John Wilkes Booth was the accomplished stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14, 1865 at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. There is no doubt Booth was the man who shot Lincoln.

He was recognized by audience members and actors in the wings who saw him leap onto the stage and essentially take a curtain call after shooting the president.

However, Booth's motivations and actions have been the subject of much speculation in the century and a half since Lincoln's murder.


Booth was killed less than two weeks after the murder, at the climax of a dramatic manhunt, and he was never adequately questioned about his crime.

The attack on Lincoln was part of a conspiracy, which also included a nearly fatal attack on William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state. Four of Booth's co-conspirators were arrested, prosecuted, and hanged. Others were imprisoned.

In 1865 many wondered if the Confederate secret service had been involved in the plot to kill Lincoln. Had Booth been following orders? Or had he essentially been the mastermind of the plot?

The circumstances of Booth's death seemed mysterious enough to spawn numerous theories alleging he had actually escaped. People claimed to have spotted him in various locations, often overseas. And some characters in the American West claimed, decades later, to be John Wilkes Booth.

Early Life

John Wilkes Booth was born May 10, 1838, in Bel Air, Maryland. His father was Junius Brutus Booth, a successful stage actor. Booth enjoyed a fairly protected and privileged childhood, and was educated in local private schools.

He was considered handsome as a young man, and following the footsteps of his father and older brother, Edwin Booth, he pursued a career on the stage. He became known for playing Shakespearean roles, in productions including "Richard III," "Romeo and Juliet," and "Hamlet."

In 1859 Booth, through friends he'd met while acting in Virginia, was able to join a militia company that was assigned to serve as guards during the hanging of anti-slavery fanatic John Brown. Booth, unlike other members of his family, was sympathetic to the South, and wanted to see Booth's execution.

Wartime Activities

When the Civil War broke out, Booth continued with his acting career, performing in the North. In 1863 he performed in Boston and also at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C. A bronchial infection kept him from performing for a time in 1863, and by 1864 his fervent feelings about the war, and the South, seemed to be occupying most of his attention.

Booth came up with a plan to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln and spirit him out of Washington, to Richmond, Virginia, where he could be held hostage. It is known that Booth enlisted several associates to help in the plot. The kidnapping plot was abandoned when it became obvious that Lincoln was too closely guarded to be snatched while traveling in his carriage in the city of Washington.

When Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term, on March 4, 1865, Booth was in the crowd on the steps of the Capitol. It has been suspected that he may have been planning to assassinate Lincoln that day, though it's also possible he was trying to study security around the president.

Booth's Assassination Plans

Weeks later, on the morning of April 14, 1865, Booth learned that Lincoln would be attending the performance that night at Ford's Theatre. He quickly gathered some of the conspirators from the abandoned kidnapping plot, and gave them new assignments.

While Booth was shooting Lincoln, another conspirator was to kill Secetary of State Seward, and a third man was to murder Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's vice president. It's probable Booth also wanted to kill Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's secretary of war, but could not gather enough conspirators to follow through on that.

The conspiracy did not go as Booth planned. Lewis Powell, who used the alias Payne, successfully entered Seward's house. He got into Seward's bedroom, and stabbed him repeatedly, but Seward survived.

George Atzerodt, assigned to kill Vice President Johnson, apparently lost his nerve and never made the attempt.

After 10 p.m. on the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the box at Ford's Theatre occupied by Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, and two guests, Major Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. Booth fired a .44 caliber derringer into the back of the president's head, mortally wounding him. He also slashed Major Rathbone with a knife, nearly killing him.

Booth, who was known for athleticism onstage, then made a dramatic leap from the president's box onto the stage of the theatre. He missed his landing, perhaps because his spurs caught in bunting, and broke his left leg. Despite the injury, he managed to stand on the stage and hold up the bloody dagger he'd just used to slash Major Rathbone. He screamed out, "Sic Semper Tyrannus." the Virginia state motto, which means "thus to all tyrants." According to most accounts, he also yelled, "The South is avenged."

Booth's Escape and Death

Hurriedly limping to an exit in the back of the theater, Booth climbed on his waiting horse and began to race out of Washington. He talked his way past a guard on a bridge leading from southeast Washington and continued into Maryland. Along the way he met up with David Herold, a young conspirator who had fled the scene when Powell attacked Seward that night.

Booth and Herold went to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, a doctor sympathetic to the South whom Booth had met the previous year. Mudd set Booth's broken leg.

Union cavalry began to flood into the Maryland countryside where Booth was believed to be hiding. For five nights Booth and Herald hid out in a densely wooded area, and after one failed attempt to cross the Potomac River, they finally arrived in Virginia on April 23, 1865.

Trying to move farther south, Booth and Herald hid on the farm of a family named Garrett. Early on the morning of April 26, 1865, a detachment of Union cavalry, having gotten a tip, surrounded a tobacco barn where Booth and Herald were hiding.

In a standoff with the soldiers, Booth refused to leave the barn. He was finally shot through the neck. A soldier claimed to have shot him. But there has always been a question of whether Booth had shot himself. He died hours later, on the morning of April 26, 1865.

Booth's body was taken to Washington and identified by people who had known him. But doubts often surfaced that he had somehow escaped.

After being buried in a prison yard in an unmarked grave, Booth's body was eventually turned over to his family and reburied in Baltimore in 1869.