Assassination!: The Brick Chronicle of Attempts on the Lives of Twelve US Presidents (5 page)

Standing among the crowd, John Wilkes Booth remarked to his friends David Herold and Lewis Powell, “That means nigger citizenship. Now, by God, I will put him through. That will be the last speech he will ever make.”

On the morning of April 14, the twenty-six-year-old Booth woke up in his hotel room hungover and depressed after another night of Washington’s celebration of the defeat of the Confederacy.

Around noon, Booth was at nearby Ford’s Theater to collect his mail when he heard the news that President Lincoln and the first lady would be attending that night’s performance with their guests, Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia.

Booth immediately devised a new plot more brazen than mere abduction. Gathering his three remaining followers, he laid out a plan for the simultaneous assassination of the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, and the commanding general of the army, at ten o’clock that very night.

The plan hit a snag almost immediately. General Grant and his wife declined the president’s invitation to join them at the theater, and instead headed out of town to visit their children. Booth himself passed them on horseback as they rode toward the train station.

Undeterred, Booth made his preparations and lay in wait as President Lincoln and the first lady arrived at Ford’s Theater that evening, accompanied by their guests, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris.

The play that evening was the comedy, Our American Cousin. Booth knew the layout of Ford’s and the timing of the play. As a famous actor, no one questioned his presence at the theater that night, and Booth found the door to the president’s box unguarded.

Slipping inside unnoticed, Booth barricaded the door behind him with a wooden bar he had put in place earlier that day. He then waited for the end of the play’s scene, knowing that it would leave only a single actor on the stage.

As the fifty-six-year-old president sat in a rocking chair next to his wife, Booth removed a single-shot pistol from his coat, cocked it, and took aim at the back of Lincoln’s head.

“You sockdologizing old man-trap!” were the last words Lincoln heard from the stage. As the crowd broke out in laughter, Booth pulled the trigger, and his bullet lodged itself deep inside Lincoln’s brain.

Major Rathbone was the first to realize what was happening and rose to defend the president. Discarding the pistol, Booth drew a sharp hunting knife and lunged, dealing Rathbone a partially deflected blow that caused a deep cut from elbow to shoulder.

Booth then climbed the balustrade. As Rathbone reached for him and caught his coat, Booth leapt down onto the stage twelve feet below.