The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln Analysis

History class to many falls as a boring lesson, memorizing facts nobody will use in life. The day America got it’s independence, the dates of the end of World War 1 and 2. These facts may seem useless, but behind each one, their is a story with so many valiant people, a story with people who must be forever condemned, and facts that we can always use. In the book, Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, written by James L. Swanson, there is one such story about the death of Abraham Lincoln and the manhunt that followed. What is really important about this story is that there are heroes, who should be remembered, and attackers whose actions must always be condemned. Most importantly, this book shows how many people worked together in order to catch the escapees

After that, the book speaks to how John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices planned and executed the assassination of President Lincoln. The book then details John Wilkes Booth and his perils of getting away to a place where he can seek refuge from the manhunt. Next, Andrew Johnson is sworn in and takes the office ofhte presidency as the seventeenth president. Booth continues running for twelve days following the assassination of President Lincoln. It was on the twelfth day that Booth was apprehended in a tobacco warehouse on Garrett Farm. After setting the barn containing John Wilkes Booth ablaze, a firefight ensued. Though the soldiers were ordered not to kill John Wilkes Booth, a corpral named Boston Cobrett shot and killed John Wilkes Booth, claiming that God has instructed him to do it. With the head of the conspiracy dead, there were still other people that were somehow involved with the plot to assassinate Lincoln, Mary Surratt, David Herald, George Atzerodt, and Lewis Powell faced trial on July 6, 1865, and were all four hanged on July 7,

2. Chasing Lincoln’s Killer is a biography, as it mainly focuses on John Wilkes Booth’s plan to assassinate the president along with the secretary of state and vice president, the actual assassinations in action, and Booth’s attempt to escape to the south, along with personal retellings of what happened by the people involved.

They had hoped that with the capture of the president that the Union would release captured Confederate soldiers in exchange for the safe return of the president back to the Union (law2.umkc.edu). Though his plan was ultimately foiled with General Robert E. Lee’s surrender (law2.umkc.edu). At which point it became clear to Booth that the only way to avenge the South was to murder the president (law2.umkc.edu).

In late summer of 1864 Booth began developing plans to kidnap Lincoln, take him to Richmond (the Confederate capital), and hold him in return for Confederate prisoners of war. By January, 1865, Booth had organized a group of co-conspirators that included Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlen, John Surratt, Lewis Powell (also called Lewis Paine or Payne), George

Why did John Wilkes Booth want to kill Lincoln?  Booth wanted to kill Lincoln because he didn’t liked how Lincoln wanted to let black people vote. But then he attended  Lincoln’s speech and Lincoln was trying to back out of letting the blacks vote.  After this John W. Booth was so mad that he was trying to get a group together to kidnap Lincoln. This then led to Lincoln’s  assassination.(9)

Davis claimed that he was not happy that Lincoln had been assassinated even though one man claimed he was. Lincoln was fair to the South and was respected in the North. His successor did not respect the South like Lincoln did and the people of the North did not respect him. Reconstruction would have been much smoother if Lincoln was still president. He would have been fair and treated them as equals while Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson vetoed crucial bills. Lincoln would have handled reconstruction better, and the South would have benefited from it. So there was no reason for Davis to want Lincoln to be dead. The next document is a letter from Carl Schurz to a newspaper about the mindset the people of Savanna Georgia have. He stated that

On the evening on April 14, 1856, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, who had already attempted to kidnap Lincoln twice already, while attending the play of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater. Sitting with him were Mayor Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, Clare Harris. While watching the play, Booth sneaked into the box the president, a knife in his left hand and a pistol in his right. Booth shot the president in the back of the head, slashed Rathbone across the arm, and jumped off the balcony. Booth caught his leg on a flag on the way down and broke his leg. Lincoln was carried to a boarding house next door and died the next day. President Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated in United States history. John booth escaped, sought medical attention for his wounded leg, and fled into the Virginia country side. Union troops found the barn he was hiding in, surrounded it, set it on fire, and shot Booth as he attempted to escape (“The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln,” 34f). The president’s body was taken by train to Springfield, Illinois, where he was then buried. Accomplices of Booth’s were tried for their part in trying to assassinate other leaders, such as the Vice President and the Secretary of War. Others were tried in court for attempting to aid

I chose this article because I have always been curious of the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In a way I felt like it was a murder mystery because I didn’t know all of the details to the story and those are my favorite. As I began to read more into the assassination, I began to love it even more and wanted to learn more about it and I actually had an interest in history which I have never had before.

John Wilks Booth, an actor and hater of the south and blacks, makes plans to tear apart the United State’s government by planning his assassins timing to kill part of Lincoln’s Cabinet along with the president’s death. However, his original plan involved only capturing President Lincoln, then holding him hostage in exchange for confederate prisoners of war. But not long before his plans were going to take place,

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States of America. He was elected into presidency on November 6, 1860. Many of the southern states were unsupportive of Lincoln becoming president because he had run on an anti-slavery platform. Lincoln being elected into presidency caused states such as South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas to split from the Union. In his inaugural address Lincoln proclaimed it was his duty to maintain the Union; a month later the Civil War began. Although Lincoln did many great things for our country, his vital role in the Civil War is what most likely lead to his assassination.

On April 9, 1865 Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia officially marking the end of the civil war. The end of the war did not sit well with many southern sympathizers. There was one guest that went to both Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address and his last speech on reconstruction, that guest was watching Lincoln’s actions very closely and had, in fact been following him for a long time. Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theater on

STAB! 44 stabs from knives all around. Finally he falls down to the ground and dies. Blood spilling from the wounds all over the marble floor. That is what history says how Julius Cesar died. Being stabbed by his own council members and being stabbed lastly by his good friend Brutus. Oh the irony of it all just to try and stop tyranny growing. Of course it failed because the next line of leaders battled one another till there was just one and that went on for periods of time. Assassinations are not all that rare, but they are all tragic none the least. Having a great and noble leader be alive and ruling one minute and then the next lying six feet below you. The same thing happened to our sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln. Our great president who was with us through the bloody Civil War just to die five days later by a bullet to the head. That is no way for any great man to go.

Booth’s original plan was not to kill Lincoln, but to remove him from power by kidnapping to help the Confederacy in another way. An unfortunate series of events caused him to force his hand. “Booth abandoned the kidnapping plot. He had no choice… Booth got it into his head that if Lincoln and his government were eliminated, there would be some sort of political revolution,” (Jakoubek 4). Many assassins of leaders lament that the death of a leader is the only for them to remove the threat they perceive to the greater good.

When a president is sworn into office, they swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. In the oath of office, there is no exception for nullification of the document, therefore meaning that the president is expected to follow the rules that are written. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, completely broke his promise to obey the Constitution, and took all matters into his own hands. Throughout his years as president, Lincoln managed to suspend the right of habeas corpus, imposed martial law, and overall took away many of the citizen’s freedom of speech given to them by the Constitution. Although Lincoln wanted to restore the Union during the Civil War, in no way did he have the right to defy the Constitution,