Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States and he has a legacy that has spanned generations, and many Americans continue to view his life and work in a positive light. The late president rose from humble beginnings to become a laborer, shopkeeper, law student, lawyer and politician in his turn. This was his way to exercise the power of the country’s highest office and to carry out two great deeds: saving the union and emancipating slaves.
He was eloquent, having honed his skills of interaction and socializing from his days as a shopkeeper, and he plowed all that eloquence into his leadership, delivering such great speeches as the Gettysburg Address. However, the incredible impact of Abraham Lincoln was cut short before the world could reach its full potential when he was killed in a successful assassination attempt.
Who Killed Abraham Lincoln?
Abraham Lincoln was killed by a man named John Wilkes Booth was a well-known actor as well as a well-known Confederate sympathizer. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth family of theatres. He also kept his identity as a Confederate sympathizer at heart, vehemently opposed Abraham Lincoln and his policies, and was very opposed to the abolition of slavery.
Booth was the ninth of ten children and was named after a distant relative who was a radical politician. He was a very popular boy when he was young and his athleticism allowed him to excel in horseback riding and fencing. He attended Bel Air Academy and then Milton Boarding School for Boys in Sparks, Maryland. He then attended an Episcopal military academy in Catonsville, Maryland called St. Timothy’s Hall. While still in Milton, Booth had met a fortune teller who, reading his palm, proclaimed that he had a grim fate that would lead him to a bad ending after a great but short life. He left school at the age of 14 after his father died.
On April 12, 1865, Booth told a man named Louis J. Weichmann that he had finished the stage and had just one play left to perform—Venice Preserved, which was about an assassination. This was after hearing the news that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at the Appomattox Court House. He had been in the crowd the day before when Abraham Lincoln gave an impromptu speech expressing his propensity to give ex-slaves the right to vote. Booth had stated that this would be the President’s last speech.
How did Abraham Lincoln die?
As a well-known actor, Booth had free access to all parts of the Ford Theatre. Using this access, he first drilled a hole in the President’s Box, which he used to spy on his intended victim and the other occupants of the box. At approximately 10 p.m. on April 14, 1865, Booth slipped into the box and shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head with a .41 caliber Deringer.
A terrified Major Henry Rathbone, who was also in the presidential box, had stepped in after Booth and was stabbed for his efforts. Mary Todd Lincoln and Rathbone’s fiancee Clara Harris were also in the box but were unharmed after the dramatic events. After the assassination, Booth jumped onto the stage where he raised the knife in his hand and shouted the Latin words “Sic Semper Tyrannis” which translate to “So always to tyrants”, words said to have been uttered by Brutus at Caesar’s assassination and those were also the Virginia State motto.
Abraham Lincoln, meanwhile, was taken to the hospital at Petersen House across the street. He was in a coma for nine hours before finally passing out the next morning. Abraham Lincoln’s body was laid in the Capitol before his funeral procession took him to Springfield, Illinois, which became his final resting place. His assassin, Booth, fled on horseback to southern Maryland and after 12 days settled on a farm in rural northern Virginia. He was tracked down and after refusing to give himself up, the barn where he was hiding was set on fire and he was shot by Union soldier Boston Corbett. In the weeks and months that followed, eight other conspirators were tried and convicted,