President Lincoln Dies

On this day in 1865, President Lincoln died from a gunshot to the head the night before while attending “Our American Cousin” at the Ford Theater.  Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, who hoped Lincoln’s assassination would somehow turn the tide of the Civil War.  Booth had originally sought to kidnap Lincoln on March 20 and take him to the Confederate capital of Richmond but Lincoln failed to appear at the location where Booth and his conspirators lay in wait.  Although Richmond had fallen and Lee had surrendered during the interim, Booth hatched a second plot to kill the top leaders of the Union government.  At the same time that Lincoln was shot, Secretary of State Seward was shot in his home and seriously wounded.  Vice President Andrew Johnson was also supposed to be shot but his would-be assassin chickened out.