The Lincoln Assassination: The Conspirators in Photograph

Just as the Civil War drew to a close, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth who fired a bullet into the brain of the President as he watched "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. Booth leaped from the presidential box to the stage, he cried as he ran off "Sic Semper Tyrannus!," he escape on horseback, and was killed by a bullet twelve days later in a burning Virginia barn.

In Booth's diary, he insisted he shouted "Sic semper tyrannus!" ("Thus to tyrants!") before he shot Lincoln. Most accounts of the assassination report that Booth broke his leg upon landing on the stage. Eyewitnesses, however, did not report that Booth limped across the stage and one historian, Michael Kaufmann, argued that Booth injured his leg in his hurried attempt to mount his horse after exiting Ford's theater.

Few Americans, however, know that Booth's evil deed was part of a larger conspiracy of Confederate sympathizers--a conspiracy whose targets included Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward and which had as its goal destabilization of the entire federal government. Fewer Americans yet know the fascinating story of the trial of eight conspirators before a specially appointed military commission in Washington.

27-year-old John Wilkes Booth -- was tracked down and shot to death by Union soldiers in Virginia. Eight others were convicted of being conspirators with Booth. Four were sentenced to death and hung, including the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government.. Mary Surratt. The other four were sent to a remote prison island off the coast of Florida.

That group was:

John Surratt, 21, a Confederate spy and courier and the son of Mary Surratt.-Set off for Rome then Egypt was brought back to the US stood trial and ended in a hung jury-John Surratt got off and lived until 1916."

Mary Surratt, 42, proprietor of a Maryland tavern and a Washington boarding house that served as meeting places and safe houses for Confederate spies and couriers.

David Herold, 23, a Washington pharmacist and former schoolmate of John Surratt.

George Atzerodt, 30, owner of a down-and-out carriage painting business in Port Tobacco, Va. He knew the southern Maryland waterways, back roads and woods and shuttled Confederate couriers and spies back and forth across the Potomac. A heavy drinker, he was introduced to Booth by John Surratt.

Dr. Samuel Mudd, 32, a Maryland physician, tobacco farmer, slave owner and member of the underground anti-Union partisans in Maryland. In 1864 Mudd joined Booth in the kidnap plan and introduced the actor to John Surratt.

Samuel Arnold, 31, a Confederate Army veteran and former schoolmate of Booth's.

Michael O'Laughlen, 25, another former schoolmate of Booth's who was a member of a secret Confederate organization involved in sabotage.

Edmund Spangler, 40, a Ford's Theatre employee who was unwittingly entangled in the assassination by Booth

Powell, who enlisted at age 17, fought at Antietam, Chancellorsville, Murfreesboro and Gettysburg, where he was wounded and taken prisoner of war. He escaped his captors and, using the alias Lewis Payne, joined a Confederate guerilla-warfare unit conducting raids behind Union lines.

Under circumstances that have never been fully documented, Powell/Payne suddenly left that unit to work with John Wilkes Booth in a plan to kidnap Abraham Lincoln-

A bizarre modern-day footnote to this assassination story surfaced in 1991 when the skull of Lewis Thornton Powell was discovered in an attic storage bin in the Smithsonian Institution in 1991. In 1865, Powell had been buried in a grave next to the gallows where he was executed. But later, his body was moved to other storage or grave sites at least four times. It's believed that the skull became separated from the body during one of those moves and ended up in the Army's medical museum. In 1898, that military facility passed it on to Smithsonian, where it was inadvertently mixed in with a collection of Native American bones -- and forgotten for nearly a hundred years.

In 1994, Powell's skull was claimed by an elderly family member who had it buried in Geneva, Fla., near his mother's grave.

Lincolns Colorized photos by http://m3ment0m0ri.deviantart.com/

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[staclynn72]

@manuelaramos90 Where ?? What are you asking?

[manuelaramos90]

Where??

[staclynn72]

@axslevidman Who did they assassinate?

[axslevidman]

You call the assassination of Lincoln an evil deed, but isn't that hypocritical considering the US government has assassinated countless foreign leaders?