Abraham Lincoln Assassination

Abraham Lincoln's Assassination

ESPECIALLY FOR STUDENTS A One Page Summary of the Lincoln Assassination	LINCOLN'S ASSASSIN The Life and Plot of John Wilkes Booth
CONSPIRACY THEORIES Was Booth solely responsible for the assassination? Or was he simply a tool in a much larger conspiracy?	THE MILITARY COMMISSION The 1865 Conspiracy Trial (including a link to the actual trial testimony)
EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY Private John Millington's Eyewitness Account of the Chase and Capture of John Wilkes Booth	PICTURES Photographs Related to the Assassination (including the hanging of the convicted conspirators)

"Assassination is not an American practice or habit, and one so vicious and so desperate cannot be engrafted into our political system. This conviction of mine has steadily gained strength since the Civil War began. Every day's experience confirms it. The President, during the heated season, occupies a country house near the Soldiers' Home, two or three miles from the city. He goes to and...from that place on horseback, night and morning, unguarded. I go there unattended at all hours, by daylight and moonlight, by starlight and without any light."
Secretary of State, William Seward, July 15, 1862.

"Crook, do you know I believe there are men who want to take my life? And I have no doubt they will do it.....I know no one could do it and escape alive. But if it is to be done, it is impossible to prevent it."

Abraham Lincoln to bodyguard, William H. Crook, on April 14, 1865.

GARRETT'S TOBACCO BARN John Wilkes Booth's Final Hours and the Positive Identification of his Body	APRIL 14, 1865 John Wilkes Booth's Movements on the Day of the Assassination
MARCH 4, 1865 Did John Wilkes Booth and Other Conspirators Attend Lincoln's Second Inauguration?	BOOTH'S DIARY The Text of John Wilkes Booth's Diary
JOHN SURRATT The Text of his 1870 Lecture on the Conspiracy	APRIL 15, 1865 Abraham Lincoln's Autopsy

"The last day he lived was the happiest of his life."

Mary Todd Lincoln to Rev. Noyes W. Miner. Source: The Later Life and Religious Sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, a lecture by Rev. J.A. Reed, text in Scribner's Monthly, July, 1873.

GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1865 Abraham Lincoln's Last Day	BEFORE THE TRAGEDY Abraham Lincoln's Pre-Assassination Dream
ROBERT LINCOLN AND EDWIN BOOTH A Booth Saves a Lincoln	THE LINCOLN SPECIAL The Route of Abraham Lincoln's Funeral Train (including a map)

"I knowed they'd kill him. I ben awaiting fur it."

Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, Abraham's stepmother, upon being told the news of the assassination.

GRAVE THIEVES The 1876 Attempt to Steal Mr. Lincoln's Body	THE LINCOLN TOMB Mr. Lincoln's Casket Opened and the Remains Viewed by 23 People in 1901
BOSTON CORBETT The Bizarre Soldier Who Killed John Wilkes Booth	JOHN F. PARKER The Guard Who Abandoned His Post

AFTER THE ASSASSINATION
The Strange and Eerie Events in the Years Following the Assassination
(including a photograph of Mr. Lincoln in death)

WHY DID BOOTH WANT WILLIAM SEWARD ASSASSINATED? If Andrew Johnson had also been assassinated as Booth planned, Senate President Pro Tempore Lafayette S. Foster of Connecticut would have become Acting President pending an election of a new President (the process of electing a new President could only be set in motion by the Secretary of State; thus Booth felt Seward's assassination would throw the Union government into "electoral chaos"). A Presidential Succession law passed on March 1, 1792, was still in effect in 1865. It provided that the President Pro Tempore of the Senate was third in line to the Presidency and the Speaker of the House was fourth. This law didn't make any succession provisions beyond the Speaker. For much more information see the article entitled "Why Seward?" by Michael Maione and James O. Hall in the Spring, 1998, edition of the Lincoln Herald.

MARY TODD LINCOLN'S ULTIMATE AGONY
Nightmare at Ford's Theatre

FORD'S THEATRE INVITATION
The Fifteen People Who Turned Down the Lincolns'
Ford's Theatre Invitation

DISCOVERED 112 YEARS AFTER THE ASSASSINATION
The Text of George Atzerodt’s Lost Confession

APRIL 27, 1865
John Wilkes Booth’s Autopsy

"The last day he lived was the happiest of his life."

**Mary Todd Lincoln to Rev. Noyes W. Miner. Source: The Later Life and Religious Sentiments of Abraham Lincoln, a lecture by Rev. J.A. Reed, text in Scribner's Monthly, July, 1873.**

"I knowed they'd kill him. I ben awaiting fur it."

Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, Abraham's stepmother, upon being told the news of the assassination.

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