John Wilkes Booth
Who was the man who murdered the sixteenth President of the United States?
The plan to murder Abraham Lincoln was only part of a much larger assassination plot that was the brainchild of lunatic actor, John Wilkes Booth. The plan was to kill all the Union leadership, the Vice President, Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State, William Seward, thus insuring a Confederate victory. But the best-laid plans of mice, men and mad assassins often go astray and this one did as well.
Abraham Lincoln would have recognized the man who killed him, had he been able to turn and face him. Booth was a well-known actor and had been dubbed by the press of the day as the "handsomest man in America." Women loved him and swooned at his feet, and the photographs of six women were found on his person when he died.
A southern sympathizer, Booth's hatred of Lincoln ran deep and festered with each Union victory and passing day of the war years. He saw him as a tyrant who abused constitutional liberties and as an abolitionist.
He died in a burning barn in Virginia and all of his accomplices were hung, including Mary Surratt who ran the boarding house where the conspiracy to murder Lincoln was said to have been born. She was the very first woman in US history to be hung.
Read more about the life of this colorful, fascinating and repulsive man who was right when he said in the bar next to Ford's Theater where he enjoyed a drink on that fateful Friday night, "After tonight, everyone will know who I am."
