Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On the evening of Good Friday, April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by his wife and a young couple, went to Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., to see a popular play, Our American Cousin. Just after 10 p.m., actor and Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth burst into the presidential box and shot Lincoln behind the ear. Booth leaped to the stage, breaking his left leg on impact, and escaped through a side door. Lincoln was carried to a nearby house where he remained unconscious until his death at 7:22 the following morning. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had kept vigil at Lincoln’s bedside, said, ‘Now he belongs to the ages.’
Image: Library of Congress
