Assassination of Abraham Lincoln United States President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close.[1] The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac. The 16th American president, Lincoln was the first to be assassinated.[2] An unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson 30 years before in 1835, and Lincoln had himself been the subject of an earlier assassination attempt by an unknown assailant in August 1864. The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, as part of a larger conspiracy in a bid to revive the Confederate cause. Booth's co-conspirators were Lewis Powell and David Herold, who were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt who was tasked to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. By simultaneously eliminating the top three people in the administration, Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to sever the continuity of the United States government. As the President was watching the play, Booth shot Lincoln from behind hitting him in the head. At 7:22 a.m. the following day Lincoln died in the Petersen House across the street from the theater.[3] The rest of the conspirators' plot failed; Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Atzerodt, Johnson's would- be assassin, lost his nerve and fled. Booth made a dramatic escape resulting in a lengthy manhunt that ended in Booth's death. Several other conspirators were later tried and hanged. The funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln was a period of extended national mourning. (Source: Wikipedia) .