Group # 3: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On April 14th 1865, Abraham Lincoln was in Ford’s Theater accompanied by his wife, an Officer named Major Henry R. Rathbone and Rathbone’s fiancée watching a comedy called “Our American Cousin”.
After the play started a man named John Wilkes Booth moved into the presidential box where they were sitting and fired at the president. He was shot in the ear and the bullet lodged behind his right eye. This paralyzed him and he could hardly breathe. A doctor who was also in the theater at the time did his best to try and help the president, but about nine hours later at 7:22 am the following morning, Abraham Lincoln died.



At around 10 o clock pm on the evening of the assassination, Lewis Powell gained entrance to the house of Secretary of State William H. Seward, where he was lying in bed. Lewis stabbed Seward, and then ran out of the house, but the wounds were not fatal and Seward survived.

Meanwhile another conspirator, George Atzerodt, had been assigned to murder the Vice President Andrew Johnson at Kirkwood Hotel, and had rented a room just above the Vice President’s. Atzerodt spent some time at the hotel saloon questioning the bartender about the Vice President’s character and behavior, and then got drunk, left the hotel and tossed his knife away in the streets.

Apart from the conspirators mentioned above, Mary Surratt and David Herold also played their part in the conspiracy. Mary Surratt was a messenger, delivering a message to someone of when to have the weapons to be used in the assassinations ready. The task given to Herold was to guide Powell to the Seward house and then to lead him out of the city.
Booth was shot at the capture, but the remaining co-conspirators were sentenced to death by hanging.

Originally the plan was to kidnap the president and hold him hostage until the North agreed to resume exchanging prisoners. He was to be captured on his way home from Campbell Military Hospital the 17th of March, but it turned out he had gone to the National Hotel to attend a ceremony instead.
About a month later, Lincoln held a speech in which he proposed the idea of voting rights for former slaves. Booth did not like this idea, and decided on assassination.