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“Independent Superstar Quote Spot”

Brought to you by Barbara Rainey.

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“Nearly all men can stand adversity,but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” 

 Abraham Lincoln

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Who Assassinated Abraham Lincoln ?

John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was a famous American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor.^[1] He was also a Confederate sympathizer vehement in his denunciation of the Lincoln Administration and outraged by the South’s defeat in the American Civil War. He strongly opposed  Lincoln’s proposal to extend voting rights  and citizenship to recently emancipated slaves.

Booth and a group of co-conspirators originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln, but later planned to kill him, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward in a bid to help the Confederacy’s cause.^[2] Although Robert E. Lee‘s Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered four days earlier, Booth believed the war was not yet over because Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston‘s army was still fighting the Union Army. Of the conspirators, only Booth was completely successful in carrying out his respective part of the plot. Seward was wounded but recovered; Lincoln died the next morning from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Following the shooting, Booth fled on horseback to southern Maryland, eventually making his way to a farm in rural northern Virginia 12 days later, where he was tracked down. Booth’s companion gave himself up, but Booth refused and was shot by a Union soldier; the barn in which he was hiding was then set ablaze. Eight other conspirators or suspects were tried and convicted, and four were hanged shortly thereafter.

Over the years, various authors have suggested that Booth escaped his pursuers and subsequently died many years later under a pseudonym.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia