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DEATH OF A PRESIDENT 14-15 APRIL 1865
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Lincoln awoke the morning of April 14 in a pleasant mood. Robert E. Lee had surrendered several days before to Ulysses Grant, and now Lincoln was awaiting word from North Carolina on the surrender of Joseph E. Johnston. The morning papers carried the announcement that the president and his wife would be attending the comedy, Our American Cousin, at Ford's Theater that evening with General Grant and his wife.
At 11 that morning, Lincoln held a meeting with Grant and the Cabinet. After the meeting broke up, Grant gave his regrets that he and his wife could no longer attend the play that evening. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton pleaded with the president not to go out at night, fearful that some rebel might try to shoot him in the street. At lunch he told his wife the news about the Grants, and that he was reluctant to go. Pressing him to maintain their announced plans, they asked Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris, to join them.
After an afternoon carriage ride and dinner, Mary complained of a headache and considered not going after all. Lincoln commented that he was feeling a bit tired himself, but he needed a laugh and was intent on going with or without her. She relented. He made a quick trip to the War Department with his body guard, William Crook, but there was no news from North Carolina. While returning to pick up Mary, Crook "almost begged" Lincoln not to go to the theater. He then asked if he could go along as an extra guard. Lincoln rejected both suggestions, shrugging off Crook's fears of assassination. Lincoln knew that a guard would be posted outside their "state box" at the theater.
Arriving after the play had started, the two couples swept up the stairs and into their seats. The box door was closed, but not locked. As the play progressed, police guard John Parker, a notorious drinker, left his post in the hallway leading to the box and went across the street for a drink. During the third act, the President and Mrs. Lincoln drew closer together, holding hands while enjoying the play. Behind them, the door opened and a man stepped into the box. Pointing a derringer at the back of Lincoln's head, he pulled the trigger. Mary reached out to her slumping husband and began shrieking. Now wielding a dagger, the man yelled, "Sic semper tyrannus!" ("Thus always to tyrants"), slashed Rathbone's arm open to the bone, and then leapt from the box. Catching his spur in a flag, he crashed to the stage, breaking his left shin in the fall. Rathbone and Harris both yelled for someone to stop him, but he escaped out the back stage door.
An unconscious Lincoln was carried across the street to the Petersen House and into the room of a War Department clerk. The bullet had entered behind the left ear and ripped a path through the left side of his brain, mortally wounding him. He died the next morning.
 Fleeing
the screaming pandemonium he has just created; John Wilkes Booth
flings himself over the wall of the Presidential Box at Ford's
Theater. Behind him lies an unconscious and dying President
Lincoln, a .50 caliber bullet lodged in his brain. As he
plummets through the air, Booth catches his foot on the bunting
decorating the front of the presidential box, loses his balance
and crashes onto the stage floor below. Ignoring the pain from
his broken left leg, Booth hobbles to his feet running to the
back of the stage. The famous actor pauses at the door and flees
into the night.
A saddled horse waits in the alley behind the theater and
Booth gallops to a bridge across the Anacostia River, the first
point of a pre-planned escape route to the south. An Army sentry
halts the assassin asking why he is Booth can no longer ignore his pain. They ride to the house
of Dr. Samuel Mudd, waking the doctor around 4 a.m. Mudd
hesitantly lets them in and later testifies that even though he
was acquainted with Booth, he did not recognize him as he set
his leg. While the two weary fugitives sleep, Mudd makes his way
to Bryestown to run some errands. The doctor is immediately
confronted with the excited news that Lincoln has been shot and
that the Army is searching for Booth. Hurriedly returning home,
Mudd orders Booth and Herold off his property. They make their
way through Zekiah Swamp with the help of a black tobacco farmer
to the home of Samuel Cox, a Confederate sympathizer. Unwilling
to let them stay, Cox directs them to a hiding place and sends
for Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent. Knowing that Federal Failing in their first attempt, Booth and Herold finally make their way across the Potomac to Virginia on April 22. They expect a warm welcome. Instead they are grudgingly given food by various Virginians and told to move on. Aided by some Confederate soldiers, the two men find themselves at Richard Garrett's farm near Bowling Green. After riding and searching continuously for over 24 hours, the men of the 16th New York Cavalry arrive at the Garrett farm at 2 o'clock on the morning of April 26 and quickly discover Herold and Booth hiding in the barn. Ordered to give up, Herold flees the barn proclaiming his innocence. Booth defiantly remains inside, ignoring the threat to burn the barn if he does not surrender. As the officer in charge of the cavalry tries to negotiate with Booth, someone at the back of the barn lights some straw and fire spreads throughout the structure. Booth at first moves towards the fire, then turns and hops towards the door. A shot rings out fired by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Booth falls, paralyzed. Carried to the porch of the farmhouse, Lincoln's assassin lingers between life and death finally succumbing around seven in the morning. Booth's body is carried up the Potomac and buried beneath the
floor of the penitentiary in Washington, DC. Sergeant Corbett is
arrested and briefly held as a possible accomplice in Lincoln's
death. David Herold stands trial with three other conspirators.
All four are found guilty and all including Mrs. Surratt, owner
of the tavern where Booth stopped, are hanged on July 7, 1865.
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DEATH OF A PRESIDENT STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
riding
so late. Booth explains he has been in Washington on an errand
and had started late toward his home near Beantown. Inexplicably
he volunteers his name, and that he is headed for southern
Maryland, information that will shortly prove invaluable to his
pursuers. Less than 10 minutes later, David Herold another
conspirator in the plot to assassinate President Lincoln arrives
at the bridge. Identifying himself as Smith, and giving his
address as White Plains, Maryland, he convinces the sentry to
let him pass. Shortly Herold catches up with Booth and the two
head southeast to a roadside inn owned by Mary Surratt. At the
inn the two fugitives collect some previously stashed supplies
and Booth attempts to drown the throbbing pain of his leg with a
bottle of whiskey.
troops
are scouring the area, Jones advises them to remain where they
are--outdoors in a thicket of pine trees--until it is safe to
cross the Potomac to Virginia. During their five-day wait, most
of their accomplices in the assassination are rounded up.