John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth

On april 14 1865, at 10 pm, abraham lincoln was at Laura Keenes performance of Our American Cousin. When all the sudden a shot rang out from a .44 caliber derringer, Lincoln was on the ground dying fast. Who was the assassin and why did he kill lincoln.

On May tenth,1838, Mary Ann Holmes and her husband Junious Booth were giving birth to their son John Wilkes Booth. He was named after the famous revelutionary john wilkes, who the family claimed to be distant reletives of. His father, and two brothers were all into acting and jihn knew he was going to fallow there footsteps. They already had eight children and would have one more after him. They were living near Bel Air Maryland at the time. Junious was one of the most famous actors on stage at that time. He did have an alcohol problem and had spells of madness but that did not stop him. He was a successful man and wanted to keep it that way. Junious died in 1852. As a youngster,John Wilkes Booth attended the Milton Boarding School for Boys—and later St. Timothy's Hall—sporadically. From a very young age, he was described as disarmingly handsome. IN the reviews form his plays he was known as the most handsomest man in america, He was 5 feet, and eight inches. He had jet black hair, and was lean and athletic. He was also known to cut himself and have bruises all over him (which he put a steak on before and after his shows), he did all of this for his plays would be realistic. He usually played an athletic person in his plays and made sure he was ready, he was an excelllent swords man which came in handy when he had different role. To those who knew him, it seemed only natural that he would follow in his father's footsteps, by gracing the stage with his cha...

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...was later recorded as saying “What a wonderfull chance” he had to shoot lincoln . ON march 17, Booth had learned that licoln would be attending a performence of the play “Still waters run deep” at a hospital. Booth got his team together and planned to kidnap him on his way to the hospital, but lincoln never did show, he later learned the president had changed plans and went to a reeption at the national hotal in washington, and best of all booth lived there. That all led to booths final and only attempt that worked. ON april 14th, 1865 lincoln attendeed a play called our american cousin. It was his last play that he would ever see. Booth shot him in the head and he fell of the balcony he was sitting in. Booth jumped off the balcony broke his leg but still ran. He was caught later and sentanced to death, but he had done what he had set out to do, assasinate lincoln.