| Assassination of Abraham Lincoln | |
|---|---|
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln From left to right: Major Henry Rathbone, Clara Harris, Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth. The print, by Currier & Ives, erroneously suggests that Rathbone saw Booth before Booth shot Lincoln. |
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| Location | Washington, D.C. |
| Date | April 14, 1865 |
| Target | Abraham Lincoln |
| Weapon(s) | Philadelphia Derringer pistol |
| Deaths | 1 (Lincoln) |
| Injured | Henry Rathbone |
| Perpetrator(s) | John Wilkes Booth |
The assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday,[1] April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, and his battered Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated,[2] though an unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson thirty years before in 1835. He was followed by James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy in the order, all being shot. However some died days after the fact, with infections caused by unsterile medical equipment.[3]
The assassination was planned and carried out by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth as part of a larger conspiracy in a bid to help the Confederacy's cause. Booth's co-conspirators were Lewis Powell and David Herold, who were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward and George Atzerodt who was to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson as well. By simultaneously eliminating the top three in the line of succession in the Federal government, Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to throw the Union government into disarray.
Lincoln was shot while watching the play Our American Cousin with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.. He died early the next morning and the rest of the plot failed. Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Atzerodt, Johnson's would-be assassin, lost his nerve and fled Washington.
In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding General of all the Union's armies, decided to suspend the exchange of prisoners-of-war.[4] Harsh as it may have been on the prisoners of both sides, Grant realized the exchange was prolonging the war by returning soldiers to the outnumbered and manpower-starved South. John Wilkes Booth, an outspoken Confederate sympathizer, conceived a plan to kidnap President Lincoln and deliver him to the Confederate Army, to be held hostage until the North agreed to resume exchanging prisoners.[5] Booth recruited Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael O'Laughlen, Lewis Powell (also known as "Lewis Paine"), and John Surratt to help him in his attempt. Surratt's mother, Mary Surratt, left her tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland, and moved to a house in Washington, where Booth became a frequent visitor. Prosecutors later pointed out that her move coincided with Booth's need for a base of operations in the federal capital.
In autumn 1860, Booth reportedly was initiated in the pro-Confederate Knights of the Golden Circle in Baltimore.[6] He attended Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, 1865, as the invited guest of his secret fiancée Lucy Hale, daughter of John P. Hale, soon to become United States Ambassador to Spain. Booth afterwards wrote in his diary, "What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, to kill the President on Inauguration day!"[7]
On March 17, 1865, Booth informed his conspirators that Lincoln would be attending a play, Still Waters Run Deep, at Campbell Military Hospital. He assembled his men in a restaurant at the edge of town, intending they should soon join him on a nearby stretch of road to capture the President on his way back from the hospital. But Booth found out that Lincoln had not gone to the play after all. Instead, he had gone to the National Hotel to attend a ceremony in which officers of the 142nd Indiana Infantry presented Governor Oliver Morton a captured Confederate battle flag. Booth was living at the National Hotel at the time and could have had the opportunity to kill Lincoln had he not been at the hospital.[8][9]
Meanwhile, the Confederacy was falling apart. On April 3, Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, fell to the Union army. On April 9, the Army of Northern Virginia, the main army of the Confederacy, surrendered to the Army of the Potomac at Appomatox Court House. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the rest of his government were in full flight. Despite many Southerners giving up hope, Booth continued to believe in his cause.[10]
On April 11, 1865, two days after Lee's army surrendered to Grant, Booth attended a speech at the White House in which Lincoln supported the idea of enfranchising the former slaves. Furiously provoked, Booth decided on assassination. Reportedly he said:
That means nigger citizenship. By God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever give.[11]
According to Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's friend and biographer, just three days before his assassination Lincoln discussed with Lamon and others a dream he had, saying:
About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers, 'The President,' was his answer; 'he was killed by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.[12]
On April 14, Booth's morning started at the stroke of midnight. Lying wide awake in his bed at the National Hotel, he wrote his mother that all was well, but that he was "in haste". In his diary, he wrote that "Our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done".[10][13]
Abraham Lincoln's day started well for the first time in a long time. Hugh McCulloch, the new Secretary of the Treasury, remarked that on that morning, "I never saw Mr. Lincoln so cheerful and happy". No one could miss the difference. For months, the President had looked pale and haggard. Lincoln himself told people how happy he was. This caused the First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln some concern, as she believed that saying such things out loud was bad luck. Lincoln paid her no heed.[13] Lincoln met with his cabinet that day and later had a brief meeting with Vice President Andrew Johnson, the first between the two since Johnson had shown up drunk to take the vice presidential oath on Inauguration Day, six weeks prior.
At around noon, while visiting Ford's to pick up his mail, Booth learned from the brother of John Ford, who was the owner, that the President and General Grant would be attending the theatre to watch Our American Cousin that night. Booth determined that this was the perfect opportunity for him to do something "decisive." [13] He knew the theater's layout, having performed there several times, as recently as the previous month.[14][15] Booth believed that if he and the others could kill the President, General Grant, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward at the same time, he could in essence decapitate the Union government enough for the Confederacy to mount a resurgence.
That same afternoon, Booth went to Mary Surratt's boarding house in Washington, D.C. and asked her to deliver a package to her tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland. He also requested Surratt to tell her tenant who resided there to have the guns and ammunition that Booth had previously stored at the tavern ready to be picked up that evening.[16] She complied with Booth's request and made the trip along with Louis J. Weichmann, her boarder and son's friend. This exchange, and her compliance in it, would lead directly to Mary Surratt's execution three months later.
At seven o'clock that evening, John Wilkes Booth met for a final time with all his fellow conspirators. Booth assigned Lewis Powell to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward at his home, George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson at his residence, the Kirkwood Hotel, and David E. Herold to guide Powell to the Seward house and then out of Washington to rendezvous with Booth in Maryland. Booth planned to shoot Lincoln with his single-shot derringer and then stab Grant with a knife at Ford's Theatre. They were all to strike simultaneously shortly after ten o'clock that night.[17] Atzerodt wanted nothing to do with it, saying he had only signed up for a kidnapping, not a killing. Booth told him he was in too far to back out.[18]
There is evidence to suggest that either Booth or his fellow conspirator Michael O'Laughlen, who looked similar, followed Grant and his wife, Julia, to Union Station late that afternoon and discovered that Grant would not be at the theater that night. Apparently, O'Laughlen boarded the same train the Grants took to Philadelphia in order to kill Grant. An alleged attack during the evening took place; however, the assailant was unsuccessful since the private car that the Grants were riding in had been locked and guarded by porters.[19]
Contrary to the information Booth had overheard, General and Mrs. Grant had declined the invitation to see the play with the Lincolns, as Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Grant were not on good terms with each other.[20] Several other people were invited to join them, until finally Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris (daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris) accepted.[21]
The Lincoln party arrived late and settled into the Presidential Box, which was actually two corner box seats with the dividing wall between them removed. Mrs. Lincoln whispered to her husband, who was holding her hand, "What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?" The president replied, "She won't think anything about it".[22] Those were the last words ever spoken by Abraham Lincoln. It was about 10:15 p.m.
The box was supposed to be guarded by a policeman named John Frederick Parker who, by all accounts, was a curious choice for a bodyguard.[23] During the intermission, Parker went to a nearby tavern with Lincoln's footman and coachman. It is unclear whether he ever returned to the theatre, but he was certainly not at his post when Booth entered the box.[24] Nevertheless, Booth's celebrity status as a premier actor did not warrant any questioning from audience members, who assumed he was coming to call on the President. Upon gaining access through the first door of the entry to the Presidential Box, Booth barricaded the inward-swinging door behind him with a wooden stick that he pried between the wall and the door. He then turned around, and looked through the tiny peep-hole he had carved in the second door (which granted entry the Presidential Box) earlier that day. It was Act II, Scene III.
Booth knew the play by heart, and thus waited for the precise moment when actor Harry Hawk (playing the lead role of the "cousin", Asa Trenchard), would be onstage alone, engaging the audience with what was considered to be the funniest line of the play. Booth hoped to employ the enthusiastic response of the audience to muffle the sound of his gunshot. With the stage to himself, Hawk (Asa) responded to the recently departed Mrs Mountchessington, "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!" With hysterical laughter permeating the theatre, Booth opened the door, crept forward and shot the President in the back of the head, behind his left ear.[25] Lincoln immediately slumped forward in his rocking chair, mortally wounded. Mary reached out, caught him, and then screamed.
Upon hearing the gunshot Rathbone quickly jumped from his seat and tried to prevent Booth from escaping. Booth then drew a knife and stabbed the major violently in the arm. Rathbone quickly recovered and again tried to grab Booth as he was preparing to jump from the sill of the box. Booth again stabbed at Rathbone, and then vaulted over the rail of the box down to the stage below (about a twelve-foot drop). In the process, his riding spur became entangled on the Treasury flag decorating the box, and he landed awkwardly on his left foot, fracturing his left fibula just above the ankle.[26] He raised himself up and began crossing the stage, making the audience believe that he was part of the play. In an act of flamboyancy, Booth held his bloody knife over his head, yelled "Sic semper tyrannis!"[27] the Virginia state motto, meaning "Thus always to tyrants" in Latin. Other accounts state that he also uttered "The South is avenged!".[28]
Mary Lincoln's and Clara Harris' screams and Rathbone's cries of "Stop that man!"[29] caused the audience to understand that this was not part of the show, and pandemonium immediately broke out in Ford's Theatre. Booth made it across the stage and out the side door to the horse he had waiting outside. Some of the men in the audience chased after him, but failed to catch him. Booth struck "Peanuts" Burroughs (who was holding Booth's horse) in the forehead with the handle of his knife, leaped onto the horse, kicked Burroughs in the face with his good leg, and rode away. He headed toward the Navy Yard Bridge to meet up with Herold and Powell.
Charles Leale, a young Army surgeon on liberty for the night, and attending the play, made his way through the crowd to the door at the rear of the Presidential box. It would not open. Finally, Rathbone saw a notch carved in the door and a wooden brace jammed there to hold the door shut. Rathbone shouted to Leale, who stepped back from the door, allowing Rathbone to remove the brace and open the door.[30]
Leale entered the box to find Rathbone bleeding profusely from a deep gash that ran the length of his upper left arm. Nonetheless, he passed Rathbone by and stepped forward to find Lincoln slumped forward in his chair, held up by Mary, who was sobbing. Lincoln had no pulse and Leale believed him to be dead. Leale lowered the President to the floor. A second doctor in the audience, Charles Sabin Taft, was lifted bodily from the stage over the railing and into the box. Taft and Leale cut away Lincoln's blood-stained collar and opened his shirt, and Leale, feeling around by hand, discovered the bullet hole in the back of his head by his left ear. Leale removed a clot of blood in the wound and Lincoln's breathing improved.[31] Still, Leale knew it made no difference: "His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover."[32]
Leale, Taft, and another doctor from the audience, Albert King, quickly consulted and decided that while the President must be moved, a bumpy carriage ride across town to the White House was out of the question. After briefly considering Peter Taltavull's Star Saloon next door, they chose to carry Lincoln across the street and find a house. The three doctors and some soldiers who had been in the audience carried the President out the front entrance of Ford's Theatre. Across the street, a man was holding a lantern and calling "Bring him in here! Bring him in here!" The man was Henry Safford, a boarder at William Petersen's boarding house opposite Ford's who had been startled by the commotion across the street.[33] The men carried Lincoln into the boarding house and into the first-floor bedroom, where they laid him diagonally on the bed because his tall frame would not fit normally on the smaller bed.[34]
A vigil began at the Petersen House. The three physicians were joined by Surgeon General of the United States Army Joseph K. Barnes, Charles Henry Crane, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Robert K. Stone. Crane was a major and Barnes' assistant. Stone was Lincoln's personal physician. Robert Lincoln, home at the White House that evening, arrived at the Petersen House after being told of the shooting at about midnight. Tad Lincoln, who had attended Grover's Theater to see Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, was not allowed to go to the Petersen House, although he was at Grover's Theater when the play was interrupted to report the news of the President's assassination.
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton came and took charge of the scene. Mary Lincoln was so unhinged by the experience of the assassination that Stanton ordered her out of the room by shouting, "Take that woman out of here and do not let her in here again!" While Mary Lincoln sobbed in the front parlor, Stanton set up shop in the rear parlor, effectively running the United States government for several hours, sending and receiving telegrams, taking reports from witnesses, and issuing orders for the pursuit of Booth.[35]
Nothing more could be done for President Lincoln. At 7:22 A.M. 10 seconds on April 15, 1865, he died. He was fifty-six years old. Mary Lincoln was not present at the time of his death. The crowd around the bed knelt for a prayer, and when they were finished, Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the ages".[36] There is some disagreement among historians as to Stanton's words after Lincoln died. All agree that he began "Now he belongs to the..." with some stating he said ages while others believe he said angels.[37]
Booth had assigned Lewis Powell to murder Secretary of State William H. Seward. On April 5, Seward was thrown from his carriage, suffering a concussion, a jaw broken in two places, and a broken right arm. Doctors improvised a jaw splint to repair his jaw (this is often mistakenly called a 'neck brace'). On the night of the assassination he was still restricted to the bed at his Washington home in Lafayette Park, not too far from the White House. Herold guided Powell to Seward's residence. Powell was carrying an 1858 Whitney revolver, which was a large, heavy and popular gun during the Civil War. In addition, he carried a silver-handled bowie knife.
Powell knocked at the front door of the house a little after 10:00 p.m. William Bell, Seward's butler, answered the door. Powell told Bell that he had medicine for Seward from his physician, Dr. Verdi, and that he was to personally deliver and show Seward how to take the medicine. Upon gaining admittance to the residence, Powell began making his way up the stairs to Seward's third-floor bedroom after much persuasion on his part.[38][39][40] At the top of the staircase, he was stopped by Seward's son, Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward. Powell told Frederick the same story that he had told Bell. Frederick was suspicious of the intruder, and told Powell that his father was asleep.
After hearing voices in the hall, Seward's daughter Fanny opened the door to Seward's room and said, "Fred, Father is awake now", and then closed the door, thus revealing to Powell where Seward was located. Initially, Powell started back down the stairs when suddenly he jolted around and drew his revolver, pointing it at Frederick's forehead. He pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired. Instead of pulling the trigger again, Powell panicked and bludgeoned Frederick Seward about the head with it. Seward crumpled to the floor unconscious, but Powell's gun was damaged beyond repair. Fanny, wondering what all the noise was, looked out the door again. She saw her brother bloody and unconscious on the floor and Powell running towards her. Powell shoved her aside, ran to Seward's bed and began stabbing him repeatedly in the face and neck. He missed the first time he swung his knife down, but the third blow sliced open Seward's cheek.[41] Seward's splint was the only thing that prevented the blade from penetrating his jugular vein.[42]
Sergeant Robinson and Seward's son Augustus tried to drive Powell away. Augustus had been asleep in his room, but was awakened by Fanny's screams of terror. Outside the residence, David Herold also heard Fanny screaming. He became frightened and ran away, abandoning Powell, who had no directional knowledge of the escape route from the capital city.[43] The force of Powell's blows had driven Secretary Seward off the bed and onto the floor behind the bed where Powell could not reach him. Powell fought off Robinson, Augustus, and Fanny, stabbing them as well.
When Augustus went for his pistol, Powell ran downstairs and headed for the front door.[44] Just then, a messenger named Emerick Hansell arrived with a telegram for Seward. Powell stabbed Hansell in the back, causing him to fall to the floor, and leaving him permanently paralyzed. Before running outside, Powell exclaimed, "I'm mad! I'm mad!", untied his horse from the tree where Herold left it, and rode away, alone.
Fanny Seward cried, "Oh my God, father's dead!" Sergeant Robinson lifted the Secretary from the floor back onto the bed. Seward spat the blood out of his mouth and said, "I am not dead; send for a doctor, send for the police. Close the house."[45] Seward was covered with blood, but Powell's wild stabs in the dark room had not hit anything vital, and he would go on to recover. His face was to be permanently scarred, however.
Booth had assigned George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, who was staying at the Kirkwood Hotel in Washington. Atzerodt was to go to the Vice President's room at 10:15 p.m. and shoot him.[46] On April 14, Atzerodt rented room 126 at the Kirkwood, directly above the room where Johnson was staying. He arrived at the Kirkwood at the appointed time and went to the bar downstairs, carrying on his person a gun and a knife. Atzerodt asked the bartender, Michael Henry, about the Vice President's character and behavior. After spending some time at the hotel saloon, Atzerodt got drunk and wandered away through the streets of Washington. Nervous, he tossed his knife away in the street. He made his way to the Pennsylvania House Hotel by 2 a.m., where he checked into a room and went to sleep.[47][48]
Earlier that day, Booth stopped by the Kirkwood Hotel and left a note for Johnson that read, "I don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth."[38] The card was picked up that night by Johnson's personal secretary, William Browning.[49] This message has been interpreted in many different ways throughout the years.[50] One theory is that Booth, being afraid that Atzerodt would not succeed in killing Johnson, or worried that Atzerodt would not have the courage to carry out the assassination, tried to use the message to implicate Johnson in the conspiracy.[51] Another theory is that Booth was actually trying to contact Browning in order to find out whether or not Johnson was expected to be at the Kirkwood that night.[49]
Within half an hour of his escape on horseback from Ford's, Booth crossed over the Navy Yard Bridge and out of the city into Maryland.[52] David Herold made it across the same bridge less than an hour later[53] and rendezvoused with Booth.[54] After retrieving weapons and supplies previously stored at Surattsville, Herold and Booth went to Samuel A. Mudd, a local doctor who determined that Booth's leg had been broken and put it in a splint. Later, Mudd made a pair of crutches for the assassin.[55]
After spending a day at Mudd's house, Booth and Herold hired a local man to guide them to Samuel Cox's house.[56] Cox in turn took them to Thomas Jones, who hid Booth and Herold in Zekiah Swamp near his house for five days until they could cross the Potomac River.[57] On the afternoon of April 24, they arrived at the farm of Richard H. Garrett, a tobacco farmer. Booth told Garrett he was a wounded Confederate soldier.
During the Union manhunt for Booth, four of his pursuers were among the fatalities when they drowned during patrol duty on April 24.[58] Their small barge, the "Black Diamond", collided with the steamer "Massachusetts" on either the Rappahannock River[59] or the Potomac River.[60] There were at least 50 fatalities, including passengers from the Massachusetts, Union soldiers who were recently exchanged and paroled former prisoners of the Confederacy.[61]
Booth and Herold remained at Garrett's farm until April 26, when Union soldiers from the 16th New York Cavalry arrived at the farm. The soldiers surrounded Booth and Herold in the barn. Herold surrendered, but Booth refused to come out when the soldiers called for his surrender, stating boldly, "I will not be taken alive!"[62] Upon hearing this, the soldiers set fire to the barn.[63] Booth scrambled for the back door, brandishing a rifle in one hand and a pistol in the other. He never fired either weapon.
A soldier named Boston Corbett crept up behind the barn and shot Booth in the neck, severing his spinal cord.[64] Booth was carried out onto the steps of the barn. A soldier dribbled water onto his mouth. Booth told the soldier, "Tell my mother I die for my country." In agony, unable to move his limbs, he asked a soldier to lift his hands before his face and whispered as he gazed at them, "Useless...Useless." These were his last words. Booth died on the porch of the Garrett farm two hours after Corbett had shot him.[38][65]
Powell was unfamiliar with Washington, and without the services of his guide David Herold, Powell wandered the streets for three days before finding his way back to the Surratt house on April 17. He found the detectives already there. Powell claimed to be a ditch-digger hired by Mary Surratt, but she denied knowing him. They were both arrested.[66] George Atzerodt hid out in a farm in Germantown, Maryland, about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Washington, but was tracked down and arrested on April 20.[67]
The rest of the conspirators were arrested before the end of the month, except for John Surratt, who fled to Quebec. There he was hidden by Roman Catholic priests. In September, 1865, he boarded a ship to Liverpool, England, staying in the Catholic Church of the Holy Cross in the city. From there, he moved furtively through Europe, until he ended up as part of the Pontifical Zouaves in the Papal States. A friend from his school days, Henry St. Marie, discovered him in the Papal guard during the spring of 1866 and alerted the U.S. government. Surratt was arrested by the Papal authorities but through suspicious circumstances, he managed to escape. He was finally captured by a U.S. government agent in Egypt in November 1866.
Surratt stood trial for Lincoln's murder in Washington in the summer of 1867. The defense called four residents of Elmira, New York[68] who did not know John Surratt but said they had seen him there between April 13 and 15. Fifteen prosecution witnesses, some who knew him, said they saw a man they positively identified, or said resembled, the defendant in Washington on the day of the assassination or traveling to or from the capital at this time. In the end, the jury could not agree on a verdict. Surratt was released and lived the rest of his life, until 1916, a free man.[69]
In the turmoil that followed the assassination, scores of suspected accomplices were arrested and thrown into prison. All the people who were discovered to have had anything to do with the assassination or anyone with the slightest contact with Booth or Herold on their flight were put behind bars. Among the imprisoned were Louis J. Weichmann, a boarder in Mrs. Surratt's house; Booth's brother Junius (playing in Cincinnati at the time of the assassination); theatre owner John T. Ford, who was incarcerated for 40 days; James Pumphrey, the Washington livery stable owner from whom Booth hired his horse; John M. Lloyd, the innkeeper who rented Mrs. Surratt's Maryland tavern and gave Booth and Herold carbines, rope, and whiskey the night of April 14; and Samuel Cox and Thomas A. Jones, who helped Booth and Herold escape across the Potomac.[70]
All of those listed above and more were rounded up, imprisoned, and released. Ultimately, the suspects were narrowed down to just eight prisoners (seven men and one woman):[71] Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlen, Lewis Powell, Edmund Spangler (a Ford's stagehand who had given Booth's horse to "Peanuts" Burroughs to hold), and Mary Surratt.
The eight suspects were tried by a military tribunal ordered by then-President Andrew Johnson on May 1, 1865. The nine-member commission was presided over by Major General David Hunter. The other eight voting members were August Kautz, Albion P. Howe, James A. Ekin, David Clendenin, Lew Wallace, Robert Foster, Thomas M. Harris and Charles H. Tompkins. The prosecution team included Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, John A. Bingham, and H.L. Burnett.[72] The transcript of the trial was recorded by Benn Pitman and several assistants, and was published in 1865.[73] The fact that they were tried by a military tribunal provoked criticism from both Edward Bates and Gideon Welles, who believed that a civil court should have presided. Attorney General James Speed, on the other hand, justified the use of a military tribunal on grounds that included the military nature of the conspiracy, that the defendants acted as enemy combatants and the existence of martial law in the District of Columbia. (In 1866, in the Ex parte Milligan decision, the United States Supreme Court banned the use of military tribunals in places where civil courts were operational.)[74] The odds were further stacked against the defendants by rules that required only a simple majority of the officer jury for a guilty verdict and a two-thirds majority for a death sentence. Nor could the defendants appeal to anyone other than President Johnson.[75]
The trial lasted for about seven weeks, with 366 witnesses testifying. Louis Weichmann, released from custody, was a key witness. All of the defendants were found guilty on June 30. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were sentenced to death by hanging; Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to life in prison. Mudd escaped execution by a single vote, the tribunal having voted 5–4 against hanging him. Edmund Spangler was sentenced to imprisonment for six years. Oddly, after sentencing Mary Surratt to hang, five of the jurors signed a letter recommending clemency, but Johnson refused to stop the execution. (Johnson later claimed he never saw the letter.[76])
Surratt, Powell, Herold, and Atzerodt were hanged in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary on July 7, 1865.[77] The executions were supervised by Union general Winfield Scott Hancock. Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States government.[78] O'Laughlen died in prison of yellow fever in 1867. Mudd, Arnold, and Spangler were pardoned in February 1869 by President Johnson.[79] Spangler, who died in 1875, insisted for the rest of his life that he had no connection to the plot beyond being the man Booth asked to hold his horse.
The degree of Mudd's culpability has remained a controversy ever since. Some, including Mudd's grandson Richard Mudd, claimed that Mudd was innocent of any wrongdoing and that he had been imprisoned merely for treating a man who came to his house late at night with a fractured leg. Over a century after the assassination, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both wrote letters to Richard Mudd agreeing that his grandfather committed no crime. However, others, including authors Edward Steers, Jr. and James Swanson, assert that Samuel Mudd visited Booth three times in the months before the failed kidnapping attempt. The first time was November 1864 when Booth, looking for help in his kidnapping plot, was directed to Mudd by agents of the Confederate Secret Service. In December, Booth met with Mudd again and stayed the night at his farm. Later that December, Mudd went to Washington and introduced Booth to a Confederate agent he knew — John Surratt. Additionally, George Atzerodt testified that Booth sent supplies to Mudd's house in preparation for the kidnap plan. Mudd lied to the authorities who came to his house after the assassination, claiming that he did not recognize the man who showed up on his doorstep in need of treatment and giving false information about where Booth and Herold went.[80][81] He also hid the monogrammed boot that he had cut off Booth's injured leg behind a panel in his attic, but the thorough search of Mudd's house soon revealed this further evidence against him. One hypothesis is that Dr. Mudd was active in the kidnapping plot, likely as the person the conspirators would turn to for medical treatment in case Lincoln were injured, and that Booth thus remembered the doctor and went to his house to get help in the early hours of April 15.[82][83]
Abraham Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated. His assassination had a long-lasting impact upon the United States, and he was mourned throughout the country in both North and South. There were attacks in many cities against those who expressed support for Booth.[84] On the Easter Sunday after Lincoln's death, clergymen around the country praised Lincoln in their sermons.[85] Millions of people came to Lincoln's funeral procession in Washington, D.C. on April 19, 1865,[86] and as his body was transported 1,700 miles (2,700 km) through New York to Springfield, Illinois. His body and funeral train were viewed by millions along the route.[87]
After Lincoln's death, Ulysses S. Grant called him "incontestably the greatest man I ever knew."[88] Southern-born Elizabeth Blair said that, "Those of Southern born sympathies know now they have lost a friend willing and more powerful to protect and serve them than they can now ever hope to find again."[89]
Andrew Johnson, became President upon Lincoln's death. Johnson was to become one of the least popular presidents in American history.[90] He was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868 but the Senate failed to convict him by one vote.[91]
Secretary of State William Seward recovered from his wounds and continued to serve in his post throughout Johnson's presidency. He later negotiated the Alaska Purchase, then known as Seward's Folly, by which the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867.[92]
Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris married two years after the assassination, and Rathbone went on to become the U.S. consul to Hanover, Germany. However, Rathbone later became mentally ill and, in 1883, shot Clara and then stabbed her to death. He spent the rest of his life in a German asylum for the criminally insane.[93]
John Ford tried to reopen his theater a couple of months after the murder, but a wave of outrage forced him to cancel. In 1866, the federal government purchased the building from Ford, tore out the insides, and turned it into an office building. In 1893, the inner structure collapsed, killing 22 clerks. It was later used as a warehouse, then it lay empty until it was restored to its 1865 appearance. Ford's Theatre reopened in 1968 both as a museum of the assassination and a working playhouse. The Presidential Box is never occupied.[94] The Petersen House was purchased in 1896 as the "House Where Lincoln Died"; it was the first piece of real estate ever acquired by the federal government as a memorial. Today, Ford's and the Petersen House are operated together as the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site.
The bed that Lincoln occupied and other items from the bedroom had been bought by Chicago collector Charles F. Gunther and are now owned by and on display at the Chicago History Museum.[95][96] The Army Medical Museum, now named the National Museum of Health and Medicine, has retained in its collection several artifacts relating to the assassination. Currently on display are the bullet that hit Lincoln, the probe used by Barnes, pieces of Lincoln's skull and hair, and the surgeon's cuff stained with Lincoln's blood. The chair in which Lincoln was shot is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit, Michigan.[97]
On February 9, 1956, 96-year-old Samuel Seymour appeared on the U.S. game show I've Got a Secret. The celebrity panel was eventually able to guess Seymour's "secret": that he had been in attendance at Ford's Theater the night of the assassination. Seymour, five years old in 1865, was the last living witness to the event. Seymour died two months after the telecast.
Abraham Lincoln was honored on the centennial of his birth when his portrait was placed on the U.S. one-cent coin in 1909. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was opened in 1922.
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