No one wanted to go to the theater that night. General Ulysses S. Grant said no because his wife couldn’t stand Mrs. Lincoln. They made the excuse that they were going to New Jersey to visit their children. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, and even President Lincoln’s own son Robert turned down the invitation to go to Ford’s Theater on the night of April 14, 1865 to see “Our American Cousin.” Mary Lincoln had a headache and would have preferred to stay home. Lincoln said they had to go because the newspapers had reported that they would be at the theater that night, and he didn’t want to disappoint the audience. Lincoln’s bodyguard William Crook urged him to stay home. Crook didn’t accompany the president that night. A man named John Frederick Parker was going to act as presidential bodyguard. Finally, Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris, and her fiancé Major Henry Rathbone agreed to accompany the president and his wife to the theater.
John Wilkes Booth was from a well know acting family. Lincoln had seen him in a play called “The Marble Heart” at Ford’s Theater back on November 9, 1863. A woman guest with Lincoln said, “Twice Booth in uttering disagreeable threats in the play came very near and put his finger close to Mr. Lincoln’s face.” After a third gesture, she quoted Lincoln as saying, “Well, he does look pretty sharp at me, doesn’t he.” Lincoln admired Booth’s acting, and even tried to invite him the White House, but it never came about.
Lincoln and his party arrived a few minutes late. The play was stopped as the orchestra played “Hail to the Chief.” John Frederick Parker was stationed at the door of Lincoln’s box, but left at intermission to have a drink at a nearby tavern. He was not back when Booth entered the president’s box. Booth was seen giving an usher a card as the usher escorted him to the door of the box. Once inside, Booth braced the door so it couldn’t be open from the outside. He stepped forward and shot Lincoln behind the left ear just after the president laughed at a line in the play. Mary Lincoln and Clara Harris screamed. Major Rathbone grabbed Booth, but Booth pulled a knife and slashed Rathbone’s arm. Booth then jumped about 12 feet down to the stage. He caught his spur in bunting draped over the railing, and injured his ankle. Some witnesses claimed he shouted, “Sic simper tyrannis” (Thus always to tyrants) and “The South is avenged.”
Several doctors in the audience rushed to Lincoln’s box, and determined the wound was likely fatal. They felt he couldn’t make it back the White House. He was then carried across the street to William Peterson’s boarding house, and placed horizontally across a bed in the first floor bedroom. He was never taken to a hospital. Mary Lincoln had to be removed from the room because she was so distraught. Doctors monitored Lincoln’s breathing, and removed blood clots around the wound, but could not remove the bullet. At 7:22 the next morning, Lincoln was pronounced dead. Secretary of War Stanton has been quoted as saying, “Now he belongs to the ages”, or “Now he belongs to the angels.”
Booth and his conspirators had originally planned to kidnap Lincoln on March 17th and bring him to Richmond in an effort to end the war. They were going to kidnap him on his way back from a benefit for wounded soldiers, but Lincoln’s plans changed and he never went. The night Lincoln was a shot other conspirators were suppose to kill Vice President Johnson at his hotel, and Secretary of State Seward at his home. The man assigned to kill Johnson chicken out. Seward was attacked in his bed by another man with a knife. Seward was recovering from serious injuries after a carriage accident. Two of Seward’s son’s were injured by the attacker Lewis Powell. Powell did stab Seward several times, but Seward survived.
Booth escaped from the theater, but was cornered in a barn 12 days later, and shot and paralyzed by army Sgt. Boston Corbett, who disobeyed orders when he fired. Booth died two hours later. Corbett later was called a hero. Booth was a southern sympathizer who hated Lincoln. Eight other co-conspirators were arrested, four were hanged.
The assassination took a terrible toll on the three other people in the presidential box. Major Rathbone and Clara Harris married in 1867, but Rathbone never got over the trauma of Lincoln’s assassination. Two days after Christmas in 1883, he shot and killed Clara, and tried to kill himself with a knife. Again, he survived his wounds, and spent the next thirty years in an asylum for the criminally insane. Mary Todd Lincoln was institutionalized in 1875. In addition to witnessing her husband’s murder, she saw three of her four children die young. Eddie died at 3 years old, Willie at 11, and Tad at 18 before she died in 1882.
There are many important dates that changed the course of American history that we all remember, December 7, 1941, November 22, 1963, September 11, 2001. We should not forget the night of April 14th in the theater.
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