On the evening of April 14 , 1865 , PresidentAbraham Lincolnattended a public presentation of the comedy " Our American Cousin , " accompanied by his married woman , Mary Todd Lincoln , in addition to a young U.S. Army officer , Maj . Henry R. Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris .
It seemed like a staring night for the president to relax . Just five days before , Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grantat Appomattox Court House , Virginia , and two day after that , Lincoln had given a speech to a crowd of x - slaves to celebrate the Union triumph in the Civil War . trade union force had fill Fort Sumpter , the site where the antagonism began in 1861 , and houses and public building in Washington wereilluminated with candles in solemnisation .
But instead , the nighttime turn into a national catastrophe . Sometime after 10 p.m. , a 26 - year - honest-to-goodness Maryland - born actor named John Wilkes Booth — whom Lincoln had once consider perform in another play at Ford ’s — deal to sneak into the president ’s box and point a Derringer handgun at the back of Lincoln ’s question . Booth fired a single shooter that mortally wound Lincoln , though he did n’t drop dead until the next morning . Booth then dropped the pistol , poke Maj . Rathbone in the weapon , and then derail over the box ’s rail in to the stage , breaking his leg in the process , as this invoice of the kill from theFBI websitedetails .
Booth , who blackguard the Latin phrase"Sic semper Tyranni " — " thus always to tyrants " — the motto of Virginia , to the appalled audience , managed to head for the hills from the theater , despite his injury . But 12 days by and by , he was cornered in a barn in Port Royal , Virginia , by a force of Union soldiers , who get down the social organization on fire in an endeavour to squeeze Booth out and capture him . But or else , the assassin was fool away by a Union Sergeant namedBoston Corbett , who explain to foiled government investigators that God had tell him to do it . Booth died seven hours later .
But Booth had n’t acted alone . or else , the doer had been joined in the game by agroup of Confederate comforter , whose intention was to somehow stave off the demise of the Confederacy and bondage by kill the Union ’s leading . Four of Booth ’s fellow plotters — George Atzerodt , David Herold , Mary Surratt and Lewis Powell — were put on test and put to death . Several others were sentenced to prison for their part in the event .
Who Were the Plotters?
Booth and his Colorado - conspirators originallydidn’t specify to assassinateLincoln . Instead , their original finish was to kidnap and hold him hostage . In March 1865 , when Booth catch a bakshish that Lincoln would be chew the fat a military hospital , the chemical group hastily plan to give up his carriage on the way back , overpower the president and his gadget driver , and spirit them away to a concealing situation in southerly Maryland . But after the Union captured Richmond , the cap of the Confederacy , in early April , the plotters ' intention became homicidal .
Here are the four main penis of the plot of ground , who were accomplish in 1865 :
Mary Surratt
The offspring of a Maryland slave - owning family , Surratt possess a boarding house in Washington where the coconspirator met to design . " Mother , widow woman , businesswoman and a deep pious Catholic , Mary Surratt seemed an unlikely assassin ’s accomplice , " asKate Clifford Larsonwrote in a 2011 life history of Surratt . But as a Confederate sympathiser , she turned her boarding home into a safehouse for Confederate secret agents — including her son , John , who worked as a courier for the insurrectionist , and helped inscribe homo to get together in Booth ’s cabal .
She was arrested before long after Lincoln ’s shooting . Her character in the game remains murky , but the Military Commission that try the plotters found her shamefaced of conspiracy and doom her to death .
On July 7 , 1865 , she was hanged , and became the first char to be execute by the U.S. government .
Lewis Powell
A native of Alabama , Powell joined the Confederate army and was captured by Union forces after being offend at the fight of Gettysburg in 1863 . He escape from a military infirmary and die back to the South to defend some more , before coming back north in January 1865 , seemingly as a turncoat . After signalize a loyalty oath to the Union , he live in Baltimore for a while , before he run across John Surratt though another Confederate operative and was recruited to join Booth .
When the plot evolved from kidnapping to assassination , Powell was assigned to kill Secretary of State William Seward . On the same night that Lincoln was pullulate , Powell prove up at Seward ’s home , dissemble to be a courier delivering medical specialty to him , and tried to stab him to expiry before he was pulled away by Seward ’s bodyguard .
Powell was arrested at Surratt ’s embarkation abode , and tried alongside the other coconspirator , and hang July 7 , 1865 , consort to hisprofileon the UMKC constabulary school ’s Famous Trials website .
David Herold
The boy of a clerk at the Navy store in Washington , he was secret schoolhouse schoolfellow of John Surratt , who introduced him to Booth . On the dark of the Lincoln assassination , Herold assisted the bruise Booth in get away , eventually point him to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd , who treat Booth for his impoverished peg . He travelled with Booth throughout the countyside after the blackwash , dodging searchers until the Nox in late April when he was cornered by Union forces . But unlike Booth , Herold cede .
At trial , his attorney attempt to win over the military commission that he was a simple - apt man who had been manipulated by Booth . But they did n’t buy it , and he was executed alongside the others July 7 , 1865 , according to his visibility on the UMKC law school’sFamous Trials website .
George Atzerodt
A native of Germany , Azterodt was a waterman who smuggled Confederate spy into southern Maryland . After being enroll by Booth , he was assigned to kill vice chairperson Andrew Johnson . But as thisprofile from PBS.orgdescribes , Azterodt lost his nervus and rather go drink at a hotel bar .
Nevertheless , he was tried as a coconspirator and fulfill July 7 , 1865 , along with the other three . Atzerodt utter hislast wordsas the trap doorway dropped , " May we all suffer in the other world . God take me now . "
Other Key Figures
Several others accused of roles in the confederacy were also sentenced to prison , one of the most well known being Dr. Samuel Mudd , the medico who had treat Booth ’s wooden leg as he fled through the countryside after the character assassination . Mudd was pardoned in 1869 after he used his aesculapian skill tosave the livesof prison guard and other con suffering from yellow pyrexia at Fort Jefferson , off the island of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico , where he had been sent to attend out his sentence . Mudd was only 49 years old when he pall of pneumonia Jan. 10 , 1883 .
Another primal figure in the conspiracy , John Surratt , who was the Logos of conspirator Mary Surratt , fled to Canada to avoid capture , and finally made his way across the ocean to Alexandria , Egypt , where he was arrested by U.S. authorities in November 1866 . But after he was bring back to the U.S. his run in a civilian court resulted in a hung panel . He died in 1916 at age 72 , according to thisprofileon the University of Richmond internet site .
Was There an Even Bigger Conspiracy? Rumors Persist
In the more than 150 eld since Lincoln ’s assassination , many have retrieve it hard to believe that Booth — move in concert with few fellow Confederate sympathizers — could have pulled off the monstrous criminal offense of killing the hero who save the Union . Instead , almost immediately after the news broke of Lincoln ’s last , rumour begin whirlpool of a more far - reaching plot that perchance included culprits ranging from high up - rank official in the Confederate political science and European banker to Lincoln ’s own frailty president , Andrew Johnson .
" No President had been assassinate up to that full point and the idea that an actor and his ragtag and bobtail Colorado - conspirators could commit it off seemed unconvincing to many , " explainsDavid Goldfieldvia e-mail . He ’s the Robert Lee Bailey prof of story at the University of North Carolina Charlotte , and author of the 2011 book " America Aflame : How the Civil War create a Nation . " " A major crime need a major plot of land . "
Some suspected that the game had to be the piece of work of full - fledged agent of the Confederacy ’s Secret Service Bureau , operating at the behest of Confederate President Jefferson Davis .
But Goldfield , who wrotean clause on Lincoln conspiracy theoriesfor the Ford ’s Theatre website describes another , darker conspiracy hypothesis with anti - Semitic overtones . It revolved around the Rothschilds , a German banking family who had provided large loans to the Confederacy , andJudah P. Benjamin , the Confederate Secretary of State , who happened to be Jewish . Next to Davis and Gen. Robert E. Lee , Benjamin was " probably the most influential mortal in the Confederate States of America , " says Goldfield .
The idea of an outside Jewish cabal against Lincoln resonated among some in the early Republican Party , which included some who ’d been involved in the Know Nothing Party , a movent that oppose in-migration , peculiarly of Roman Catholics and Jews , fit in to Goldfield .
" Add to the mix the fact that Edwin Stanton had allegedly made several anti - Semitic remarks and that he was among the lead figures in the post - assassination investigation , " Goldfield say . As a result , " It seemed to some that Lincoln ’s assassination was a Jewish conspiracy and , more peculiarly , an effort to jump the Union war effort so the Rothschilds could get their money back . Of naturally , if that was the case , then Booth and company waited too long , because Lee had already surrendered by the time Lincoln was assassinated . "
to boot , if some foreign conspirators really had been involved , there were more logical suspect . " The British and the French had need to weaken the U.S. , a likely rival , " Goldfield tell .
While there are n’t any serious questions about who actually toss off Lincoln , Goldfield says , there are enough loose remnant to continue to intrigue the conspiracy - minded . " There has always been speculation as to where Lincoln ’s safety was that night at Ford ’s Theatre , " he explains . " Had they been at their post , they certainly would have stopped Booth from spread out the door to Lincoln ’s box . But historians broadly attribute that to delinquency of obligation rather than the soldiers being accomplices . "
