Assassination of President Lincoln and Ford's Theater
Additional Details:
|
Series 606
Assassination of President Lincoln, April 14, 1865. Ford's Theater Draped in Mourning. On April 14, 1865, Mrs. Lincoln made up a theater party to see Laura Keene at Ford's Theater in "Our American Cousin." On arriving, the President was wildly cheered and the orchestra played "Hail to the Chief!" During the third act, J. Wilkes Booth, a handsome young actor, glided into the President's box, the door of which he barred, and armed with a revolver and a dagger approached his victim from the rear and fired the fatal shot. Lincoln's head fell forward on his breast. Booth, crying dramatically, "Sic Semper tyrannis!" stabbed Major Rathbone and vaulted the railing. The assassin's spur, catching in one fo the American flags draping the box, threw him to the stage below, breaking his leg. Instantly he was up, and brandishing his bloody knife at the dazed audience he fled to the rear exit, where he mounted his horse and rode for his live. Several days after he was coralled in a barn, which was fired, and while thus at bay he was shot down. Lincoln died the next morning, April 15, 1865. The following day Ford's Theater was draped in mourning. |
