John Wilkes Booth Assassinates Lincoln at Ford's Theatre
Five days after Appomattox, a Confederate sympathizer shoots the president during a play
Quick facts
- Location
- Ford's Theatre, Washington, D.C.
- Date
- April 14-15, 1865
- Assassin
- John Wilkes Booth
- Lincoln died
- April 15, 1865, Petersen House
What happened
On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth learned that President Lincoln would attend a performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington that night, a venue Booth knew well from his own acting career there. Booth, a Confederate sympathizer enraged by the South's defeat, slipped into the presidential box during the play and shot Lincoln once in the back of the head with a derringer before leaping to the stage and escaping, despite breaking his leg in the fall. Lincoln, mortally wounded, was carried across the street to the Petersen boarding house, where he died early the next morning, April 15, without regaining consciousness. Booth was tracked down and killed by Union soldiers twelve days later in a Virginia barn; several co-conspirators involved in a broader plot that also targeted Secretary of State Seward were later tried and executed.
Why it matters
Lincoln's death, coming just five days after Lee's surrender, removed the president whose stated plans for a lenient Reconstruction might have shaped a different postwar South, and it left Andrew Johnson, a far less capable and more combative successor, to manage the reunification of the country.
How we know
Ford's Theatre, now a National Historic Site, documents the assassination and Booth's preparations from contemporary accounts of theatre staff, witnesses in the audience, and the subsequent conspiracy trial records.
Sources
- Ford's Theatre. Lincoln's Assassination · General sourcefords.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National Park Service. Ford's Theatre National Historic Site · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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