John Wilkes Booth
| John Wilkes Booth | |
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John Wilkes Booth, circa 1865
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| Born |
May 10, 1838 Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | April 26, 1865 (aged 26) Port Royal, Virginia, U.S. 38°08′19″N 77°13′49″W / 38.1385°N 77.2302°W |
| Cause of death | Gunshot wound |
| Resting place | Green Mount Cemetery |
| Other names | J.B. Wilkes |
| Education | Bel Air Academy Milton Boarding School for Boys St. Timothy's Hall |
| Occupation | Stage actor |
| Years active | 1855–1865 |
| Known for |
1850s and 1860s stage career Assassination of Abraham Lincoln |
| Parent(s) |
Junius Brutus Booth Mary Ann Holmes |
| Relatives |
Edwin Booth (brother) Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. (brother) Asia Booth Clarke (sister) |
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John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor. He was also a Confederate sympathizer, vehement in his denunciation of Lincoln, and strongly opposed to the abolition of slavery in the United States.
Booth and a group of co-conspirators originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln but later planned to kill him, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward in a bid to help the Confederacy's cause.Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered four days earlier, but Booth believed that the American Civil War was not yet over because Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston's army was still fighting the Union Army.
Of the conspirators, only Booth was completely successful in carrying out his part of the plot. He shot Lincoln once in the back of the head, and the President died the next morning. Seward was severely wounded but recovered, and Vice-President Johnson was never attacked at all.
Following the assassination, Booth fled on horseback to southern Maryland, eventually making his way to a farm in rural northern Virginia 12 days later, where he was tracked down. Booth's companion gave himself up, but Booth refused and was shot by Boston Corbett, a Union soldier, after the barn in which he was hiding was set ablaze. Eight other conspirators or suspects were tried and convicted, and four were hanged shortly thereafter.
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