10 facts you didn't know about the Lincoln murder

On April 14, 1865, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln caused a shock to the United States, which was crawling out of four years of civil war. The death of Abraham Lincoln, assassinated by a Confederate supporter at a theater in Washington DC, shocked everyone. America will never be the same - this was the first assassination of a president in the history of the country.

Lincoln's assassination, one of the most traumatic and significant events in American history. Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth.

But there are many shocking facts surrounding the Lincoln assassination that are somewhat more surprising and obscure to the casual historian. The events of April 14, 1865, were both larger and more tragic than most people think. Many dramas took place outside of Ford's Theater before, during, and after that fateful bloody night.

10 PHOTOS

1. The assassination was part of a coordinated attack on several other politicians.

The events of April 14, 1865, must have been even more sinister than the assassination of the president. That night, Booth and some of his conspirators also set out to assassinate two prominent members of the Lincoln administration: Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson. The plan was for every killer — Booth for Lincoln at Ford's Theater, Lewis Powell for Seward at his home, and George Atzerodt for Johnson at the Pennsylvania House — hit at about 10:00 pm. Atzerodt abandoned this plan. Instead of killing Johnson, he got drunk in a nearby saloon, checked into his hotel room, and passed out on his bed. Lewis Powell, former Confederate ranger with John S. Mosby, brought the plan to fruition. He infiltrated Seward's own home and broke into the secretary of state's bedroom, hacking and pushing past Seward's two sons, his daughter, and a Union Army guard. He stabbed Seward and fled the scene. Although the injuries to Seward and his sons were serious, they all survived.

2. Ulysses S. Grant turned down Lincoln's invitation to the theater and escaped death.

Initially, the Lincolns invited Civil War hero and future president Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia to visit the theater with them on the night of April 14, 1865. However, the Grants declined the invitation. If the Grants had accepted Lincoln's invitation, Ulysses Grant would have surely been attacked. Indeed, Booth himself believed that Grant would be with Lincoln in the presidential box.

3. Lincoln could have a premonition that he was going to die.

Ward Hill Lamon, one of Lincoln's friends and colleagues, wrote in a memoir published two decades after the assassination that Lincoln told him about a disturbing dream. On or about April 4, 1865, Lamon claimed, Lincoln dreamed that he walked into a room in the White House and saw a body lying on a table. When he asked what had happened, the soldier replied, “President. He was killed by an assassin. "

4. The first woman was executed as a result of the murder by the US government.

Mary Sarratt, a middle-aged Marylander who sympathized with the Southerners, owned a boarding house in Washington. Her son, John Sarratt, often held boarding house meetings with his friends, including actor John Wilkes Booth. Whether Surratt knew that her son and Booth were planning to kill Lincoln from her own home remains unclear, but she was quickly arrested after the murder. A military tribunal was created to try the conspirators, and Mary Sarratt was included. She was found guilty and hanged on July 7, 1865, along with other convicted conspirators.

5. There was a huge hunt for John Wilkes Booth.

After the assassination, Booth quickly escaped from Ford's Theater, making his way through Washington, DC. A multi-day hunt for Bout immediately began. On April 26, 1865, Booth was finally cornered in a barn on a farm in Virginia. Booth refused to surrender to Union troops, and they burned the barn to the ground.

6. John Wilkes Booth broke his leg while fleeing the scene.

After Lincoln was shot in the head and wounded by Henry Rathbone, Booth jumped onto the stage of the Ford Theater and shouted something to the crowd - it might or might not be the Latin expression "Sic Semper Tyrannus" - before escaping from the theater. In the process of jumping onto the stage, Booth broke his ankle, which made it difficult for him to move.

7. The conspirators stated that they originally wanted to kidnap Lincoln, not kill him.

At the trial after the murder, several conspirators stated that they did not want to participate in the conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln - they only wanted to kidnap him. The original plan was to capture Lincoln, ferry him into the Confederate army, and then use the president as a hostage. Some conspirators believed that they would only kidnap Lincoln, not kill him. But by April 1865, with the South crumbling around him, Booth's plans shifted from kidnapping to murder.

8. There were no bodyguards at the door of the presidential box.

John Frederick Parker, a Washington DC policeman, was supposed to protect President Lincoln when he attended a play at Ford's Theater with his wife and two young guests. After the Lincolns settled into their box, Parker left the theater during intermission for a drink in a nearby saloon. Thus, Booth was able to freely enter the presidential box.

9. Lincoln died at a nearby boarding house owned by a German immigrant.

After it became clear that the president was wounded, the soldiers carried his unconscious body out of the theater in search of a place to examine it. William Petersen, a German immigrant, owned a boarding house across the street. When the residents of Petersen heard that the president had been shot, they immediately opened the door and offered the house as a refuge for the wounded president and his retinue. Lincoln's body was too high for the bed, so the soldiers had to lay his body diagonally on the mattress.

10. Millions of distraught Americans lined up to watch Lincoln's body across the country.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln has caused collective mourning among Americans, already weary of a four-year civil war. Lincoln's body will be buried in his home state of Illinois, and so it will travel on the funeral train, crawling through the northern United States. The train took Lincoln's body to its final resting place, from Philadelphia to New York, Buffalo, Columbus, and Chicago giving men, women, and children the opportunity to mourn their fallen leader. Altogether, millions of Americans have come out to watch the funeral train pass or look at the presidential coffin.