Abraham Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy
John Wilkes Booth originally planned to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and hold him as a hostage against the resumption of prisoner exchanges, to ease the increasingly severe manpower shortage in the South. A highly successful actor and one of the most famous men in America (Lincoln had seen him perform), Booth recruited a group of six or more co-conspirators. The involvement of at least one remains unproved. They were ready for one attempt on St. Patrick’s Day 1863, lying in wait to abduct the President as he returned from a play, but at the last minute Lincoln changed his plans and attended an event at the National Hotel, ironically the hotel where Booth was registered at the time.
When Robert E. Lee surrendered and it was evident that the South was in its final collapse Booth changed the plan to murder the President, at the same time decapitating the US government by simultaneously killing Vice-President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward, and General Grant. Grant was expected to attend the theatre with Lincoln on the night of April 14, 1865, and it was Booth’s intention to shoot Lincoln in the head, stab Grant in the ensuing confusion, and escape through the back of Ford’s Theatre. In the event Mrs. Grant, who did not like Mrs. Lincoln, declined the invitation to the theatre that night.
One accomplice, a former carriage repairmen and then current drunkard, George Atzerodt, was assigned to kill Vice President Johnson. Atzerodt had been a supporter of the kidnaping plot but hesitated to commit murder, and rather than kill Johnson he spent the night drinking and wandering between bars. Lewis Paine, also called Lewis Powell, was to kill Seward as the Secretary of State was lying in his sickbed, recovering from an earlier carriage accident which had left him in an iron brace. It saved his life. When Paine attacked him, slashing and cutting with a large bowie knife, he inflicted several bloody wounds, but none fatal.
After shooting Lincoln and slashing one of the President’s guests, Major Henry Rathbone, Booth escaped, hobbled by a leg broken when he fell to the stage of Ford’s Theatre. He and an accomplice holding his horse while he struck fled through Maryland to Virginia, stopping to have Booth’s leg set at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd. Mudd may or may not have been an active member of the conspiracy, but he went to prison for it, his only certain involvement being the setting of Booth’s leg. Booth and his accomplice, David Herold, were caught hiding in a tobacco barn in Virginia; Herold surrendered and Booth was killed.
Paine, Herold, and Atzerodt were tried for their part in the conspiracy and hanged on July 7, 1865. Hanged with them was Mary Surratt, the owner of a boarding house in Virginia where the conspirators occasionally met. She also owned a boarding house in Washington which was similarly used. Her son John was tried and released when the jury could not reach a verdict in 1867. He was most likely an active co-conspirator. Several other lesser members of the conspiracy were convicted and received prison sentences, including Dr. Mudd, who was pardoned in 1869.