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The Psychotic Actor & Assassin Who Killed America’s Favorite President
Bailey Sarian's 49-minute breakdown, the fullest single telling on file.
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On the evening of April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, attended a performance of *Our American Cousin* at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone, and Rathbone's fiancée Clara Harris. During the play, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the head at close range. Lincoln was carried to the Petersen House across the street, where he died the following morning, April 15, 1865, at 7:22 am, without regaining consciousness.
The shooting was part of a coordinated plot by Booth and several associates, including Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, who had originally conspired to kidnap Lincoln to aid the Confederate cause before shifting to a plan to assassinate Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson simultaneously. Powell attacked and seriously wounded Seward at his Washington home, though Seward survived. Atzerodt, assigned to kill Johnson at the Kirkwood Hotel, lost his nerve, became drunk, and never carried out the attack.
After shooting Lincoln, Booth leapt to the stage, breaking his leg, and fled the theater, crossing into Maryland with Herold. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton directed a large manhunt involving thousands of troops. Booth and Herold hid at various locations, including the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, before being located at the tobacco farm of Richard H. Garrett in King George County, Virginia, on April 26, 1865. Herold surrendered; Booth refused and was fatally shot by Sergeant Boston Corbett after soldiers set fire to the barn where he was hiding.
The remaining conspirators were captured by the end of April 1865, with the exception of John Surratt, who fled overseas and was ultimately captured in Egypt in November 1866. A military tribunal tried the accused conspirators over seven weeks, hearing testimony from 366 witnesses. All defendants were found guilty on June 30, 1865. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were sentenced to death and hanged at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary on July 7, 1865; Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen received life sentences, and Edmund Spangler received six years. John Surratt was tried in civil court in 1867; the jury could not reach a verdict, and he was released without retrial.
Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17th president on April 15, 1865. Lincoln's state funeral was held on April 19, followed by a funeral train that carried his remains through several states for burial in Illinois. The assassination drew condemnation from governments and public figures around the world and marked the first assassination of a sitting U.S. president.
