John Wilkes Booth

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John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 - April 26, 1865) was an actor and fanatic to the South who assassianted the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln.

History

John Wilkes Booth worked as an actor at Ford's Theather in Washington, D.C. He was a racist and confederate sympathizer and a supporter of slavery.

He was also present at the hanging of John Brown in 1859.

He originally planned on kidnapping the President and holding him for ransom. However, he was so fed up with anger of the South's defeat, and his hatred for Lincoln, that it eventually led him to murder. The President on April 14, 1865 on Good Friday attended a play entitled "Our American Cousin" and Booth stalked him. Between 10:15 and 10:30 pm, actor Harry Hawk stood alone onstage. He was putting on a wonderful preformance: "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal - you sockdologizing old mantrap!" And right then, the audience laughed and Booth opened the door to the president's booth. He had earlier took out a knife and gouged a hole in the door where he looked upon the profile of Abraham Lincoln as he watched the play. As the audience laughed, Booth took out a pistol, and aimed his pistol at the back of Lincoln's head at near point-blank range. Booth pulled the trigger. Lincoln was laughing when he was shot and passed into unconsciousness with laughter and a smile on his face. Lincoln's guest in the box, Major Henry Rathbone lept to his feet and grabbed John Wilkes Booth and Booth dropped his pistol. They struggled and fought, but Booth pulled out his knife and stabbed Rathbone near his shoulder before pushing him against the wall. Booth then turned to jump from the balcony and Rathbone sat up and grabbed onto Booth's coat causing him to dangle over the balcony, Booth fell down to the stage, breaking his leg. He yelled "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Thus always to tyrants.) and escaped leaving the dying President behind. Some witnesses state that he also yelled "The South's is avenged!" An army surgeon saw that Lincoln's wound was mortal. The President was taken across the street from the theater to the Petersen House, where he remained in a coma for nine hours before dying early the next morning. Rathbone recovered from his wounds but his mental state deteriorated in the years following Lincoln's death as he anguished over his perceived inability to thwart the assassination attempt. His mental decline culminated in his murdering his wife, Clara Harris (who was also in the box with Lincoln) on December 23, 1883, fatally shooting her then stabbing her several times. After he killed Clara, Rathbone attempted to kill himself. When the police arrived, the bleeding Rathbone claimed there were people hiding behind the pictures on the wall. The couple's children, who were also almost killed by their father, were taken to live with their uncle, William Harris, in the United States. Rathbone spent the rest of his life in the asylum for the criminally insane. It was as if John Wilkes Booth continued to kill way beyond that fateful evening.

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Booth eventually was cornered at a farm. Booth refused to surrender. After a short firefight, a bullet struck Booth in "the back of the head about an inch below the spot where his [Booth's] shot had entered the head of Mr. Lincoln" and exited the front of his neck, serving his spinal cord. Unconscious, Booth was carried out onto the steps of the barn. A soldier poured water into his mouth, which Booth woke up by immediatly spatting out, unable to swallow. Booth told the soldier: "Tell my mother I die for my country." In agony, unable to move his limbs, he asked a soldier to lift his hands before his face.

His last words were "Useless, useless." when he asked for his hands to be raised to his face. Booth died two hours afterwards.