On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln, at Ford’s Theater while Lincoln was celebrating General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. It was logical to Booth for him to kill Lincoln, he was a very selfish man and a lover of slavery. Him killing Lincoln was a tragedy to our country, we had no leader.
John Wilkes Booth was born on May 10, 1838, into a family of 10 children. Booth was an American actor, and an assassin. His father, Junius Brutus Booth, was a well known actor and was peculiar, with a reputation for heavy drinking. John and his siblings were raised on a farm, which was worked by the family’s slaves. When Booth …show more content…
He then walked down to door number seven and looked through the groove he had made there. He was just three feet away from President Lincoln. Booth knew that play very well and knew that act 2 scene 3 there was only going to be one actor on stage, and he would crack the funniest line in the play, and all 1700 people would erupt in laughter and drown the gun shot noise. So Booth waited, and waited. The actor finally delivered his line, and at that moment John Wilkes Booth, not even 10 inches away from Lincoln, fired a single shot through the back of his left ear and the bullet was lodged behind his right eye. Booth made his escape jumping from the box onto the stage, that is when they believe he broke his leg. He went to center stage and yelled out “ Sic semper tyrannis” a Latin phrase meaning “ Thus always to tyrants”. He then made a run for it. There was a young military doctor sitting near by he went over looked at Lincoln’s head and decided it would be best to bring him to the closest bed. The doctor and some others walked him out the door to 10th street, they looked out and saw someone yelling for them to enter his house, the Peterson House. They entered the house, and walked down the hallway into a bedroom. That is where Lincoln would lay his last hours. Nine hours later, at 7:22 am April 15, 1865 our 16th President died. While everyone was worried about the president, law enforcement had the job to find his