Chapter 75: Abe Is Assassinated Five Days After the War Ends

April 14, 1865

On Good Friday, April 14, Abe and Mary attend a comedy, Our American Cousin, starring Laura Keene, at Ford’s Theater in the capital. After Ullyses and Julia Grant beg off, the Grants are joined by Major Henry Rathbone and his fiance.

As the play progresses, John Wilkes Booth enters the Lincoln’s side box through an unguarded door and creeps up on the President from behind with a single shot derringer in one hand and a dagger in the other.

Wilkes Booth is the youngest of father Junius’s three actor sons, a celebrity in DC, and a hard core supporter of the Confederacy. After learning of Lincoln plans to make freedmen full citizens, he organizes a plot to assassinate the President, Secretary of State Seward, and Vice-President Andrew Johnson.

As the audience roars at a laugh line in Act III, Scene 2, Booth shoots Lincoln from point blank range and slashes Rathborne, before leaping onto the stage shouting Sic Semper Tyrannus (“thus always to tyrants”). On his way down, one of his spurs catches on the flag bunting, and he breaks the fibula (small bone) in his left leg before hobbling to the exit where a get-away horse is waiting.

Aides rush to attend to Abe in the box before he is carried unconscious across 10^th Street to the home of tailor William Peterson at 11:00 pm. Soon enough Surgeon General William Barnes arrives along with Mary and various Cabinet members. Young Tad has been at another play in town where he learns of the shooting and cries out “they have killed papa.”

Examination shows that the ball enters the left occipital bone, penetrating the sinus and ending up behind his right eye. It is immediately clear that the wound is mortal. Despite some involuntary spasms, he is likely brain dead by 1:00am. Still an hour later, Dr. Barnes probes the bullet path, probably relieving some pressure on the brain and keeping him alive for another five hours before his official death at 7:22am on April 14.

Meanwhile, co-conspirator Lewis Powell’s attack on Secretary Seward is met at his home by resistance. After his pistol misfires, he slashes Seward and his son, Fred, with a knife, before further aides force him to flee. The planned attack on Vice-President Johnson never materializes as George Atzerodt loses his nerve.

From there, the hunt begins to track down the assassins and seek justice.