Emily Chan
Over the course of United States history, a total of four presidents have been assassinated while in office. The first president to be murdered was Abraham Lincoln, America’s Civil War leader.
On April 14, 1865, he was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth while enjoying a night out at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
The assassination occurred just five days after the end of the Civil War. Today, people leave pennies on Booth’s grave in honor of President Lincoln.
John Wilkes Booth was a 26-year-old actor and a Confederate sympathizer who did not agree with Lincoln’s intentions to abolish slavery and give Black Americans the right to vote.
After shooting the president, Booth jumped down to the stage from the box Lincoln had been sitting in and shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis,” a Latin phrase that means tyrannical leaders will eventually be overthrown.
In the process, he broke his leg and made his escape through Maryland to northern Virginia. Meanwhile, Lincoln was rushed to doctors and remained in a coma for eight hours until he died the next morning on April 15, 1865.
By April 26, federal officers had tracked Booth down in a tobacco barn. To drive him outside, the barn was lit on fire, but Booth still refused to surrender.
When he ran out holding his guns, he was shot dead. His body was sewn into a horse blanket and delivered back to Washington, D.C. During the autopsy, his body was identified by a tattoo of his initials on his wrist.
At first, he was buried in the Old Penitentiary, where his co-conspirators were hanged. In 1867, Booth’s remains were reburied in a warehouse of the Penitentiary.
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