On This Day In History

On April 26th, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth died. 

Born on May 10th, 1838 in Bel Air, Maryland, Booth was one of the most famous actors in the country at the time and was a Confederate sympathizer.

As the Civil War was in its final stages, Booth's resentment of Lincoln led him to hatch a plan with several of his associates to kidnap President Lincoln but the opportunity never presented itself. 

Once the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and his Confederate army took place at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9th, Booth changed his plans. The new plan was to simultaneously assassinate President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. 

On April 14th, during a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C., Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head and fled the theatre. 

Seward would survive the stabbing attack by Lewis Paine. Vice President Johnson was unharmed because the man assigned to kill him did not even attempt to carry out the assignment. 

Lincoln would die the next morning. This would mark the first time in history a sitting president was assassinated. 

After 12 days on the run, and refusing to surrender, Booth was shot by a Union soldier, Sergeant Boston Corbett at a farm in Virginia and died from his wounds.

By - SC