The Plan:  John Wilkes Booth and the Plot to Destroy the U.S. Government

John Wilkes Booth

For generations, schoolchildren have learned that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was the act of a deranged failed actor.  As we have seen, John Wilkes Booth was quite the opposite of a "failed actor".  He was one of America's biggest stars.  But surely he must have been out of his mind to attack Lincoln at Ford's Theatre.  The idea seems like madness, considered in isolation.

But Booth was not acting alone.

At the moment he entered the State Box at Ford's, he was convinced his fellow conspirators were taking coordinated actions that would paralyze -- perhaps even destroy -- the government of the United States.  Booth was a hothead, to be sure, and an egotist.  He imagined every state in the Confederacy would raise a statue of him after he struck his blow for Southern freedom.  But he wasn't irrational.  His actions were motivated by cold calculation and desperation, not madness.

Lewis Powell

This was the plan, then, for April 14, 1865.  Booth would got to Ford's Theatre, where he would kill President Lincoln and Union commander General Ulysses S. Grant.  Conspirator George Atzerodt would go to the Kirkwood House hotel, the home of Andrew Johnson, and kill the Vice President.  Conspirator Lewis Powell would go to the home of Secretary of State William Seward and kill him.


The plan was brilliant in its audacity. If successful, it would leave the United States government paralyzed, without its president, vice president, senior cabinet officer and general-in-charge of its army.  Their deaths would precipitate a full-blown constitutional crisis that would take days, if not weeks, to resolve. Booth and his conspirators could use the confusion to mask their getaway.  At least, that was the thinking behind the plan.

George Atzerodt

In actuality, things worked out quite differently.  Booth was operating on faulty intelligence.  General Grant did not accompany the president to the theater that night, so one of the targets escaped cleanly.  Atzerodt lost his nerve.  He took the revolver Booth had given him to kill Johnson and threw it in a gutter, then went off and got drunk.  Another target missed.  Powell came closer to success.  Claiming he was delivering medicine, he burst into Seward’s house, beat the secretary’s son, repeatedly slashed an army private who was there to guard the cabinet officer, then stabbed Seward so savagely everyone assumed he was dead.  A metal brace around Seward's neck saved his life.

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton

The United States government, although stricken by the loss of its leader, was far from paralyzed.  Its response to the assassination was immediate and unrelenting.  War Secretary Edwin Stanton stepped into the power vacuum and launched a massive manhunt that would ultimately track down Booth, Atzerodt, Powell and six other conspirators.

Mr. Lincoln's Getaway

It's hard to imagine the president of the United States traveling freely around Washington.  But Abraham Lincoln did, even though he knew he was a target for any Confederate sympathizer in the city.  And he didn't think twice about traveling to the outer reaches of the Federal District, often ditching his unit of cavalry bodyguards along the way.

The Lincolns' cottage at the Soldier's Home

During the brutal summer months, Lincoln usually stayed in a cottage on the grounds of the Soldier's Home.  The elegant mansion in the far northeast part of D.C. had been donated as a retreat for retired soldiers before the Civil War.  The Lincolns -- especially the First Lady -- enjoyed its atmosphere of wide open spaces as a getaway from the choking squalor of the capital city during wartime.  And they weren't the only ones.  Secretary of War Edwin Stanton also moved his family to a nearby cottage during summertime.

The president would then commute to the White House.  If Mary was with him, they'd ride in a buggy.  If he was alone, he'd usually just hop on a horse and ride into town.  During those months, Lincoln kept bankers' hours.  He'd arrive at the Executive Mansion at nine or ten in the morning and head back to the Soldier's Home by 4:00 PM.  He followed that routine for weeks at a time, traveling -- unprotected, for the most part -- across Washington.

The Lincolns also made it a habit to visit the military hospitals that sprouted all around Washington during the war.  The First Lady was a regular visitor to the three dozen facilities caring for the war wounded.  She would read to the patients, pass out fresh fruit and flowers.  And the president frequently popped in, unannounced, to spend time with the casualties, the nurses, the doctors and the staffs.  The Lincolns would often plan their afternoon rides around the city so they could stop at one or more hospitals along the way.

Campbell General Hospital, Harper's Weekly, 1861

When the Campbell General Hospital invited the president to attend the play Still Waters Run Deep, which was being staged for the patients on March 17, 1865, Lincoln readily accepted.  The president was an ardent fan of the theater.  And Campbell was less than two miles from his "country White House" at the Soldier's Home.  When the day arrived, alas, duty called.  Lincoln was reviewing a unit of Indiana soldiers just back from the battlefield at the time of the play.

John Wilkes Booth didn't know that, however.  He and his co-conspirators laid in wait on 7th Street, not far from the hospital.  They planned to abduct Lincoln and spirit him off to Richmond.  But the president didn't show up.