Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth shared history at Ford Theater: Lesser-known facts about assassination
April 15, 1865, assassin and actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged," after he shot then-President Abraham Lincoln. He then fled the scene on horseback.
Abraham Lincoln's death, the next morning, sent shockwaves across the country and the world. On the run for almost 12 days, Booth started the largest manhunt ever with as many as 10,000 law enforcement authorities looking for him. Booth would go on to be a controversial figure who would end up dead in an encounter. On the eve of the assassination's anniversary, here's revisiting the events leading up to, surrounding and after the incident -- things that you may not have known.
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Booth wanted to assassinate both Ulysses S Grant and Lincoln
That day, 'Our American Cousin' was playing at the Ford's Theater in Washington, DC. When Booth learned of Lincoln's intent to attend a play with General Grant, his original plan was to assassinate Lincoln and Grant both. However, at the last minute, Grant decided to skip the play and visit his children in New Jersey.
Booth's original plan was to kidnap Lincoln
It has been reported that Booth was spearheading a plot to abduct Lincoln, bring him to Richmond in Virginia, which was the Confederate capital, and use him as a bargaining chip to ensure the release of rebel prisoners. After Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Booth had decided that he was going to kill and not kidnap Lincoln.
Lincoln and Booth had a history at Ford’s Theater
It was reported that Mary Clay, one of Lincoln’s guests, recounted after the assassination that during a November 9, 1863, performance of 'The Marble Heart' starring Booth at the Ford Theater, "twice Booth in uttering disagreeable threats in the play came very near and put his finger close to Mr Lincoln’s face." When he did it another time, it was noted that it must have been pointed at Lincoln on purpose and he reportedly said, "Well, he [Booth] does look pretty sharp at me, doesn’t he?”
Collateral damage 1
After Grant had made last-minute changes to the plan, Lincoln had a difficult time looking for a replacement guest. After looking for a long time and being rejected by some including his son Robert Todd Lincoln, he finally gave the tickets to Senator Ira Harris, and her fiancé, Major Henry Rathbone.
Rathbone would be collateral damage. After Booth had shot Lincoln, when Rathbone attempted to prevent Booth from fleeing the scene, he slashed Rathbone’s left arm from his elbow to his shoulder. Surgeon Charles Leale would later tell Rathbone that Booth had actually cut him nearly to the bone and severed an artery.
While he would recover from the physical injuries, it is said that Rathbone never really healed from the trauma of that day and his mental state deteriorated in the years following Lincoln's death. He would feel guilty for not being able to thwart the death.
Two days before Christmas in 1883, in a fit of madness, Rathbone fatally shot and stabbed his wife (who was trying to protect the children) before stabbing himself five times in a suicide attempt. However, he survived but would live the last three decades of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane in Hildesheim, Germany.
Collateral damage 2
That night, the president's wife Mary Todd Lincoln was also present at the theater. His death would weigh heavily upon her. Over the course of the next few years, after the death of her son Thomas, and the deaths of two of her other sons and her husband, she would grow depressed. It was reported that she was depressed for much of her life, some historians believe that she may have had bipolar disorder.
Due to her erratic behavior, Robert initiated proceedings to have her institutionalized, and on May 20, 1875, following a trial, a jury committed her to a private asylum in Batavia, Illinois. She would die at the age of 63 at the home of her sister Elizabeth Edwards.