Today in History

April 14, 1865

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

John Wilkes Booth was an angry man. The actor had been a Confederate during the civil war and viewed President Abraham Lincoln as an unconstitutional tyrant. He formulated a plan to kidnap the President and hold him as a ransom for the release of Confederate prisoners under guard by the federal government. After hearing a speech by Lincoln, however, Booth's plans turned to assassination.

President Lincoln, along with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, attended the play Our American Cousin at the Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. Lincoln sat in a balcony box. His guard wandered the halls. Booth waited outside the President's box for the funniest part of the play, knowing that the noise of laughter would make it easier to execute his plan. When the laughter reached its loudest point, Booth rushed into the President's box and fired point blank into the back of Lincoln's head with a .44 caliber derringer. After a brief scuffle with others in the box, Booth leapt off the balcony onto the stage and shouted the Latin phrase "Sic semper tyrannis!" ("Thus always to tyrants"). Despite breaking his leg in the jump from the balcony, Booth escaped. He was cornered 12 days later in a Virginia barn and was shot. He died from the wounds incurred there.

Lincoln's wounds were immediately assessed as fatal. He remained in a coma for nine hours and died on April 15 at the age of 56. He was the first American president to be assassinated.

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