"Sic semper tyrannis!"....155 years ago today....the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On the evening of April 14, 1865, a group of conspirators under the leadership of the prominent stage actor, John Wilkes Booth, attempted to decapitate the top leadership of the federal government. Men were sent out into the night to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Booth's target would be the head man himself: President Abraham Lincoln.

He had learned that afternoon that Lincoln and General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant were scheduled to attend a showing of the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in downtown Washington. His original plan was to kill them both. However, unbeknownst to Booth, Grant had declined Lincoln's offer to attend the play for undisclosed reasons (Grant's wife, Julia, absolutely despised Mary Todd Lincoln and didn't want to be in the same room with her).

The conspirators met at 7 PM to go over their plans for the evening. Lewis Powell was assigned by Booth to kill Seward at his home, George Atzerodt was to kill Vice-President Johnson at the Kirkwood Hotel, and David E. Herold was to guide Powell to the Seward house before meeting up with Booth in Maryland. Booth's plan was to shoot Lincoln with a derringer single-shot pistol before stabbing Grant to death with a knife. The assassinations were set to happen simultaneously at a little after 10 PM.

George Atzerodt arrived at the Kirkwood Hotel as planned but could not work up the courage to kill Johnson. He instead spent the evening drinking himself into a stupor at the hotel bar, before leaving the hotel to wander the streets of Washington. Lewis Powell, escorted by Herold, arrived at the Seward house just off Lafayette Square around 10:10 that evening. The secretary of state was holed up in bed, having suffered severe injuries in a carriage accident back on April 5. Powell barged his way into the house, charged into Seward's bedroom, and began to savagely stab Seward in the head and throat.

Luckily for Seward, most of Powell's blows were blunted by a metal canvas splint that was holding together the broken jaw he suffered in the carriage accident. And while the stabs to the throat caused a frightful amount of blood loss, none of the wounds were fatal. Seward ended up surviving the attempt on his life. Powell fled the scene and threw his weapon into a nearby gutter.

While that had been going on, Booth had quietly made his way into the box in which Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd were watching the play. He must have been disappointed to find General Grant absent from the viewing box. In his place was Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee Clara Harris. Booth drew his derringer pistol, aimed at the back of Lincoln's head, and fired. The bullet entered Lincoln's skull behind his left ear, passed through his brain, and came to rest near the front of his skull.

Lincoln slumped over in his chair and then fell backward. Major Rathbone turned around in time to see Booth standing four feet away, surrounded by smoke. Booth shouted a word that Rathbone thought sounded like "Freedom!" Rathbone then lunged at Booth, who dropped the pistol, drew a knife, and stabbed the major in his left forearm. Rathbone, temporarily dazed, tried again to make a grab for Booth just as he was about to jump out of the box. This caused Booth's foot to get snagged by the American flag draped around the box, causing Booth to land ackwardly on the stage some twelve feet below. At first the audience thought he was part of the play.

It was then that Booth got up, held the bloody knife over his head, and shouted something to the crowd. His words have been hotly disputed. Many thought he shouted the Virginia state moto "Sic semper tyrannis" (Thus always to tyrants). Though others - including Booth himself - say he simply shouted "Sic semper!" He then followed up those words by either shouting, in English, "The South is avenged!" or "Revenge for the South!" before hobbling off stage and making his escape by horse into the night.

Lincoln's unconscious body was carried across the street to the Peterson House where Lincoln breathed his last at 7:22 AM the next morning, April 15, 1865. Booth was eventually hunted down and shot to death in a barn near Port Royal, Virginia on April 26. George Atzerodt was found out, arrested, and sentenced to death by hanging. His sentence was carried out along with fellow co-conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold on July 7, 1865.


Ford's Theater in 1865


The Scene of the Crime


Lincoln's Deathbed


Some 91 years later, an elderly gentleman named Samuel Seymour appeared on the CBS television game show "I've Got a Secret." While on the air, it was revealed that Mr. Seymour's secret was that he was the last surviving witness of the Abraham Lincoln assassination. He was five years old at the time and was sitting directly across from the box in which Lincoln and his wife were seated.

YouTube - "I've Got a Secret"