Biography abraham lincoln assassination chairs

On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth crept into the presidential box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. with one intention: to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Shooting him in the back of the head at point-blank range, the famous actor succeeded, inflicting a mortal wound that would take Lincoln's life the following morning.

The first murder of an American president in the nation's history, it came just one week after Confederate general Robert E. Lee's surrender ended America's convulsive four-year civil war.

Booth, a fanatically pro-Confederate sympathizer, had been stalking Lincoln for the good part of a year.

Six weeks earlier, he had stood less 100 feet away from the president at his second inauguration. On April 11, Booth attended a Lincoln speech, reacting angrily to the president's suggestion that he might pursue voting rights for Black Americans. 

Three nights later, he acted on that anger at Ford's Theatre