Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14th at 10:15 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth with one shot by a .44 caliber. Abraham was at a play with his wife Mary, and an army officer named Henry Rathbone who was with his fiance Clara Harris. Clara Harris was the daughter of a New York Senator, Ira Harris. The Lincolns arrived late at the play Our American Cousin which was at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. The president was reportedly in a fine mood. At 10:15 Johns Wilkes Booth slipped into the private box and shot Abraham in the back of the head. When Rathbone realized what was happening, he rushed at John Wilkes Booth. Booth stabbed him in the shoulder then jumped off the balcony of the private box yelling, "Sic semper tyrannis!" or "Thus ever to tyrants!" which is the Virginia state motto. At first the crowd below thought that this was part of the play, but a scream from the first lady told them different. Although Booth broke his leg when he jumped, he still escaped the theater and fled on horseback. A man named Charles Leale a 23 year old doctor had soldiers carry him over to a home across the street from the theater and rest him on a bed.
When a surgeon general arrived at the house he announced that the president will not survive and die sometime in the night. Vice President Andrew Johnson, other members from Lincoln's cabinet and Lincoln's closest friends stayed next to the bed. They all stayed until he was officially pronounced dead at 7:22 a.m. The first lady and her eldest son Robert Lincoln stayed with Lincoln overwhelmed by shock and grief. The presidents body was put in a temporary coffin and escorted by army Calvary to the White House. Then surgeons conducted a thorough autopsy. During the autopsy the first lady asked for a lock of Lincoln's Hair. On April 21, Lincolns body was boarded on a train that was headed for Springfield, Illinois. Thousands of people lined up by the train and paid their respects to their fallen leader.Abraham Lincoln and his son Willie Lincoln who had died in the White House from typhoid fever were interred on May 4, 1865, at Oak Ridge Cemetery.
As the nation mourned, the Union Soldiers were on the trail of John Wilkes Booth. After fleeing from the capitol he and an accomplice David Herold, made their way across the Anacostia River then headed south toward Maryland. The two stopped at the house were Samuel Mudd lived. Mudd was a doctor and he treated Booths leg. His actions gave him a life sentence that was later commuted. Afterwards they got refuge from a Confederate Agent named Thomas A. Jones. Then he secured them a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia. On April 26, the Union Soldiers surrounded the Virginian farmhouse where Booth and Herold were hiding and set fire to it hoping to flush them out. Herold ran out but Booth stayed inside. A sergeant shot booth in the neck because the assassin rose his firearm. He was carried out of the house and staggered around for three hours before he died. His last word were "Useless, Useless." The four co-conspirators were convicted for their parts in the assassination. Abraham Lincoln is a president that will be remembered forever.