On the night of April 14, 1865, well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth slipped into the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot President Abraham Lincoln in the head, mortally wounding him. Booth may have fired the bullet that assassinated the ...read more
In the 1860s, a president’s unilateral firing of a cabinet member could become an automatically impeachable offense, thanks to a law intended to restrict presidential powers. In fact, it was a law that almost got a sitting president—Andrew Johnson—booted out of office. The Tenure ...read more
Twenty years ago, on September 6, 1997, a coffin was wheeled through the streets of London on the back of a gun carriage. Within the coffin were the mortal remains of Diana, Princess of Wales, who had died in a car crash seven days before. The funeral followed strict royal ...read more
In 1877, a young Granbury, Texas, lawyer was summoned to the bedside of a dying acquaintance. As Finis L. Bates entered the room, he saw a doctor holding the wrist of John St. Helen and timing the man’s fading pulse. “St. Helen is dying and wishes to speak to you alone,” the ...read more
Even as Lincoln lay dying, Stanton ordered a complete lockdown of Washington, sending bulletins to all army forts and police departments along the Atlantic coast. Thinking Booth was headed towards his native Baltimore, Stanton sent troops to patrol the roads and railroad lines ...read more
1. The murder weapon For a gun that had such a monumental impact on American history, the weapon fired by John Wilkes Booth is surprisingly diminutive. Fashioned from brass, the derringer pistol weighs barely 8 ounces. The gun, which discharged a single .44-caliber lead ball, ...read more
Around the time of Lincoln’s re-election in November 1864, Booth began scheming against the president, whom he loathed for being anti-slavery and for making war against the South. At first, the well-known actor hoped to kidnap Lincoln, bring him to Richmond and exchange him for ...read more
1. Booth initially planned to kidnap Lincoln. After meeting with Confederate spies in the summer of 1864, Booth spearheaded a plot to abduct Lincoln, bring him to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and use him as a bargaining chip to secure the release of rebel ...read more
Food as Fuel By many accounts, Lincoln was not a gourmand—he liked simple food, and seems to have viewed food as a source of necessary energy rather than of pleasure. During his presidency, nourishing himself certainly took a backseat to the more pressing duties he faced as the ...read more
With the fall of Petersburg and Richmond, and Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox, Washington was consumed by celebration. On the evening of April 10, 1865, a crowd of some 3,000 people gathered outside the White House, hoping for some rousing words from their president. In ...read more
Back in the mid-1990s, while working at Chicago’s Benedictine University, Wesolowski served as the director of the Lincoln Train Project, which aimed to research and create a traveling museum exhibition about the 1865 funeral procession. As part of that project, he constructed a ...read more
Ward Hill Lamon—Abraham Lincoln’s former law partner, friend and sometime bodyguard—told a famous story about the 16th U.S. president’s premonition of his own death. According to the tale, just a few days before his assassination on April 14, 1865, Lincoln shared a recent dream ...read more
1. The mother of John Surratt Jr., who admitted to conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to kidnap the president but was never convicted of assisting in his murder Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth’s original intention had been to abduct the president, take him to Richmond and ...read more
At 7:22 a.m., Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, dies from a bullet wound inflicted the night before by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer. The president’s death came only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his ...read more
On this day in 1865, a train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. The train carrying Lincoln’s body traveled through 180 cities and seven states on its way to ...read more
On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln is laid to rest in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. His funeral train had traveled through 180 cities and seven states before reaching Springfield. At each stop, mourners paid their respects to Lincoln, who had been assassinated on ...read more
According to the recollection of one of his friends, Ward Hill Lamon, President Abraham Lincoln dreams on this night in 1865 of “the subdued sobs of mourners” and a corpse lying on a catafalque in the White House East Room. In the dream, Lincoln asked a soldier standing guard ...read more
On this day in 1865, President Andrew Johnson signs an executive order that confirms the military conviction of a group of people who had conspired to kill the late President Abraham Lincoln, then commander in chief of the U.S. Army. With his signature, Johnson ordered four of ...read more
Mary Surratt is executed by the U.S. government for her role as a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Surratt, who owned a tavern in Surrattsville (now Clinton), Maryland, had to convert her row house in Washington, D.C., into a boardinghouse as a result of financial ...read more
President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next ...read more
John Wilkes Booth is killed when Union soldiers track him down to a Virginia farm 12 days after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Twenty-six-year-old Booth was one of the most famous actors in the country when he shot Lincoln during a performance at Ford’s Theater in ...read more
An alleged member of the Abraham Lincoln assassination conspiracy, Mary Surratt has the dubious distinction of being the first woman executed by the U.S. government. Born Mary Jenkins in 1820 in Waterloo, Maryland. She was hung for treason in July 1865, after being tried and ...read more
Despite his success as an actor on the national stage, John Wilkes Booth will forever be known as the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. Booth, a native of Maryland, was a fierce Confederate sympathizer during the Civil War. Before the fateful night at Ford’s ...read more
On April 21, 1865, a train carrying the coffin of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln leaves Washington, D.C. on its way to Springfield, Illinois, where he would be buried on May 4. The train carrying Lincoln’s body traveled through 180 cities and seven states on its way to ...read more
