John Wilkes Booth Died on April 26, 1865

The Life of John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Lincoln died the next morning from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, becoming the first American president to be assassinated.

Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and by the 1860s was a popular actor, well known in both the Northern United States and the South. He was also a Confederate sympathizer who was vehement in his denunciation of the Lincoln Administration and outraged by the South's defeat in the American Civil War. He strongly opposed the abolition of slavery in the United States and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to recently emancipated slaves.

Booth, and a group of co-conspirators whom he led, planned to kill Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward in a desperate bid to help the tottering Confederacy's cause. Although Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered four days earlier, Booth believed the war was not yet over since Confederate General Joseph Johnston's army was still fighting the Union Army under General William Tecumseh Sherman. Of the conspirators, only Booth was completely successful in carrying out his part of the plot.

The Death of John Wilkes Booth
Fleeing the screaming pandemonium he had just created after shooting Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C., John Wilkes Booth flung himself over the wall of the Presidential Box at the theater. Behind him lied an unconscious and dying President Lincoln, with a .50 caliber bullet lodged in his brain. As Booth plummeted through the air, Booth caught his foot on the bunting decorating the front of the presidential box, lost his balance and crashed onto the stage floor below. Ignoring the pain from his broken left leg, Booth hobbled to his feet running to the back of the stage. The famous actor paused at center stage to deliver his last line, "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (Thus always with tyrants). Booth then ran off into the night.

A saddled horse waited in the alley behind the theater and Booth galloped to a bridge across the Anacostia River, the first point of a pre-planned escape route to the south. An Army sentry halted the assassin asking why he was riding so late. Booth explained that he had been in Washington on an errand and had started late toward his home near Beantown. Inexplicably he volunteered his name, and that he was headed for southern Maryland, information that would shortly prove invaluable to his pursuers. Less than 10 minutes later, David Herold another conspirator in the plot to assassinate President Lincoln arrived at the bridge. Identifying himself as Smith, and giving his address as White Plains, Maryland, he convinced the sentry to let him pass. Shortly Herold caught up with Booth and the two headed southeast to a roadside inn owned by Mary Surratt. At the inn the two fugitives collected some previously stashed supplies and Booth attempted to drown the throbbing pain of his leg with a bottle of whiskey.

Booth could no longer ignore his pain. They rode to the house of Dr. Samuel Mudd, waking the doctor around 4 a.m. Mudd hesitantly let them in and later testified that even though he was acquainted with Booth, he did not recognize him as he set his leg. While the two weary fugitives slept, Mudd made his way to Bryestown to run some errands. The doctor was immediately confronted with the excited news that Lincoln had been shot and that the Army was searching for Booth. Hurriedly returning home, Mudd ordered Booth and Herold off his property. They made their way through Zekiah Swamp with the help of a black tobacco farmer to the home of Samuel Cox, a Confederate sympathizer. Unwilling to let them stay, Cox directed them to a hiding place and sent for Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent. Knowing that Federal troops were scouring the area, Jones advised them to remain where they were--outdoors in a thicket of pine trees--until it was safe to cross the Potomac to Virginia. During their five-day wait, most of their accomplices in the assassination were rounded up.

Failing in their first attempt, Booth and Herold finally made their way across the Potomac to Virginia on April 22. They expected a warm welcome. Instead they were grudgingly given food by various Virginians and told to move on. Aided by some Confederate soldiers, the two men found themselves at Richard Garrett's farm near Bowling Green.

After riding and searching continuously for over 24 hours, the men of the 16th New York Cavalry arrived at the Garrett farm at 2 o'clock on the morning of April 26 and quickly discovered Herold and Booth hiding in the barn. Ordered to give up, Herold fled the barn proclaiming his innocence. Booth defiantly remained inside, ignoring the threat to burn the barn if he did not surrender. As the officer in charge of the cavalry tried to negotiate with Booth, someone at the back of the barn set fire to some straw and fire spread throughout the structure. Booth at first moved towards the fire, then turned and hopped towards the door. A shot rang out, fired by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Booth fell, paralyzed. Carried to the porch of the farmhouse, Lincoln's assassin lingered between life and death.

In his last dying moments, he reportedly whispered "tell my mother I died for my country". Asking that his hands be raised to his face so he could see them, Booth uttered his final words, "Useless, useless," and died as dawn was breaking. In Booth's pockets were found a compass, a candle, pictures of five women including his fiancée Lucy Hale, and his diary, where he had written of Lincoln's death, "Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment."

Booth's body was carried up the Potomac and buried beneath the floor of the penitentiary in Washington, DC. Sergeant Corbett was arrested and briefly held as a possible accomplice in Lincoln's death. David Herold stood trial with three other conspirators. All four were found guilty and all, including Mrs. Surratt, owner of the tavern where Booth stopped, were hanged on July 7, 1865.