In the history of the United States there are many interesting and tragic events that influenced the course of development of the state. One of these is the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865. Why and who killed Lincoln, in what historical era this happened - the answers to these questions will interest readers of the article. We will reply to the nickname as detailed as possible.
How Abraham Lincoln was killed
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th American president who is considered a national hero and liberator of black residents from slavery, is one of the most famous and beloved heroes of American history. He was president, starting in 1861, during the most difficult years for America - the years of the Civil War and the confrontation of the North and South. In 1865, he was re-elected a second time, which showed how actively the Americans supported him.
On April 9, the US Civil War officially ended; the country sighed freely. On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln goes with his wife to a performance at the Ford Theater (Washington). A fanatic southerner who came there, actor John Wilkes Booth, penetrates the presidential box and shoots him in the head. Jumping out of the box, Booth shouts: “Freedom! The South is avenged! ” and flees.
Without regaining consciousness, the next morning A. Lincoln dies. The Americans were deeply outraged when they learned that the newly elected, beloved and respected by most people, President Lincoln was killed. The year 1865 remained forever in US history as the year of the assassination of the president. After all, Lincoln was a very popular and attractive person, distinguished by honesty and high moral principles.
So by whom and why Lincoln was killed, for political reasons or because of the killer’s personal hostility to the president, let’s try to understand this by looking at the historical events of that time, the identity of the killer and his victim.
Abraham Lincoln: childhood and adolescence
A. Lincoln was born in Khodgenville (Kentucky) on February 12, 1809 in the family of a poor farmer. In order to develop free land, the family soon moved to Indiana. His mother died when the boy was 7 years old, and his father remarried to a widow with three children. Abraham had to constantly earn extra money to help his family, mainly by physical labor: he is hired either by a lumberjack, then by a hunter, now by working as a hired person, or by traveling as an agent of a trading company.
That is why he was able to study at school for only 1 year, learning to read and write. However, over time, a great thirst for knowledge led him to self-education, which helped him become not only a fairly competent person, but also an educated lawyer.
By the age of 21, when Lincoln decided to start his own business, having left his family, he turned into an intelligent young man of high stature (193 cm), superior in degree of literacy surpassing any young man who had studied for many years at school. The story of his life is a series of ups and downs, successes and failures.
The beginning of a political career
In 1832, Lincoln first tried to be elected to the Legislative Assembly, but failed. After that, he devotes the coming years to intensive self-training in legal and other sciences. In those same years, he began to form a negative attitude towards the problem of slavery in America, which subsequently played a role in the tragedy that happened to him. This must be considered when figuring out the reason why Lincoln was killed.
In order to have money for life and training, Abraham and his friends begin commercial activities by opening a trading shop, but the business did not bring profit. Then he enters the service as a postmaster in New Salem, and then becomes a surveyor. Even in his youth, friends give him the nickname "Honest Abe," which he deserved for absolute honesty and decency.
A repeated attempt to be elected to the legislative assembly was successful in 1835, his next step was passing the exam for the title of lawyer, for which he was able to prepare completely independently. Over the next few years, practicing law, he became famous as a defender of poor citizens, taking on the most complex cases completely disinterestedly. Over the years, he was elected 4 times from the Whig party, and then moved to the city of Springfield.
His personal life has also changed over the years. In 1842, A. Lincoln married M. Todd. According to some reports, all his life he suffered from a hereditary disease - Marfan syndrome, which is expressed in high expressivity, and therefore often fell into depression. Mary's wife loved him very much and strongly supported his political views. Shortly after President Lincoln was killed, she lost her mind and died.
The couple had 4 sons, but 3 of them died in childhood. The only surviving child, the eldest son Robert Lincoln, fought with the rank of captain, then became Minister of War, and in 1889 became the US envoy to England, having lived to old age.
In 1846, Lincoln enters the House of Representatives from his state from the Whig Party. At this time, he strongly condemns the policy of US aggression, which was manifested during the US-Mexican war, and also advocates the abolition of slavery. Because of these political views, he had to leave politics and again take up legal affairs. He becomes a consultant to the Illinois Central railway company.
In 1854, a Republican party was created in the USA, which began the struggle to abolish slavery, and after 2 years Lincoln became its representative, but he lost the first election to his rival from the Democratic Party.
However, already in 1860, the party nominates him as a candidate for president. Thanks to his fame as a hardworking and honest politician who has left the people, A. Lincoln gains 80% of the vote and becomes the 16th president of the United States. But not all of his political views, especially slavery, are met with enthusiasm. Some politicians disagree with him, and even some states are trying to announce their withdrawal from the state, and he has to make a statement that in the near future the abolition of slavery is not planned.
U.S. Civil War
The president’s fiery speeches , in which he condemned slavery as an immoral phenomenon, denied the existence of the state in a state of “half-slavery and half-freedom”. At the same time, the elected president adhered to rather moderate positions. Categorically rejecting slavery, he spoke of the impossibility of its abolition, so as not to violate the property rights of the planters and to avoid a split in the state.
The election of A. Lincoln in 1860 as president caused the separation of the southern slaveholding states from the USA and the creation of the Confederation with its capital in Richmond. And although in his inaugural speech Lincoln actively called for the unification of the country, he could not prevent the conflict. The war between the South and the North was started in 1861, just between the states that held opposite views on slavery. The president’s desire to give freedom to black Americans has increased the number of enemies and political opponents. Among those who disagreed was the one who killed Abraham Lincoln.
The civil war was dragging on, economic losses and casualties were multiplying, and the issues of slavery remained unresolved. The turning point in the attitude of citizens towards the president was the act of Homestead adopted in 1862, according to which any citizen (who did not participate in the battles on the side of the South) could get land in property for a tax of $ 10. This contributed to the settlement of vacant land, the solution of agricultural problems and led to the development of agriculture and farming in the country. Lincoln's popularity began to grow rapidly.
All these years, A. Lincoln has been pursuing a democratic policy aimed at maintaining a two-party system in the country, preserving freedom of speech and other achievements of democracy.
On December 30, 1863, the President signed the Proclamation of Liberation, which granted freedom to all slaves. The country is entering the period of the destruction of slaveholding relations and the release of black residents. This decision gave an impetus to an increase in the influx of volunteers into the army of northerners, consisting of liberated black residents. In 1865, the war ends with the defeat of the Confederation, which united the southern slave states.
Opponents of President Lincoln
During the years of rule and the Civil War, the president had many opponents. The majority of the southern states who were defeated in the war did not support his desire to free slaves, so the question of why Lincoln was killed by people who completely disagreed with his decisions in the state system and the reforms carried out had a completely understandable answer: precisely because of decisions to release black slaves America.
During this period, he adopted some laws that benefited the country and himself as a politician:
- imprisonment of all deserters and supporters of slavery through the courts;
- The Homestead Act, according to which settlers who cultivate the land and build buildings, become its owners.
The repeated elections of 1864 brought A. Lincoln a second victory (his rival was the representative of the Democratic Party, General J. McClellan). Already on January 31, 1865, the US Congress, at the insistence of the president, adopted the 13th amendment to the Constitution to ban slavery in the United States.
In the first months of his second presidential term, Abraham Lincoln begins to resolve the issue of restoring 11 separated states within the federal state, promising them an amnesty.
In his speech at the inauguration, the president calls for the preservation of “peace in his home,” but he was no longer destined to implement these plans. Because a few days later a performance was to take place in the theater, where Abraham Lincoln was going to go with his wife , where the conspirators, led by J. Booth, killed him, thereby destroying the life of one of the most beloved US presidents.
Killer biography
John Wilkes Booth is the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. To understand why he committed this crime, we will talk about his life and political views. Indeed, from time immemorial it was believed that the roots of evil should always be sought in childhood and upbringing.
J. Booth was born on May 10, 1838 in the family of theater artists Yu. B. Bout and M.E. Holmes, who lived on a small farm in Maryland. He was the 9th child in the family, and his name was given in honor of the politician with radical views of J. Wilkes from England. His family did not belong to any religious concessions, and besides, his parents were not even married. They registered an official marriage only after the birth of their 10th baby in 1851.
The boy studied at a local school with great reluctance, and his parents did not strongly insist on his hard training. At the age of 12, his father forced him to enroll in a military academy in Milton, where teachers demanded strict discipline and diligence from their students. There, an interesting meeting took place between Bout and the fortuneteller, which predicted him a very short life and a bad death. Maybe she already knew what she was predicting to the man who would become known in America as the one who killed Lincoln.
A year later, Booth moved to another educational institution, then at the age of 14, after the death of his father, he dropped out of school and expressed a desire to receive the profession of a deceased parent - to become an actor. He begins to study oratory and stubbornly studies the works of Shakespeare and other playwrights. After 3 years, Booth made his debut on stage in Richard the Third in a secondary role (theater in Baltimore). The audience at first did not greatly welcome the new actor, but with his perseverance and determination he continues to succeed.
In 1857, John entered the street theater under the pseudonym YB Wilkes in Philadelphia, which helped him become a star. The audience enthusiastically accepted him as a brilliant actor and gave him the nickname "The Most Beautiful American." Playing now the main roles, he went on his first tour of America.
The beginning of the Civil War, J. Booth met in the north and immediately began to express his admiration for the actions of the southern states, calling them heroic. He spent all the war years traveling around the country, gaining an increasing number of fans and simultaneously breaking the hearts of fans. At the same time, he became a secret agent of the Confederation, helping to deliver smuggled medicines to the southerners. His views on slavery, partly due to the fact that his homeland, the state of Maryland, belonged to the slaveholding states, largely predetermined his future fate as a man who dreamed of forcibly changing the country's policy and dared to become the one who killed President Lincoln.
Conspirators in Washington
In the fall of 1863, a friend of the Butov family, J. Ford, opens his theater in Washington and invites Bout to play one of the leading roles in the premiere of Marble Heart. Ford's theater will be the scene of the tragedy in the future, going down in history as "the theater in which Lincoln was killed."
This performance is attended by A. Lincoln, whom actor Booth really liked. But to the invitation of the president to visit their box during the interval, Booth refused, showing a strong hostility to his family. Booth hated Lincoln, accusing him of all military misfortunes. In 1863, he even got into the police because during the performance he shouted from the stage of the curse towards the American president. Forced swearing allegiance to the Union, he was released, escaping with a fine.
In 1864, before the presidential election began, realizing that the Confederation had lost the war and that Lincoln would be elected a second time, Booth began to think about a plan to kidnap the president. His friends S. Arnold and M. O'Lowland became his accomplices, and the meetings were held in Baltimore in the apartment of M. Branson, a supporter of the southerners. Then their hopes were unsuccessful, but upon arrival in Washington, Booth begins to harbor more radical plans.
The conspirators decide to abduct all the main members of the US government, led by the president. The meetings, which were held in the house of the mother of one of the members of the J. Surrat group, were attended by determined and aggressive supporters of the southerners: D. Herold, J. Acerodt, L. Powell and others. Headed by Booth, they became the people who planned helped, and who killed President Lincoln afterwards.
After the inauguration of Lincoln in March 1865, J. Booth dramatically changed the plan of the operation, having come to the conclusion that the most effective step would be not the abduction, but the murder of the American president.
When a newly elected American president delivered a speech near the White House on April 11, telling Americans about restoring the rights of black slaves, J. Booth was among the audience and, completely disagreeing with his words, decided that this speech would be final in Lincoln’s life.
Murder Day - April 14, 1865
The fact that the president will watch the play-comedy "My American Cousin" at the Ford Theater, Booth learned in advance from his friend - the owner of the theater. Ford himself proudly informed the future killer about the honor that his institution would be awarded: a visit by the head of state of the play. Booth took this news as an attractive opportunity to fulfill his insidious goal, because he was well-versed in all the corridors and back streets of the theater building. Ford Theater, by his decision, became the place where Lincoln was killed.
On April 13, the last meeting of the conspirators took place. Booth, as the leader of the conspirators, gave his instructions on political killings: his friends D. Harold and L. Powell were supposed to kill the US Secretary of State W. Seward, and J. Atzerodt - the destruction of Vice President E. Jackson. J. Booth planned to accomplish his mission alone. All three murders were supposed to happen at 22.00.
And then April 14th came — the day Lincoln was killed. When J. Booth came to the play, he was well versed in its content. He specifically selected the time of the murder so as to enter the box and shoot at the moment of the explosion of laughter in the hall after the next funny remark on the stage. Although everything turned out a bit wrong.
J. Booth put on a black suit, wearing a wide-brimmed hat on his head. Entering the box, he closed the door behind himself so that no one would interfere. Stepping to the president’s chair, Booth shot him from the “derringer”. The sound of a shot spread throughout the hall, because, due to the excitement, the killer did not guess the moment, and a loud shot rang out in silence - all the spectators turned their heads at once to a terrible sound.
The first was the infantry commander G. Rathborn, who was sitting in this box, who wanted to stop the killer, but Booth wounded him with a knife and jumped into the hall from a height of 3.5 m. Having caught the flag with a boot spur, the criminal fell unsuccessfully and broke his leg. Lame, he stepped onto the stage and shouted the motto of Virginia, "This will always be the case with tyrants!" All the people around were in shock, so the killer managed to escape from the theater through the back door. So the Ford Theater and became the place where they killed Lincoln.
At the same time, L. Powell sneaked into the Secretary of State’s house, but the murder did not take place. Having inflicted several stabs with a knife, he could only injure him, and his partner, meanwhile, escaped. The third “killer” J. Atzerodt did not dare to commit a crime and spent the night in a tavern, worried about his fate. There he heard the news that Lincoln was killed in the Ford Theater.
According to Bout’s instructions, accomplices planned a meeting near the city, but only two came there - Booth and Harold. Due to a leg injury, Bout had to urgently seek a doctor, whom he knew from underground during the war. The doctor splinted him and gave crutches.
Search for the killer
Several thousand soldiers were mobilized to search for the conspirators, and at that time they were sitting in a house in Maryland. On the road further south, J. Booth suddenly found out that all residents condemned him for the murder of an unarmed man. Unaware that in front of them was the one who killed Lincoln, people in the conversation accused the killer of cowardice, because he shot Lincoln from the back. After hearing this, the criminal decided to tell his story and version of all the events that happened in the diary that he writes on the road. Moving south, the conspirators crossed the river to Virginia and tried to turn to the Confederates for help, but were refused everywhere.
At this time, all the other conspirators had already been captured and imprisoned. Booth and Harold reached the Garrett farm in Baulin Green, this man helped the fugitive southerners after the war. The killers hid there in the barn. However, they were already attacked by the police.
In the evening of April 26 in Virginia, police and soldiers surrounded and set fire to the barn, and Booth went outside with a revolver, at that moment Sergeant B. Corbett shot and mortally wounded him in the neck, after 2 hours the criminal died.
All the other conspirators appeared before a military court, who sentenced four to hanging, and the rest to imprisonment for life.
President's funeral
A. Lincoln's funeral proved that he was loved and respected by everyone. A train with his body traveled from New York to Springfield, breaking 2,730 km. Over the entire 2.5-week journey, millions of Americans, white and black, came to pay the last tribute to the president. Lincoln was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery. You can ask any American: "In what year did Lincoln be killed?" And he will answer immediately and without error: “In 1865,” because the tragic death of this president created around him the halo of a martyr who died in the struggle to overthrow the US slave system. In honor of A. Lincoln, a statue was built in Washington in 1876 with the money of subscribers, the other in Chicago.
John Wilkes Booth, forever remaining in US history as the one who killed Lincoln, showed a vivid example of the fact that a person alone can change the course of history of the entire state. If he had not dared to kill on April 14, 1865, then American history could have turned out quite differently.