THIS DAY IN HISTORY - LINCOLN'S ASSASINATION

A sobering fact about history in America today....Some remember it, some forget it, some never knew or will ever know it.

Today is a very important day in American history...and indeed, the world's.

The Killing of President Lincoln.


Inaugural photo of Abraham Lincoln




On this day in 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.


John Wilkes Booth




The gun that killed Lincoln. A powerful...and very loud....44 caliber single-shot Derringer pistol.




Booth, a Maryland native born in 1838, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two weeks later, Richmond fell to Union forces.

In April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth hatched a desperate plan to save the Confederacy. Learning that Lincoln was to attend a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater on April 14, Booth masterminded the simultaneous assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. By murdering the president and two of his possible successors, Booth and his conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into disarray.

On the evening of April 14, conspirator Lewis T. Powell burst into Secretary of State Seward's home, seriously wounding him and three others, while George A. Atzerodt, assigned to Vice President Johnson, lost his nerve and fled. Meanwhile, just after 10 p.m., Booth entered Lincoln's private theater box unnoticed and shot the president with a single bullet in the back of his head. Slashing an army officer who rushed at him, Booth leapt to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants]–the South is avenged!" Although Booth broke his leg jumping from Lincoln's box, he managed to escape Washington on horseback.




The president, mortally wounded, was carried to a lodging house opposite Ford's Theater. About 7:22 a.m. the next morning, Lincoln, age 56, died–the first U.S. president to be assassinated. Booth, pursued by the army and other secret forces, was finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, and died from a possibly self-inflicted bullet wound as the barn was burned to the ground. Of the eight other people eventually charged with the conspiracy, four were hanged and four were jailed. Lincoln, the 16th U.S. president, was buried on May 4, 1865, in Springfield, Illinois.


Anecote: This last photo below is from Lincoln's campaigning days and was captioned by a large newspaper as "Lincolns 'Republican' Hair". Gave me a chuckle....agendas in the media don't seem to have changed much, have they?




And of course, we all remember Lincoln's rustic log cabin upbringing...or do we?





WITH RESPECT AND REMEMBRANCE....REST IN PEACE, MR. PRESIDENT

Mary...wife of Lincoln.

According to who was doing the photo story, sometimes she was there...and sometimes not. The New York Times of the era, maybe?




All about Mary...

Well, it may be a stretch, but Lincoln had a bit to do with Mexico and Baja. When he was a young Congressman, he became known as Spotty Lincoln to some because of his opposition to one of President Polk's wars of Manifest Destiny and Polk's desire to acquire more territory to extend slavery; the war with Mexico. In trying to provoke a war, Polk and his supporters kept claiming that the Mexican Army had crossed onto American Territory --- a rather disputed and flimsy claim. Lincoln drafted what are known as the Spot Resolutions and took to the floor of Congress asking over and over for President Polk to name the exact spot where this happened.

And there are lots of disputed claims as to if Mexico was willing to give up the Baja Peninsula at the end of the war, or if the US wanted it, and on and on. But in the end, Mexico kept the Baja and later during the Gadsden Purchase, Mexico made sure they kept a land connection to the Peninsula.

OK, a stretch, but this is one connection Lincoln had with Mexico and Baja.

Mary and Baja

Very good!

^^^^^^^^^^

The tortilla incident can be verified on SNIPES.

IMO...I THOUGHT THE MOVIE 'LINCOLN' WAS EXCELLENT


It shared many sides of him that we usually don't hear anything about. Gave you insight into his personal life with Mary and children....and also into his life and dealing as President and as a politician.

IT'S AVAILABLE IN STORES ALREADY ON DVD....AROUND $20


MIGUELAMO YES YES YES