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| Image from History.com |
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States from 1861 to 1865, and died while in office. He is notable for having been president throughout the American Civil War and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in the Confederacy to be free. The Civil War ended on April 9, 1865 with the surrender by Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. Five days after the Union victory, President Lincoln attended a play at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C.
Only minutes after the president's arrival at the play, a gunshot erupted from his box. John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, shot Lincoln in the back of the head once, then leapt from the box to make his escape. In the process, Booth broke his leg, creating a hindrance in his ability to flee far on foot, though he managed to get away on horseback. While the bullet did not immediately kill Lincoln, he was declared dead the next morning, on April 15, 1865.
A massive manhunt for Booth ensued and on April 26th he was found in a tobacco barn in Virginia and killed. With the death of Lincoln came the loss of hope for a benevolent reconciliation between the Union and the states of the former Confederacy. Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the office of the presidency following Lincoln's death. Fond of veto power and strict punishment for secessionists, Johnson became the first US president to be impeached, but was not removed from office.
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