Qualla: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USCapitol, Public domain. Lincoln did not want to go that night. He told Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, "I suppose it's time to go though I would rather stay," before helping Mary into the carriage. The play was Our American Cousin, the date was April 14, 1865, and the war had ended five days earlier at Appomattox. The president was tired. He had survived a kidnapping plot, a hole shot through his hat, and four years of impossible decisions. Two blocks from the White House, in a converted Baptist church on Tenth Street, an actor he had once admired from the stage was already waiting.

Image: USCapitol | Public domain

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: An Actor's Grievance

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Cuerden, Public domain. John Wilkes Booth was twenty-six, famous, and bitter. His older brother Edwin, the more celebrated Booth, had remained loyal to the Union, and the rivalry between them had curdled into something darker. Three days before the assassination, Booth stood in the crowd outside the Whi...

Image: Adam Cuerden | Public domain

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: The Conspiracy

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mathew Benjamin Brady, Public domain. Booth's plan was not a lone gunman's impulse. At 8:45 that evening, in a Washington boarding house, he met with co-conspirators and divided the night into assignments. Lewis Powell would kill Secretary of State William H. Seward at his home. George Atzerodt would kill Vice Presid...

Image: Mathew Benjamin Brady | Public domain

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: The Box at Ford's

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mathew Benjamin Brady, Public domain. The protections that should have surrounded the president were not in place. Lincoln's personal bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon was in Richmond on assignment. Officer John Frederick Parker, assigned to guard the door of the box, slipped away to a tavern at intermission and may never ha...

Image: Mathew Benjamin Brady | Public domain

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: The Shot

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Otis Historical Archives National Museum of Health and Medicine, CC BY 2.0. Booth had spent the day preparing. He had bored a small peephole in the door of the box. He had cut a notch in the wall so that a wooden brace could bar the corridor behind him. At about 10:10 he climbed the stairs to the dress circle, showed his calling card to Lincoln's valet, ...

Image: Otis Historical Archives National Museum of Health and Medicine | CC BY 2.0

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: What Came After

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mathew Benjamin Brady, Public domain. Booth crossed the stage with a bloody knife held over his head. Most witnesses remembered him shouting Sic semper tyrannis, the Virginia state motto, "Thus always to tyrants." Many in the audience first thought he was part of the play. He stabbed orchestra leader William Withers ...

Image: Mathew Benjamin Brady | Public domain