24. President Lincoln’s Bodyguard Left His Post at Ford’s Theater to Go Drink at a Bar
On the night of April 14, 1865, Washington Metropolitan Police Officer John Frederick Parker escorted President Lincoln and his wife to their box seats in Ford’s Theater. 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.
There, Parker might have crossed paths with John Wilkes Booth, who was also at the bar for a last shot of liquid courage before he headed to Ford’s Theater. Booth, a famous actor, was a Confederate sympathizer. During the war, he 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.