Ford Theatre after Lincoln Assassination

Good Friday, April 14, 1865. President Abraham Lincoln was shot while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre with his wife and two guests. Lincoln’s assassin was actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. This is a Matthew Brady photograph of the presidential box at Ford’s Theater, made two days after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. At center of the box is the picture of George Washington which caught one of the spurs of John Wilkes Booth as he jumped to the stage after shooting Lincoln in the back of the head.

Lincoln Assassination is part of a larger plot to to create chaos and overthrow the Federal government by killing the Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson. Although Booth succeeded in killing Lincoln, the larger plot failed. Seward was attacked, but recovered from his wounds, and Johnson’s would-be assassin fled Washington, D.C. upon losing his nerve.

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