Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Part of the American Civil War
Location	Ford's Theatre, Washington, D.C.
Date	April 14, 1865 (1865-04-14) 10:15 p.m.
Target	Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson William H. Seward
Attack type	Political assassination shooting stabbing
Weapons	Philadelphia Deringer pistol dagger
Deaths	1 (Abraham Lincoln)
Injured	4
Perpetrators	John Wilkes Booth and co-conspirators

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., just as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 a.m., in the Petersen House opposite the theater. His funeral and burial began an extended period of national mourning.

The assassination – five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac – was part of a larger conspiracy headed by Booth and meant to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. Beyond Lincoln's death the plot failed: Seward was only wounded and Johnson's would-be attacker lost his nerve. After a dramatic initial escape Booth was killed at the climax of a lengthy manhunt, and several other conspirators were later hanged.

Lincoln was the third American president to die in office, and the first to be murdered. He had been the target of an earlier assassination attempt, by an unknown assailant, in August 1864.

Background

Abandoned plan to kidnap Lincoln

The last known high-quality image of Lincoln, taken on the White House balcony, March 6, 1865

John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth, originally from Maryland, was an outspoken Confederate sympathizer. In late 1860 he was initiated in the pro-Confederate Knights of the Golden Circle in Baltimore. Born into a family of well-known stage actors, Booth had become a famous actor and a nationally recognized celebrity in his own right by the time of the assassination.

In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union armies, suspended the exchange of prisoners-of-war with the Confederate Army to increase pressure on the manpower-starved South. Booth conceived a plan to hold Lincoln hostage until the North agreed to resume prisoner exchanges. He recruited Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael O'Laughlen, Lewis Powell (also known as "Lewis Paine"), and John Surratt to help him. Surratt's mother, Mary Surratt, left her tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland and moved to a house in Washington, D.C., where Booth became a frequent visitor.

While Booth and Lincoln were not personally acquainted, Lincoln had seen Booth at Ford's in 1863. After the assassination, actor Frank Mordaunt wrote that Lincoln admired Booth, whom Lincoln had repeatedly invited (without success) to visit the White House.

Booth attended Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865, as the invited guest of his secret fiancée Lucy Hale, daughter of John P. Hale, soon to become United States Ambassador to Spain. Booth afterwards wrote in his diary, "What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, to kill the President on Inauguration day!"

On March 17 Booth and the other conspirators planned to abduct Lincoln as he returned from a play at Campbell Military Hospital. But Lincoln did not go to the play, instead attending a ceremony at the National Hotel; Booth was living at the National Hotel at the time and, had he not gone to the hospital for the abortive kidnap attempt, might have been able to attack Lincoln at the hotel.

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 main army of the Confederacy, surrendered to the Army of the Potomac at Appomattox Court House. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the rest of his government were in full flight. Despite many Southerners giving up hope, Booth continued to believe in his cause.

The only known photograph of Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address. Lincoln stands in the center, at a low lectern, holding papers. Booth is in the top row, right of center.

Motive

Further information: John Wilkes Booth § Theories of Booth's motivation

There are various theories about Booth's motivations. In a letter to his mother he wrote of his desire to avenge the South. Doris Kearns Goodwin has endorsed the idea that another factor was Wilkes' rivalry with his well-known older brother, actor Edwin Booth, who was a loyal Unionist. David S. Reynolds believes Wilkes greatly admired the abolitionist John Brown; Wilkes' sister Asia Booth Clarke quoted him as saying: "John Brown was a man inspired, the grandest character of the century!" On April 11 Booth attended Lincoln's speech at the White House in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks; Booth muttered "That means nigger citizenship." He vowed, "That is the last speech he will ever give." Booth urged Lewis Powell to shoot the President on the spot. When Paine refused, Booth turned to David Herold, and exclaimed, "By God, I'll put him through."

Lincoln's premonitions

According to Ward Hill Lamon, three days before his death Lincoln related a dream in which he wandered the White House searching for the source of mournful sounds:

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."

For months Lincoln had looked pale and haggard, but on the morning of the assassination he told people how happy he was. First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln felt such talk could bring bad luck. Lincoln told his cabinet that he had dreamed of being on "singular and indescribable vessel that was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore", and that he'd had the same dream before "nearly every great and important event of the War" such as the victories at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

Preparations

Advertisement for Our American Cousin (Washington Evening Star, April 14, 1865)

On April 14 Booth's morning started at midnight. 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".

While visiting Ford's Theatre around noon to pick up his mail, Booth learned that Lincoln and Grant would see Our American Cousin there that night. This provided him with an especially good opportunity to attack Lincoln since, having performed there several times, he knew the theater's layout and was familial to its staff. He 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 asked her to tell her tenant Louis J. Weichmann to ready the guns and ammunition that Booth had previously stored at the tavern.

Ford's Theatre

The conspirators met for the final time at 7 p.m. Booth assigned Lewis Powell to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward at his home, George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson at the Kirkwood Hotel, and David E. Herold to guide Powell (who was unfamiliar with Washington) to the Seward house and then to a rendezvous with Booth in Maryland. Booth planned to shoot Lincoln with his single-shot Deringer, and then stab Grant, at Ford's Theatre. They were all to strike simultaneously shortly after ten o'clock. Atzerodt tried to withdraw from the plot, which to this point was planned to involve only kidnapping, not murder, but Booth pressured him to continue.

Assassination of Lincoln

Lincoln's box

Lincoln arrives at the theater

Mary Lincoln had developed a headache and was inclined to stay home, but Lincoln told her he must attend because newspapers had announced that he would. Lincoln's bodyguard, William H. Crook, advised Lincoln not to attend the theater; Lincoln said he had promised his wife.

Despite what Booth had heard earlier in the day, General and his wife, Julia Grant, had declined to accompany the Lincolns, as Mary Lincoln and Julia Grant were not on good terms. Others in succession had similarly declined, until finally Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris (daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris) accepted. Lincoln told Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, "I suppose it's time to go though I would rather stay" before assisting Mary into the carriage.

There is evidence to suggest that either Booth or his fellow conspirator Michael O'Laughlen (who resembled Booth) followed Grant and his wife to Union Station late that afternoon and discovered that Grant would not be at the theater. Apparently, O'Laughlen boarded the Grants' train intending to kill Grant. An alleged attack during the evening took place; however, the assailant was unsuccessful since the Grants' private car was locked and guarded.

The presidential party arrived late and settled into their box, which was actually two boxes with their dividing partition removed. The play was interrupted and the orchestra played "Hail to the Chief" as the full house of 1700 rose in applause. Lincoln sat in a rocking chair which had been specially set out for him from the theater owner's own bedroom.

Booth's Philadelphia Deringer

At one point the cast modified a line in honor of Lincoln: when the heroine asked for a seat protected from the draft, the reply – scripted as, "Well, you're not the only one that wants to escape the draft" – was delivered instead as, "The draft has already been stopped by order of the President!" A member of the audience observed that Mary Lincoln often called her husband's attention to aspects of the action onstage, and "seemed to take great pleasure in witnessing his enjoyment."

During the evening Mary Lincoln whispered to Lincoln, who was holding her hand, "What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?" Lincoln replied, "She won't think anything about it". These may have been the last words he spoke, though it has been claimed that he later told Mary that he desired to visit the Holy Land: "There is no place I so much desire to see as Jerusalem."

Booth shoots Lincoln

This Currier & Ives print (1865) implies Rathbone was already rising as Booth fired; in fact, Rathbone was unaware of Booth until he heard the shot.

Policeman John Frederick Parker was assigned to guard the president's box, but at intermission he went to a nearby tavern along with Lincoln's footman and coachman. In any event it is unclear whether he returned to the theater, but he was certainly not at his post when Booth entered the box. It is uncertain whether a policeman would have denied entry to a celebrity such as Booth. Navy Surgeon George Brainerd Todd saw Booth arrive:

About 10:25 pm, a man came in and walked slowly along the side on which the "Pres" box was and I heard a man say, "There's Booth" and I turned my head to look at him. He was still walking very slow and was near the box door when he stopped, took a card from his pocket, wrote something on it, and gave it to the usher who took it to the box. In a minute the door was opened and he walked in.

Once inside this door, which swung inward, Booth barricaded it by wedging a stick between it and the wall. From here a second door led to Lincoln's box. There is evidence that, earlier in the day, he had bored a peephole in this second door, though this is not certain.

Washington Metropolitan Police Department blotter for April 14 (lower quarter of page): "At this hour the mel­an­choly intel­li­gence of the assas­si­na­tion of Mr. Lincoln ... was brought to this office ..."

Booth knew the play by heart, and waited to time his shot with one of the funniest lines of the play, delivered by actor Harry Hawk: "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!". Lincoln was laughing at this line when he was shot.

Booth opened the door, stepped forward, and shot Lincoln from behind with a derringer. The bullet entered Lincoln's skull behind his left ear, fracturing his skull, traversing the left side of his brain, and finally stopping above his right eye. Lincoln lost consciousness, slumped over in his chair and then fell backward. Mary reached out to him and screamed. Rathbone thought Booth shouted a word that sounded like "Freedom!"

Booth escapes

Booth's dagger

Rathbone jumped from his seat and struggled with Booth, who dropped the pistol and drew a knife, then stabbed Rathbone in the left forearm. Rathbone again grabbed at Booth as Booth prepared to jump from the box to the stage, a twelve-foot drop; Booth's riding spur became entangled on the Treasury flag decorating the box, and he landed awkwardly on his left foot. He began crossing the stage, and many in the audience thought he was part of the play. Booth held his bloody knife over his head, and yelled something to the audience.

While it is traditionally held that Booth shouted the Virginia state motto, Sic semper tyrannis! ("Thus always to tyrants") either from the box or from the stage, witness accounts conflict. Most recalled hearing Sic semper tyrannis! but others – including Booth himself – said he yelled only Sic semper! (Some did not recall Booth saying anything in Latin.) There is similar uncertainty about what Booth shouted, next, in English: either "The South is avenged!", "Revenge for the South!", or "The South shall be free!" (Two witnesses remembered Booth's words as: "I have done it!")

Immediately after Booth landed on the stage, Major Joseph B. Stewart climbed over the orchestra pit and footlights, and pursued Booth across the stage. The screams of Mary Lincoln and Clara Harris, and Rathbone's cries of "Stop that man!" caused others to join the chase as pandemonium broke out.

Booth ran across the stage and exited through a side door. On his way he encountered and stabbed orchestra leader William Withers, Jr. He had left a horse waiting outside; with the handle of his knife he struck Joseph Burroughs, who was holding the horse, in the forehead and leaped onto the horse, apparently then kicking Burroughs in the chest with his good leg.

Death of Lincoln

Charles Leale

Charles Leale, a young Army surgeon, made his way to the door of Lincoln's box but found it would not open. Rathbone, inside the door, soon noticed and removed the wooden brace with which Booth had jammed it shut.

Leale entered the box to find Lincoln seated with his head leaning to his right as Mary held him and sobbed: "His eyes were closed and he was in a profoundly comatose condition, while his breathing was intermittent and exceedingly stertorous." Thinking Lincoln had been stabbed, Leale shifted him to the floor. Meanwhile, another physician, Charles Sabin Taft, was lifted bodily from the stage into the box.

After Taft and Leale opened Lincoln's shirt and found no stab wound, Leale located the gunshot wound behind the left ear. He found the bullet too deep to be removed, but was able dislodge a clot, after which Lincoln's breathing improved; he learned that regularly removing new clots maintained Lincoln's breathing. As actress Laura Keene cradled the President's head in her lap, he pronounced the wound mortal.

Leale, Taft, and another doctor, Albert King, decided that while Lincoln must be moved a carriage ride to the White House was too dangerous. After considering Peter Taltavull's Star Saloon next door, they concluded to take Lincoln to one of the houses across the way. It rained as soldiers carried Lincoln into the street, where a man urged them toward to the house of tailor William Petersen. In Petersen's first-floor bedroom, the exceptionally tall Lincoln was laid diagonally on the bed.

Skull fragments and probe used

More physicians arrived: Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes, Charles Henry Crane, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Robert K. Stone (Lincoln's personal physician). Barnes probed the wound, locating the bullet and some bone fragments. Throughout the night, as the hemorrhage continued, they removed blood clots to relieve pressure on the brain, and Leale held the comatose president's hand with a firm grip, "to let him know that he was in touch with humanity and had a friend."

Lincoln's older son Robert Todd Lincoln arrived sometime after midnight but twelve-year-old Tad Lincoln was kept away. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton arrived. Stanton insisted that the sobbing Mary Lincoln leave the sick room, then for the rest of the night essentially ran the United States government from the house, including directing the hunt for Booth and his confederates. Guards kept the public away, but numerous officials and physicians were admitted to pay their respects.

As Lincoln lay dying, people were struck by his "perfectly natural" appearance. Maunsell Bradhurst Field wrote in a letter to the New York Times that there was "no apparent suffering, no convulsive action, no rattling of the throat...[only] a mere cessation of breathing". As he died his breathing grew quieter, his face more calm. Shortly before 7 a.m. Mary was allowed to return to Lincoln's side, and, as Dixon reported, "she again seated herself by the President, kissing him and calling him every endearing name."

Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15. Mary Lincoln was not present. According to Lincoln's secretary John Hay, at the moment of Lincoln's death, "a look of unspeakable peace came upon his worn features". The assembly knelt for a prayer, after which Stanton said either "Now he belongs to the ages" or "Now he belongs to the angels."

Johnson became president upon Lincoln's death.

The Last Hours of Abraham Lincoln, designed by John B. Bachelder and painted by Alonzo Chappel (1868), depicts those who visited Lincoln at various times (not simultaneously) as he died.

Powell attacks Seward

An artist's depiction of Lewis Powell attacking William Seward's son, Frederick W. Seward

Booth had assigned Lewis Powell to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward. On April 5 Seward had been thrown from his carriage, suffering a concussion, two breaks in his jaw, and a broken right arm. On the night of the assassination he was confined to bed at his home in Lafayette Park. Herold guided Powell to Seward's house. Powell carried an 1858 Whitney revolver (a large, heavy and popular gun during the Civil War) and Bowie knife.

William Bell, Seward's butler, answered the door when Powell knocked slightly after 10 p.m. Powell told Bell that he had medicine from Seward's physician, and that his instructions were to personally show Seward how to take it. Overcoming Bell's skepticism, Powell made his way up the stairs to Seward's third-floor bedroom. At the top of the staircase he was stopped by Seward's son, Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward, to whom he repeated the medicine story; Frederick, suspicious, said his father was asleep.

William and Fanny Seward in 1861

Hearing voices, Seward's daughter Fanny emerged from Seward's room and said, "Fred, Father is awake now", then closed the door – thus revealing to Powell where Seward was. Powell turned as if to start downstairs, but suddenly turned again and drew his revolver. He aimed at Frederick's forehead and pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired so he bludgeoned Frederick unconscious with it. Bell, yelling "Murder! Murder!", ran outside for help.

Fanny opened the door again and Powell shoved past her to Seward's bed. He stabbed at Seward's face and neck, slicing open his cheek, but the splint doctors had fitted to Seward's broken jaw (often mistakenly described as a neck brace) prevented the blade from penetrating his jugular vein. He eventually recovered, though with serious scars on his face.

Seward's son Augustus and Sergeant George F. Robinson, a soldier assigned to Seward, were attracted by Fanny's screams and stabbed as they struggled with Powell. As Augustus went for a pistol, Powell ran downstairs toward the door, where he encountered a telegraph messenger, who he stabbed in the back, then ran outside exclaiming "I'm mad! I'm mad!". Screams from the house had frightened Herold, who ran away, leaving Powell to find his own way in an unfamiliar city.

Atzerodt forbears to attack Johnson

Booth had assigned George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, who was staying at the Kirkwood House in Washington. Atzerodt was to go to Johnson's room at 10:15 p.m. and shoot him. On April 14 Atzerodt rented the room directly above Johnson's; the next day he arrived there at the appointed time and, carrying a gun and knife, went to the bar downstairs, where he asked the bartender about Johnson's character and behavior. He eventually became drunk and wandered off through the streets, tossing his knife away at some point. He made his way to the Pennsylvania House Hotel by 2 a.m., where he obtained a room and went to sleep.

Earlier in the day, Booth stopped by the Kirkwood House and left a note for Johnson: "I don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth." The card was picked up that night by Johnson's personal secretary, William Browning. One theory holds that Booth was trying to find out whether Johnson was expected at the Kirkwood that night; another holds that Booth, concerned that Atzerodt would fail to kill Johnson, intended the note to implicate Johnson in the conspiracy.

Flight and capture of the conspirators

Booth's escape route

Booth and Herold

Within half an hour fleeing Ford's Theatre, Booth crossed the Navy Yard Bridge into Maryland. An army sentry questioned him about his late-night travel; Booth said that he was going home to the nearby town of Charles. Though it was forbidden for civilians to cross the bridge after 9 p.m., the sentry let him through. David Herold made it across the same bridge less than an hour later and rendezvoused with Booth. After retrieving weapons and supplies previously stored at Surattsville, Herold and Booth went to the home of Samuel A. Mudd, a local doctor, who splinted the leg Booth had broken in jumping from the presidential box, and later made a pair of crutches for Booth.

After a day at Mudd's house, Booth and Herold hired a local man to guide them to Samuel Cox's house. Cox in turn took them to Thomas Jones, a Confederate sympathizer who hid Booth and Herold in Zekiah Swamp for five days until they could cross the Potomac River. On the afternoon of April 24, they arrived at the farm of Richard H. Garrett, a tobacco farmer, in King George County, Virginia. Booth told Garrett he was a wounded Confederate soldier.

Reward broadside with photographs of John H. Surratt, John Wilkes Booth, and David E. Herold

An April 15 letter to Todd from his brother tells of the rumors in Washington about Booth's:

Today all the city is in mourning nearly every house being in black and I have not seen a smile, no business, and many a strong man I have seen in tears – Some reports say Booth is a prisoner, others that he has made his escape – but from orders received here, I believe he is taken, and during the night will be put on a Monitor for safe keeping – as a mob once raised now would know no end.

The hunt for the conspirators quickly became the largest in U.S. history, involving at least 10,000 federal troops and countless civilians. Edwin M. Stanton personally directed the operation, authorizing rewards of $50,000 (equivalent to $1,000,000 in 2023) for Booth and $25,000 each for Herold and John Surratt. Many state and municipal governments offered their own rewards.

Booth and Herold were sleeping at Garrett's farm on April 26 when soldiers from the 16th New York Cavalry arrived and surrounded the barn, then threatened to set fire to it. Herold surrendered, but Booth cried out, "I will not be taken alive!" The soldiers set fire to the barn and Booth scrambled for the back door with a rifle and pistol.

Sergeant Boston Corbett crept up behind the barn and shot Booth in "the back of the head about an inch below the spot where his [Booth's] shot had entered the head of Mr. Lincoln", severing his spinal cord. Booth was carried out onto the steps of the barn. A soldier poured water into his mouth, which he spat out, unable to swallow. Booth told the soldier, "Tell my mother I die for my country." Unable to move his limbs, he asked a soldier to lift his hands before his face and whispered his last words as he gazed at them: "Useless ... useless." He died on the porch of the Garrett farm two hours later.

Others

The Garrett farmhouse, where Booth died April 26

Without Herold to guide him, Powell did not find his way back to the Surratt house until April 17. He told detectives waiting there that he was a ditch-digger hired by Mary Surratt, but she denied knowing him. Both were arrested. George Atzerodt hid at his cousin's farm in Germantown, Maryland, about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Washington, where he was arrested April 20.

The remaining conspirators were arrested by month's end – except for John Surratt, who fled to Quebec where he was hidden by Roman Catholic priests. In September, he boarded a ship to Liverpool, England, staying in the Catholic Church of the Holy Cross there. From there, he moved furtively through Europe until joining the Pontifical Zouaves in the Papal States. A friend from his school days recognized him in there in early 1866 and alerted the U.S. government. Surratt was arrested by the Papal authorities but managed to escape under suspicious circumstances. He was finally captured by an agent of the United States in Egypt in November 1866.

Conspirators' trial

Trial of the conspirators, June 5, 1865

Scores of persons were arrested, including many tangential associates of the conspirators and anyone having had even the slightest contact with Booth or Herold during their flight. These included Louis J. Weichmann, a boarder in Mrs. Surratt's house; Booth's brother Junius (in Cincinnati at the time of the assassination); theater owner John T. Ford; James Pumphrey, from whom Booth hired his horse; John M. Lloyd, the innkeeper who rented Mrs. Surratt's Maryland tavern and gave Booth and Herold weapons and supplies the night of April 14; and Samuel Cox and Thomas A. Jones, who helped Booth and Herold cross the Potomac. All were eventually released except:

• Samuel Arnold
• George Atzerodt
• David Herold
• Samuel Mudd
• Michael O'Laughlen
• Lewis Powell
• Edmund Spangler (a theater stagehand who had given Booth's horse to Burroughs to hold)
• Mary Surratt.

The accused were tried by a military tribunal ordered by Johnson, who had succeeded to the presidency on Lincoln's death:

• Maj. General David Hunter (presiding)
• Lew Wallace
• Brigadier Generals
• Robert Sanford Foster
• Thomas Maley Harris
• Albion P. Howe
• August Kautz, Colonels
• James A. Ekin
• Charles H. Tompkins
• Lt. Col. David Ramsay Clendenin.

The prosecution team was led by U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, assisted by Congressman John A. Bingham and Major Henry Lawrence Burnett.

The use of a military tribunal provoked criticism from Edward Bates and Gideon Welles, who believed that a civil court should have presided; but Attorney General James Speed pointed to the military nature of the conspiracy and the facts that the defendants acted as enemy combatants and that martial law was in force at the time in the District of Columbia. (In 1866, in Ex parte Milligan, the United States Supreme Court banned the use of military tribunals in places where civil courts were operational.) Only a simple majority of the jury was required for a guilty verdict, and a two-thirds for a death sentence. There was no route for appeal other than to President Johnson.

Execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt on July 7, 1865, at Fort McNair in Washington City

The seven-week trial included the testimony of 366 witnesses. All of the defendants were found guilty on June 30. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were sentenced to death by hanging; Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to life in prison. Edmund Spangler was sentenced to six years. After sentencing Mary Surratt to hang, five jurors signed a letter recommending clemency, but Johnson refused to stop the execution; he later claimed he never saw the letter.

Mary Surratt, Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt were hanged in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary on July 7. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States government. O'Laughlen died in prison in 1867. Mudd, Arnold, and Spangler were pardoned in February 1869 by Johnson. Spangler, who died in 1875, always insisted his sole connection to the plot was that Booth asked him to hold his horse.

John Surratt stood trial in Washington in 1867. Four residents of Elmira, New York, claimed they had seen him there between April 13 and 15; fifteen others said they either saw him, or someone who resembled him, in Washington (traveling to or from Washington) on the day of the assassination. The jury could not reach a verdict and John Surrat was released.

Reaction to the assassination

Further information: Funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's funeral train

Lincoln was mourned in both the North and South. Easter Sunday was the day after Lincoln's death; clergymen praised Lincoln in their sermons.

On April 18, mourners lined up seven abreast for a mile to view Lincoln in his walnut casket in the White House's black-draped East Room. Special trains brought thousands from other cities, some of whom slept on the Capitol's lawn. Hundreds of thousands watched the funeral procession on April 19, and millions more lined the 1,700-mile (2,700 km) route of the train which took Lincoln's remains through New York to Springfield, Illinois, often passing trackside bands, bonfires, and hymn-singing. Poet Walt Whitman composed the poems "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", "O Captain! My Captain!", and two other poems, to eulogize Lincoln.

Lincoln ascending to heaven, where George Washington crowns him with laurels. Unknown artist.

Ulysses S. Grant called Lincoln "incontestably the greatest man I ever knew." Robert E. Lee expressed sadness.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." African-American orator Frederick Douglass called the assassination an "unspeakable calamity".

Lincoln's death sparked outpourings of grief around the world. Numerous foreign governments issued proclamations and declared periods of mourning on April 15. British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell wrote to U.S. Minister Charles Francis Adams that Lincoln's death was a "sad calamity." China's chief secretary of state for foreign affairs, Prince Kung, said Lincoln's death "inexpressibly shocked and startled me."

In a letter to Frederick Hassaurek, the U.S. Minister to Ecuador, the Ecuadorian President Gabriel Garcia Moreno said that "Never should I have thought that the noble country of Washington would be humiliated by such a black and horrible crime; nor should I ever have thought that Mr. Lincoln would come to such a horrible end, after having served his country which such wisdom and glory under so critical circumstances."

The government of Liberia issued a proclamation, remarking that Lincoln "was not only the ruler of his own people, but a father to millions of a race stricken and oppressed." The government of Haiti condemned the assassination as a "horrid crime." The United States had recognized both Liberia and Haiti in 1862, only three years prior.

Legacy

Top hat worn by Lincoln to the theater

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 as both a museum of the assassination and a working playhouse; the presidential box is never occupied. The Petersen House was purchased by the U.S. government in 1896 as the "House Where Lincoln Died", being the federal government's first purchase of an historic home. Today, Ford's and the Petersen House are operated together as the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site.

The bed that Lincoln occupied in the Petersen House and other items from the bedroom were bought by Chicago collector Charles F. Gunther and are now owned by and on display at the Chicago History Museum. 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 Dearborn, Michigan.

Found in Lincoln's pockets after his death were two pairs of eyeglasses, an eyeglass case, a lens polisher, a pocketknife, a watch fob, a monogrammed sleeve button, a monogrammed linen handkerchief, and a brown leather wallet containing a pencil, a Confederate five-dollar bill, and eight recent newspaper clippings with favorable remarks about Lincoln and his policies, including British MP John Bright's testimonial for Lincoln's re-election. The Confederate currency was probably acquired as a souvenir when Lincoln visited Richmond and Petersburg earlier that month. These items were kept in the Lincoln family for many years and are now stored in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division in the Library of Congress.

The day before his assassination, Lincoln wrote a personal check for $800 to "self", reportedly to cover some debts incurred by his wife. That check, and several other historical checks, were put on display by Huntington Bank at a branch in Cleveland in 2012, after a Huntington employee discovered the checks in 2011 while looking through old documents from a bank Huntington had acquired in 1983. Although checks from several other historical figures were also on display, the check written by Lincoln two days before his death received the most attention.

On February 9, 1956, 95-year-old Samuel J. Seymour appeared on the U.S. game show I've Got a Secret. The celebrity panel was eventually able to guess Seymour's "secret": he had been in attendance at Ford's Theatre the night of the assassination. Only 5 years old on the day of the April 1865 shooting, Seymour was the last living witness to the event. He died two months after the telecast.

See also

• Second-term curse
• Baltimore Plot
• Phineas Densmore Gurley
• Samuel J. Seymour
• The Conspirator
• George A. Parkhurst
• "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"
• List of assassinated American politicians
• List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots
• Joseph Hazelton, 12-year-old eyewitness

Further reading

• Hodes, Martha. Mourning Lincoln (Yale University Press, 2015) x, 396 pp.
• King, Benjamin. A Bullet for Lincoln, Pelican Publishing, 1993. ISBN 0-88289-927-9
• Lattimer, John. Kennedy and Lincoln, Medical & Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York. 1980. ISBN 978-0-15-152281-1 [includes description and pictures of Seward's jaw splint, not a neck brace]
• Steers Jr., Edward, and Holzer, Harold, eds. The Lincoln Assassination Conspirators: Their Confinement and Execution, as Recorded in the Letterbook of John Frederick Hartranft. Louisiana State University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-8071-3396-5
• Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., Lincoln Assassinated!, Lincoln Assassinated!, Part 2.
• Bagehot, Walter, ed. (April 29, 1865). "The assassination of Mr Lincoln". The Economist. XXIII (1, 131).

External links

• Abraham Lincoln's Physician's Observation and Postmortem Reports: Original Documentation Shapell Manuscript Foundation
• First Responder Dr. Charles Leale Eyewitness Report of Assassination
• Lincoln Papers: Lincoln Assassination: Introduction
• Original Documents Online: Lincoln Assassination Papers
• April 14th, 1865, Ford's Theatre Ticket
• Ford's Theatre National Historic Site
• Abraham Lincoln's Assassination
• Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Lincoln Conspiracy Photograph Album at George Eastman museum
• The Men Who Killed Lincoln – slideshow by Life magazine
• Various articles on the conspirators and Lincoln assassination myths
• Dr. Samuel A. Mudd Research Site
• The official transcript of the trial (as recorded by Benn Pitman and several assistants - originally published in 1865 by the United States Army Military Commission)