5. A Bodyguard Who Left His Post to Grab a Drink
Officer John Frederick Parker of the Washington Metropolitan Police escorted President Lincoln and his wife to their box seats in Ford’s Theater on the night of April 14th, 1865. The bad cop then grabbed a seat in the hallway behind Lincoln in the theater but was unable to see the play from there. So he abandoned his post to watch from downstairs. The play bored him, however, so he left the theater altogether, to go grab a drink in a nearby bar.
It is possible that Parker might have crossed paths there with John Wilkes Booth, who was also at the bar for the last shot of liquid courage before he headed to Ford’s Theater. Booth, a famous actor, was a Confederate sympathizer. During the Civil War, Booth had lacked the courage of his convictions to take up arms and join the Confederate armies in the field. When it was all over and the Confederacy was defeated, he found enough courage – or at least bitterness – to finally act.