Lincoln Assassination

he Lincoln Assassination

On April, 14 1865 President Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching a performance of An American

Cousin at Ford’s Theater. President Lincoln died the next morning. The person who had killed Lincoln was John Wilkes Booth.

A few days before he was killed, Lincoln had told his spouse about a dream he had, he saw a president shrouded on a catafalque in the east room of the White House. Even after this dream he attended

An American Cousin at Ford’s Theater.

John Wilkes Booth thought the president was determined to destroy the constitution, set aside the rights reserved to the states, crush civil liberties, and restore monarchy. He saw the confederacy was the only means to of upholding the values of the founding fathers. He devoted much of late 1864 and early

1865 to a series of plots to abduct Lincoln and use his capture to nullify the Union’s war aims. Every scheme ending in frustration. After Lee had surrendered to the Army of the Potomac, in the second week of April, he saw that only the most desperate measures offered any hope of salvaging the Southern Cause.

Shortly before he went into the theater, he stopped at tavern for a drink. While in the bar an acquaintance jokingly remarked that "he would never be as great as his father," Booth replied by saying

"When I leave the stage, I will be the most talked about man in America."

The Atlanta Campaign of 1864

In the spring of 1864, Gen. W. T. Sherman concentrated the Union armies of G. H. Thomas, J. B.

McPherson, and J. M. Schofield around Chattanooga. On May 6 he began to move along the railroad from

Chattanooga to Atlanta. Sherman had two objectives, one was to destroy the army of General J. E.

Johnston and the other was to capture Atlanta. Johnston realizing that he was outnumbered started to retreat south. Sherman tried a direct assault on Johnston’s forces and was repulsed. Johnston had retreated back to the south bank of the Chattahoochee river. On July 17, John Bell Hood replaced Johnston as

General. He tried to continue with Johnston’s plan, but failed to stop the advance of Union troops. He retired to Atlanta, which Sherman soon had under bombardment. On September 1 Hood abandoned

Atlanta, the next day Sherman moved in and burned it.

The Maryland Invasion

A year after the confederate defeat at Gettysburg.