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On this day in 1865, just after the effective end of the American Civil War, U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a production at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died the next morning.

Booth, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies,initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond,the Confederate capital. However, on March 20,1865,the day of planned kidnapping,the president failed to appear at the spot..

where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to union forces. In April with confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the confederacy....

Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene’s acclaimed performance in Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater on April 14, Booth outlined a plan to assassinate not just President Lincoln but also Vice Pres. Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward

By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into a paralyzing disarray.Booth tasked Lewis Powell,a tall and powerful former Confederate soldier, with the attack on Seward,to be aided by David Herold.

George Atzerodt, a German immigrant who had acted as a boatman for Confederate spies, was to kill Johnson. Booth himself was to assassinate Lincoln. All three attacks were to occur at the same time (about 10:00 PM) that night

On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward’s home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled.

At Ford’s Theatre Booth made his way to the private box in which Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, were watching the play with their guests, Clara Harris and her fiancé, Union officer Maj. Henry Rathbone (more prominent people had declined the Lincolns’ invitation).

Finding the presidents box essentially unguarded, Booth entered it and barred the outside door from inside. Then, at a moment in the play that he knew would elicit a big laugh, Booth burst in through the box’s inner door.

Then, at a moment in the play that he knew would elicit a big laugh,Booth burst in through the box’s inner door. He shot Lincoln in the back of the head once with a .44 calibre derringer, slashed Rathbone in the shoulder with a knife, and leapt from the box to the stage below.

Although Booth has broken his left leg jumping from Lincoln Box, he succeeded in escaping Washington.

The President, mortally wounded was carried to a cheap lounging house opposite Ford's theater. About 7:22am the next morning, he died the first US President to be assasinated

Booth rode to Virginia with David Herold and stopped at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who placed splints on Booth’s legs. They hid in a barn on Richard Garrett’s farm as thousands of Union troops combed the area looking for them. The other conspirators were captured, except for...

Except for John Surratt, who fled to Canada

When the troops finally caught up with Booth and Herold on April 26, they gave them the option of surrendering before the barn was burned down. Herold decided to surrender, but Booth remained in the barn as it went up in flames. Booth was then shot and killed in the burning barn.

George Atzerodt, Lewis Paine, David Herold, and John Surratt’s mother, Mary, were hanged in Washington. The execution of Mary Surratt is believed by some to have been a miscarriage of justice. Although there was proof of Surratt’s involvement in the original abduction conspiracy,

it is clear that her deeds were minor compared to those of the others who were executed.

Her son John was eventually tracked down in Egypt and brought back to trial, but he managed, with the help of clever lawyers, to win an acquittal.

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Sources of information
Britannica
http://History.com 
Wikipedia