Murder at Ford's Theatre

A Chronicle of an Assassination

It was a sad generation that limped past 1865. Almost every family had been touched by death, and many had been torn apart as sons, brothers, and fathers chose different sides in the Civil War. Murder at Fords Theatre is a history of an assassination with the Civil War as its tragic backdrop and with characters to match this tragedy. There was Lewis Paine, the devoted follower and David Herold who wanted desperately to belong and lose his reputation as an untrustworthy loafer. There are tragic failures of Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, as well as Abraham Lincoln, unappreciated by the public until his martyrdom. Lincoln refused security and put himself in harms way. Harm came in the form of John Wilkes Booth, an acclaimed actor, who wanted to save his beloved South and believed there was only one way to accomplish his goal. Booth had grown up with his own demons--depression and odd behavior were part of his family background. His darker side was hate. When the war broke out, Booth took up the southern cause -- the rest of the family sided with the North. Lincoln was a perfect object for Booths hatred. He suspended Habeas Corpus, put many anti-war advocates in jail, continued the war with its grisly pile of human deaths, refused to negotiate a treaty, and wrote Emancipation Proclamation. Booth, who had spent the war in a noncombat position at the behest of his mother, received news of the end of the war with increased anger. Soon it would be too late to become a hero. His hasty and disorganized plan to assassinate Lincoln went awry. Booth did shoot Lincoln, but during his escape he broke his ankle, an injury that slowed him and led to his capture and death. Only the Bible has been written about more than the Civil War, and the assassination of Lincoln is a part of that story. This is that story.