The Martyr of liberty...
[n. p., n. d.] (Library of Congress, Stern Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.) |
On the evening of April 14, 1865, while attending a special performance of the comedy, "Our American Cousin," President Abraham Lincoln was shot. Accompanying him at Ford's Theater that night were his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, a twenty-eight year-old officer named Major Henry R. Rathbone, and Rathbone's fiancee, Clara Harris. After the play was in progress, a figure with a drawn derringer pistol stepped into the presidential box, aimed, and fired. The president slumped forward.
The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, dropped the pistol and waved a dagger. Rathbone lunged at him, and though slashed in the arm, forced the killer to the railing. Booth leapt from the balcony and caught the spur of his left boot on a flag draped over the rail, and shattered a bone in his leg on landing. Though injured, he rushed out the back door, and disappeared into the night on horseback.
A doctor in the audience immediately went upstairs to the box. The bullet had entered through Lincoln's left ear and lodged behind his right eye. He was paralyzed and barely breathing. He was carried across Tenth Street, to a boarding-house opposite the theater, but the doctors' best efforts failed. Nine hours later, at 7:22 AM on April 15th, Lincoln died.
President Lincoln's funeral procession in New York City.
From Harper's Weekly, May 13, 1865. (Library of Congress, Stern Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division. ) |
At almost the same moment Booth fired the fatal shot, his accomplice, Lewis Paine, attacked Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Henry Seward. Seward lay in bed, recovering from a carriage accident. Paine entered the mansion, claiming to have a delivery of medicine from the Secretary's doctor. Seward's son, Frederick, was brutally beaten while trying to keep Paine from his father's door. Paine slashed the Secretary's throat twice, then fought his way past Seward's son Augustus, an attending hospital corps veteran, and a State Department messenger.
Paine escaped into the night, believing his deed complete. However, a metal surgical collar saved Seward from certain death. The Secretary lived another seven years, during which he retained his seat with the Johnson administration, and purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867.
There were at least four conspirators in addition to Booth involved in the mayhem. Booth was shot and captured while hiding in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died later the same day, April 26, 1865. Four co-conspirators, Paine, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Mary Surratt, were hanged at the gallows of the Old Penitentiary, on the site of present-day Fort McNair, on July 7, 1865.
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Execution of the four conspirators: Mrs. Surrat [sic], Payne, Harold & Atzeroth. At Washington, D.C., July 7, 1865 . Philadelphia, J.L. Magee, 1865. litho.
The artist has taken some liberties in depicting this scene of the execution of Booth's co-conspirators at the site of the current Fort McNair, in Washington, D.C. This print shows a Catholic priest next to the gallows; much attention was given in the popular press, at that time, to the fact that Mary E. Surratt was Catholic. Mrs. Surratt is thought to have been the first woman executed by the U.S. government.
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DVDs
Lincoln
The History Channel
Innovative and intimate, LINCOLN goes deeper than any documentary has before to reveal the troubled depths behind the man known as the Great Emancipator. Filmed as if through the president's own eyes, LINCOLN is a profound and insightful meditation on a man few knew. Burdened by a tragic family life, suicidal urges and unsettled sexuality, Lincoln was able to employ his powerful wit and innate charm to transform his inner demons. A devastating and moving chronicle of a president's last moments, Lincoln captures the dark soul that fueled one of history's brightest lights. |
Abraham Lincoln
Journey though the life of America's heroic President. The story begins at Lincoln's birth. The history of what led this man to the White House, his freeing of the slaves, and the Civil War; This story delves into his personal life, including Lincoln's affair with Ann Ruthledge and courtship of Mary Todd. Lincoln struggles through his debates with Douglas and in the end is assassinated |
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The Lincoln Assassination (1996)
History Channel
The Lincoln Assassination
I believe that there are men who want to take my life...other men have been assassinated. 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, April 14, 1865. Abraham Lincoln became the first president in American history to be assassinated. His death shocked and enraged a nation. The idea of assassination was an unknown phenomenon to most Americans prior to the Civil War. Yet Lincoln himself was aware of the possibility.The two-hour documentary will explore one of the greatest human tragedies in American history--the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Although most Americans today know that Lincoln met his untimely death at Ford's Theatre, many are still haunted by the mysteries surrounding the event and unwilling to accept this cruel, senseless murder. THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION will uncover the events leading up to the assassination, untangle the myths and misconceptions, and offer a deeper understanding of the emotional state of the country that precipitated such an act of violence.The drama behind Lincoln's assassination unfolded with the emergence of actor John Wilkes Booth, a matinee idol of his day and son of the most famous Shakespearean actor of the time, Junius Brutus Booth. |
Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution
Acclaimed as the definitive illustrated history of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Lincoln's Assassins , by James L. Swanson and Daniel R. Weinberg, follows the shocking events from the tragic scene at Ford's Theatre to the trial and execution of Booth's co-conspirators. For twelve days after the president was shot, the nation waited breathlessly as manhunters tracked down John Wilkes Booth—the story that was brilliantly told in Swanson's New York Times bestseller, Manhunt . Then, during the spring and summer of 1865, a military commission tried eight people as conspirators in Booth's plot to murder Lincoln and other high officials, including the secretary of state and vice president. Few remember them today, but once the names Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, Edman Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, and Dr. Samuel Mudd were the most reviled and notorious in America. |
We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts
How witnesses felt after; how rumor of other tragedies spread in the hours after, why some Southerners hated Lincoln and cheered his death; and, ultimately, why those who loved him were so profoundly affected
more Abraham Lincoln Book Titles |
The President Is Shot!: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Grade 6-10--This is a fairly standard description of the violent end to Lincoln's life. Holzer provides the Civil War context of the event and then details April 14 and 15, 1865. While much of this book is a rehashing of what has been printed hundreds of times, it does work hard, particularly in the chapter entitled "Why Murder Lincoln?," to demonstrate that this president was not always the universally beloved icon that students see him as today. This is an important perspective and the Lincoln and Booth camps are equally represented throughout. The black-and-white photos and reproductions are appropriately chosen, and the postscript tells what happened to the principal players after the fact. Robert Somerlott's The Lincoln Assassination in American History(Enslow, 1998) focuses more on the events surrounding the murder and gives a better sense of how America changed because of it |
Source:
Library of Congress
National Park Service
University of Missouri-Kansas School of Law
