Ilyas Kurbanov
03/05/14
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: A Narrative.
On the beautiful evening of April 15th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln went to see Our American Cousin, a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC. After a majority of difficult, arduous days that he had recently experienced, Lincoln was abnormally happy that day. Even he proclaimed this happiness to those around him. Everything was going well, but when Lincoln was watching the play in Ford’s theater, a bitter man ruined everything. The harsh, evil man, John Wilkes Booth, snuck towards Abraham Lincoln’s seat and killed the President, shooting him in the back. Booth never liked Lincoln and people who were on his site. According to Booth, when he aimed at Lincoln’s back, he yelled out “Sic semper tyrranis”, which means, “Thus always I eradicate tyrants’ lives”. Booth also injured people who were watching the scene with him. Lincoln's assassination was an important event in the history of United States. It sped up the process of African-American people getting freedom and citizenship. In the year 1865, the end of the American Civil War was drawing near. On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, was born in Bel Air, Maryland in 1838. Booth remained in the North during the Civil War, despite his Confederate sympathies. Booth and his conspirators originally planned to kidnap the President and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, the plan of kidnapping failed, because Lincoln failed to come where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. In April 1865, the Confederate Capital Richmond fell. Booth, trying to save the Confederate States, constructed up a cunning plan. Knowing about the failure of Confederate States Booth got an idea. Booth learned that Lincoln was going to watch a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, on April 14. Booth was a well-known actor at the time and he planned to kill three targets at once – President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and the Secretary of State William H. Seward. He thought if his plan would work, it would give a chance to the Confederate States to strike again. Lincoln and his wife with their friends occupied a private presidential box. The presidential box was usually unguarded, which was even easier for Booth to sneak up to the president. With haste, all of the attacks were occurred at the same time, about 10 P.M. The news of Lincoln’s death spread across the country. Many people were shocked by the event, in fact, one of Lincoln’s family friends, Horatio Nelson Taft, was extremely sad about it. According to Nelson, “O, fatal day. O, noble victim. Treason has done its worst. The President has been assassinated.” The next years Lincoln became a martyr for the people who supported him. On April 15th, the hours when the murder was passed, bells rang and cannons were shot every half hour. The buildings were draped in black color and all of the businesses close. Union armies were shocked by the even and wanted vengeance on the South. Even people who hated Lincoln were enraging, and emphasizers of South in the North hid themselves from the raging mobs. There were
Incidents when the supporters of South were beaten to death and police forces were forcing people who insulted Lincoln into police courts. Union troopers were killing the people who were exulted in Lincoln’s death. South also didn’t like Booth’s actions, because it motivated the people to suppress the South even more, which caused the South to fear the North even more. In the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s death and a month before the end of the civil war, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President of United States. Andrew Johnson, as a Democrat, switched to modern day Republican party, only to get more