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John Wilkes Booth Biography

John Wilkes Booth Image

BOOTH, John Wilkes (1839–65). The assassin of President Lincoln. For several years he was an actor, but met with indifferent success and abandoned the stage in 1863. During the Civil War he was a violent secessionist and towards its close organized a conspiracy first for abducting the President and, later, for assassinating not only the President, but also the Vice President and the members of the cabinet. On the night of April 14, 1865, the President attended Ford's Theatre with his wife and several friends. About 10 P.M. Booth approached him unseen, and shot him through the head. Leaping from the box upon the stage crying out, "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!" he escaped by the stage door, where a horse was held for him. He had reached Bowling Green, near Fredericksburg, Va., before he was overtaken (April 26). Here he took refuge in a barn and, refusing to surrender, was shot after the barn had been fired. Most of his accomplices were subsequently captured, and four of them, Powell, Atzerodt, Herold, and Mrs. Surratt, were hanged. He was the son of Junius Brutus Booth and the brother of Edwin Booth. Consult Bates, Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (Memphis, Tenn., 1907).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. III (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 538.