Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Conspiracy To Kill The President

Four U.S. presidents have died at the hands of assassins.  Only one of them was the proven victim of a conspiracy.  Abraham Lincoln was mortally wounded while attending a play in Washington on April 14, 1865.
His killer crept into the president's box at Ford's Theatre and shot him in the back of the head with a derringer.  The assassin made a fittingly theatrical exit -- leaping from the box onto the stage and shouting "Sic semper tyrannis!"  ("Thus always to tyrants!")  He ran across the stage, dashed out the back door of the theater and mounted a waiting horse, then galloped away.  Many witnesses immediately recognized the killer.  He was John Wilkes Booth, a renowned actor and member of America's most prominent theatrical family.
Although Booth apparently was the only person involved in the actual murder of Abraham Lincoln, he was not acting alone.  He was the mastermind of a much larger plot to destabilize the government of the United States and to prolong the Civil War.

In the weeks following Lincoln's death, government forces tracked down everyone connected with Booth.  They also scoured the countryside around Washington for the assassin.  They found him on April 26, 1865, hiding in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia.  When he refused to surrender, a soldier defied orders and shot him dead.

Eight alleged Booth conspirators went on trial May 1, 1865 before a military tribunal convened by the new president (and another target of the conspiracy) Andrew Johnson.  Seven weeks later, all eight were convicted.  Four were sentenced to death.


They were hanged on July 7, 1865 at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington.  Among them was Mary Surratt, the first women ever executed by the United States government.  Her role in the plot is still hotly debated.  But on one point there is no debate.

Abraham Lincoln, the first U.S. President slain while in office, was the target of a well-developed conspiracy.

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