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Lincoln
The Assassination of Lincoln
The assassination of Lincoln was part of a greater plot to end the continuity of government, which Lincoln and his aids (Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson) represented. Each of these men held one of the top three key positions in the Union. John Wilkes Booth, the stage-actor who killed the President, sought along with his accomplices to assist the South and the Confederate cause by assassinating the leaders of the Confederacy's opposition.
As Michael Kauffman notes, Booth and his co-conspirators had devised a plot to abduct Lincoln, smuggle him to the Confederate states and hold him ransom in exchange for Confederate prisoners whom Gen. Grant of the Union Army was, in 1864, refusing to release.
This "plot," however, was little more than a stunt on Booth's part: by having his co-conspirators gather in a public place where witnesses could confirm their meeting, he was guaranteeing their loyalty. Even though the abduction failed in every way (Lincoln never even appeared at the place Booth said he would show), Booth now had something to hold over the heads of his men: they could not back out; they had been seen together; anyone who tried to defect now would never be acquitted by the courts; Booth should know -- he had some knowledge of the law.
But the plot progressed from one of abduction...
Booth decided then and there that Lincoln was upsetting the balance of order and society in the Southern States -- an order the President had no right to upset. The idea of kidnap and ransom was over (the Confederacy had already lost the war anyway). Assassination now became Booth's predominant thought.
Three days later, on 14 April 1865, Booth lay awake in his hotel bed and wrote to his mother that "something decisive and great must be done."
At that time, Booth still had no definite plan to assassinate the President. That plan would not come for another dozen or so hours, when, visiting Ford's Theatre to retrieve his mail, Booth discovered that Lincoln would be in attendance at the Theatre that very same night. Here was a perfect opportunity: as a known and welcome actor, Booth had easy access to the Theatre; he knew its ins and outs.
Booth made his decision on the spot. He sent word to Mary Surratt, the woman whose boarding house had been the place where Booth and his co-conspirators had met: she was to see that Booth's packages -- guns and ammo -- were available for his men. Insurrection was to happen that night.
Seward was to be killed by Lewis Powell and Johnson by George Atzerodt: those were Booth's orders. Atzerodt protested:…
Bibliography
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln. NY:
Simon and Schuster, 2005.
Kauffman, Michael. American Brutus. NY: Random House, 2004.
Swanson, James. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. NY:
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