 1865. The entry begins: "At this hour the melancholy intelligence of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, President of the U.S, at Fords Theater was brought to this office, and information obtained from the following persons goes to show that the assassin is a man named J. Wilkes [sic] Booth..." The Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police was one of several civil and military police groups involved in the investigation. Booth escaped from the scene but was tracked down in Virginia by a platoon of New York Cavalry. Refusing to give himself up, he was trapped in a burning barn and shot. Was Booth Part of a Larger Plot or did he act alone? Although there is no doubt that John Wilkes Booth Killed President Lincoln, there are dozens of theories on who else may have been working with Booth on an assassination conspiracy. We've included a few of the theories that are widely accepted as plausible by historians. LINCOLN DIED BY WAY OF A SIMPLE CONSPIRACY ORGANIZED BY JOHN WILKES BOOTH This theory has John Wilkes Booth as the mastermind and that all remaining conspirators, with the one exception of John Surratt, were either hanged or sent to prison at Ft. Jefferson. Among the books that have supported this theory are Clara Laughlin's The Death of Lincoln: The Story of Booth's Plot, His Deed, and the Penalty, David M. DeWitt's The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Its Expiation, and George S. Bryan's The Great American Myth. The simple conspiracy theory paints Booth as a Southern patriot and racist who originally planned to kidnap the President, take him to Richmond, and hold him in exchange for Southern prisoners of war. When the kidnapping plans fell through, Booth turned to assassination as his means for revenge. The entire plot consisted simply of John Wilkes Booth as the leader of a small band of co-conspirators. No other people were involved. LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION WAS THE RESULT OF A CONFEDERATE PLOT The idea that Lincoln was killed as part of a grand conspiracy of Confederates arose almost immediately after the assassination. Coded letters found in Booth's trunk back at the National Hotel tied him to the Confederacy. A statement conspirator George Atzerodt made before the trial in 1865 adds further credence to this theory. In it Atzerodt told of Booth's knowledge of a Confederate plot to blow up the White House. Proponents of the Confederate grand conspiracy point out that as the Confederacy's situation deteriorated, more daring and reckless planning was needed. Lincoln was viewed as a legitimate wartime target. This was especially true after the Union's failed Dahlgren raid on Richmond that had been approved by Lincoln himself and was evidence of Lincoln's increasing determination to take whatever steps were necessary to end the war. Colonel Ulrich Dahlgren was killed in the raid, and on his person several documents were found, one of which said, "The men must be kept together, and well in hand, and once in the city, it must be destroyed and Jeff Davis and his cabinet killed." Lincoln had hand-picked Dahlgren for the raid, and the Confederate government now believed the Union President had ordered Davis's death. Confederate grand conspiracy theorists feel Judah Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, was deeply involved in the plot to kidnap/kill Abraham Lincoln. He burned all of his records before Richmond was evacuated. Benjamin escaped to England, and he was the only member of the Confederate government never to return to the United States. He practiced law in England until 1883 and died in Paris on May 6, 1884. The theory of a Confederate grand conspiracy portrays Booth as a rebel agent working to organize a band of men to kidnap Lincoln. When Richmond fell, the plans turned to assassination. First, there was the failed effort to blow up the White House followed by the successful effort to kill Lincoln at the theater. Just as Lincoln may have ordered the killing of Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet by Ulrich Dahlgren and his men, Judah Benjamin and Jefferson Davis were involved in the plans to kidnap and later assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The theory of Confederate complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is accepted by many of the current Lincoln assassination historians, scholars, researchers, and writers. The actual trigger for Booth's actions was the April 10th capture of explosives expert Thomas F. Harney who was on his way to Washington to bomb the White House. Booth, knowing Harney's mission had failed, tried to make up for Harney's disaster by taking matters into his own hands and killing the President at Ford's Theatre. ANDREW JOHNSON WAS INVOLVED WITH BOOTH Approximately 7 hours before shooting the President, Booth dropped by the Washington hotel which was Vice-President Andrew Johnson's residence. Upon learning from the desk clerk that neither Johnson nor his private secretary, William A. Browning, was in the hotel, Booth wrote the following note: "Don't wish to disturb you Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth." Browning testified before the military court that he found the note in his box later that afternoon. Did Johnson and Booth know each other? In the 1997 publication "Right or Wrong, God Judge Me": The Writings of John Wilkes Booth edited by John Rhodehamel and Louise Taper it is stated on p. 146 that Booth had previously met Johnson in Nashville in February, 1864. At the time Booth was appearing in the newly opened Wood's Theatre. Also, author Hamilton Howard in Civil War Echoes (1907) made the claim that while Johnson was military governor of Tennessee, he and Booth kept a couple of sisters as mistresses and often times were seen in each other's company. Lincoln had essentially ignored Johnson after Johnson's embarrassing behavior on Inauguration Day. Mary Todd Lincoln felt Johnson was involved. On March 15, 1866, she wrote to her friend, Sally Orne: "...that, 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 - I have been deeply impressed, with the harrowing thought, that he, had an understanding with the conspirators & they knew their man... As sure, as you & I live, Johnson, had some hand, in all this..." Some members of Congress also thought Johnson was involved and a special Assassination Committee was established to investigate any evidence linking Johnson to Lincoln's death. Nothing suspicious was ever found by the committee; yet a belief by some Americans that Johnson was somehow involved with Booth continued for many years. Sadly, he Truth behind Lincoln‘s Assasination will probably never be known. We are only left with theories and guesses. . . "The last day he lived was the happiest of his life." Mary Todd Lincoln to Rev. Noyes W. Miner. Source: The Later Life and Religious Sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, a lecture by Rev. J.A. Reed, text in Scribner's Monthly, July, 1873.

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