Assassination of Lincoln

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On the night of April 14th, 1865, at around 10:15 P.M., John Wilkes Booth, who was a famous actor and was also on the side of the Confederacy, sneaked into Ford’s Theater and assassinated Abraham Lincoln only five days after the end of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was only 56 years old, and he was the first president to be assassinated. Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael O’Laughlen, Lewis Powell, and John Surratt were intended to help him with their original plan of kidnapping the president, but that plan was abandoned because President Lincoln never showed up to the Campbell Military Hospital, where he was meant to see a play. John Surratt’s mother, Mary Surratt, provided the men with a place to stay and moved to Washington D.C., and eventually Mary Surratt would be found guilty of assistance in the crime and executed, becoming the first woman to be put to death by the government. Abraham Lincoln was not the only person who was supposed to be killed; the Secretary of State, William H. Seward was supposed to be murdered at his home by Lewis Powell, but the at...

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