Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln was attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre, accompanied by his wife and their guests, Major Henry R. Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris. That evening the guard assigned to the president abandoned his post, and as a result, John Wilkes Booth found it easy to enter Lincoln's private box and shoot him. Major Rathbone lept to his feet and grabbed Booth and Booth dropped his pistol. They struggled and fought, when Booth pulled out a knife and stabbed Rathbone near his shoulder before pushing him against the wall. Booth then turned to jump from the balcony and Rathbone sat up and grabbed onto Booth's coat causing him to dangle over the balcony, Booth fell down to the stage, catching the spur of his boot on a draped American flag and breaking his leg. He yelled "Sic semper tyrannis!" (Thus always to tyrants.) and escaped leaving the dying President behind. Some witnesses state that he also yelled "The South's is avenged!" Union soldiers cornered him twelve days later in a barn in Caroline County, Virginia, where he died of a bullet wound.
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