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How Did Abraham Lincoln's Assassination Impact The Nation

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Abraham Lincoln, one of our founding fathers played a major role in what America is today, but his death was shocking. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln immensely impacted the nation. John Wilkes Booth was the man that took Lincoln’s life and put the nation in agony. First, John was an actor, born on May 10, 1838, near Bel Air, Maryland. John grew up in Baltimore on a farm owned by his father near, Bel Air which was regulated by slave labor. Booth was the ninth of ten children, born to Junius Brutus Booth. Some have said John was mentally unbalanced and he loved alcohol. Booth’s acting took off in 1860, he continued that profession during the war. November 9,1863 Booth was performing in The Marble Heart on the Ford’s Theater in …show more content…

Lincoln was then carried across the street to Peterson’s Boarding House, where he ended up dying the next morning. John’s poster was plastered everywhere with a “wanted” sign above it, offering a reward for the arrest of John and his accomplices. Booth’s reasoning was just because he thought it would aid the South after they just surrendered to federal forces. It nearly had the opposite effect, ending Lincoln’s plans of having a generous peace. Instead, the whole country grieved over the President’s death. Now the millions who were celebrating the war’s end were now mourning over their great leader. Lincoln was the first president in U.S. history to be assassinated. Although, “It turned out that the shooting of the President was central to a plot in which the other targets were Seward and the recently installed Vice President, Andrew Jackson.” (“Peter Burchard, 178”) “As the 9-car funeral train carried President Lincoln home for burial in Springfield, Illinois people showed up at train stations all along the way to pay their respects.” (“ The Assassination of President

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