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Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated. (An unsuccessful attempt had been made on the life of Andrew Jackson in 1835.) The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the prominent 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 supposed 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. Lincoln was shot while attending the play at Ford's Theatre with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln. He died early the next morning. The rest of the conspirators' plot failed. Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Johnson's would-be assassin, Atzerodt, lost his nerve and got drunk instead.
Lincoln's day had started well. Hugh McCulloch, the new Secretary of the Treasury, said on seeing the President that morning, "I never saw Mr. Lincoln so cheerful and happy". At around noon, while visiting Ford's Theatre to pick up his mail, Booth learned that the President and General Ulysses Grant would be attending the theatre to see Our American Cousin that night. Booth decided that this was the perfect opportunity for him to take action. That afternoon, Booth went to Mary Surratt's boarding house in Washington, D.C. and asked her to deliver a package to her tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland. He also asked her to tell her tenant who resided there to have the guns and ammunition that Booth had previously stored at the tavern ready to be picked up later that evening. She complied with Booth's requests.
At seven o'clock that evening, Booth met for a final time with all his fellow conspirators. Booth assigned Lewis Powell to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward at his home, George Atzerodt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson at his residence, the Kirkwood Hotel, and David E. Herold to guide Powell to the Seward house and then out of Washington to rendezvous with Booth in Maryland. Booth planned to shoot Lincoln with his single-shot Derringer and then stab Grant with a knife at Ford's Theatre. They were all to strike simultaneously shortly after ten o'clock that night. Atzerodt protested, saying he had only signed up for a kidnapping, not a killing. Booth told him he was in too far to back out.
Contrary to what Booth expected, General and Mrs. Grant had declined the invitation to see the play with the Lincolns. Mrs. Grant was not fond of Mrs. Lincoln and convinced her husband to decline the President's invitation. Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris (daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris) joined the Lincolns instead.
The Lincoln party arrived late and settled into the Presidential Box. The play was stopped briefly and the orchestra played "Hail to the Chief" as the audience gave the president a rousing standing ovation. Ford's Theatre was full with 1,700 in attendance. Mrs. Lincoln whispered to her husband, who was holding her hand, "What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?" The president replied, "She won't think anything about it". Those were the last words ever spoken by Abraham Lincoln.
The box was supposed to be guarded by a policeman named John Frederick Parker who, but during the intermission, Parker went to a nearby tavern with Lincoln's footman and coachman. At sometime between 10:13 and 10:25 p.m., Booth took a card from his pocket, wrote something on it, and gave it to the usher who took it to the box. In a minute the door was opened and he walked in. Upon gaining access through the first door to the Presidential Box, Booth barricaded the inward-swinging door behind him with a wooden stick that he wedged between the wall and the door. He then turned around, and looked through the tiny peep-hole he had carved in the second door earlier that day. Lincoln leaned forward and looked down to the left in the audience. On stage, the character Asa responded to the recently departed Mrs. Mountchessington, "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal; you sockdologizing old man-trap!" While there was hysterical laughter throughout the theatre, Booth opened the door, crept forward and shot the President in the back of the head at point-blank range. Lincoln immediately slumped over in his rocking chair, mortally wounded. Mary reached out, caught him, and then screamed when she realized what had happened.
Upon hearing the gunshot, Rathbone quickly jumped from his seat and tried to prevent Booth from escaping. Booth dropped the pistol and drew a knife, stabbing Rathbone in the left forearm and reaching the bone. Rathbone quickly recovered and again tried to grab Booth as he was preparing to jump from the sill of the box. Booth swung at Rathbone in the chest and then vaulted over the rail of the box down to the stage below (about a twelve-foot drop). In the process, his riding spur became caught on the Treasury flag decorating the box, and he landed awkwardly on his left foot. He raised himself up and crossed the stage, with the audience believing that he was part of the play. Booth held his bloody knife over his head, and yelled either "Sic semper tyrannis!" (the Virginia state motto, meaning "Thus always to tyrants" in Latin) or "The South is avenged!".
Mary Lincoln's and Clara Harris' screamed and Rathbone cried out "Stop that man!" This alerted the audience that Booth's actions were not part of the show. Panic ensued. Booth ran across the stage just before anybody could stop him. He ran out the side door to the horse he had waiting outside. Some of the men in the audience chased after him, but failed to catch him. Booth struck "Peanuts" Burroughs (who was holding Booth's horse) in the forehead with the handle of his knife, leaped onto the horse, kicked Burroughs in the chest with his good leg, and rode away into the night.
Charles Leale, a young Army surgeon was in the audience attending the play. He made his way through the crowd to the door at the rear of the Presidential box after he saw Booth on stage and saw the blood on Booth's knife. He tried to open the door to the Presidential Box, but the door would not open. Inside, Major Rathbone saw a notch carved in the door and a wooden brace jammed there to hold the door shut. Rathbone shouted to Leale, who stepped back from the door, allowing Rathbone to remove the brace and open the door.
Leale entered the box to find Rathbone bleeding profusely from a deep gash in his chest that ran the length of his upper left arm as well as a long slash in his arm. He chose to attend to Lincoln first, and saw Lincoln slumped in his chair, held up by Mary, who was loudly sobbing. The President was barely breathing. Leale lowered the President to the floor believing that Lincoln had been stabbed in the shoulder with the knife. A second doctor in the audience, Charles Sabin Taft, was lifted bodily from the stage over the railing and into the box.
Taft and Leale cut away Lincoln's blood-stained collar and opened his shirt, and Leale, feeling around by hand, discovered the bullet hole in the back of his head right next to his left ear. Leale attempted to remove the bullet, but the bullet was too deep in his head. Instead Leale dislodged a clot of blood in the wound. Consequently, Lincoln's breathing improved. Leale discovered that if he continued to release more blood clots at a specific time, Lincoln would breathe more naturally. Leale saw that the bullet was lodged in Lincoln's skull. He allowed actress Laura Keene to cradle the President's head in her lap. Leale finally announced that it made no difference: "His wound is mortal. It is impossible for him to recover."
As news of the assassination spread to the street, soldiers, sailors and police all started in every direction but Booth had fled by then.
Leale, Taft, and another doctor from the audience, Albert King, quickly consulted and decided that while the President must be moved, a bumpy carriage ride across town to the White House was out of the question. They briefly considering moving him to Peter Taltavull's Star Saloon next door, but instead they chose to carry Lincoln across the street and find a house. The three doctors and some soldiers who had been in the audience carried the President out the front entrance of Ford's Theatre. One of the soldiers who carried the President, was William Hall. Rain fell as Lincoln was carried outside the theater.
Across the street, a man was holding a lantern and calling "Bring him in here! Bring him in here!" The man was Henry Safford, a boarder at William Petersen's boarding house known today at the Petersen House. The men carried Lincoln into the boarding house and into the first-floor bedroom where they laid him diagonally across the bed because his tall frame would not fit normally on the smaller bed.
A vigil began at the Petersen House. The three physicians were joined by Surgeon General of the United States Army Joseph K. Barnes, Charles Henry Crane, Anderson Ruffin Abbott, and Robert K. Stone. Using a probe, Barnes located some fragments of Lincoln's skull and discovered the bullet was still in his skull. Crane was a major and Barnes' assistant. Stone was Lincoln's personal physician. Robert Lincoln, home at the White House that evening, arrived at the Petersen House after being told of the shooting at about midnight. Tad Lincoln, who had attended Grover's Theatre to see Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, was not allowed to go to the Petersen House. He had been at Grover's Theatre when the play was interrupted to report the news of the President's assassination.
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton came and took charge of the scene. Mary Lincoln was very distraught by the experience of the assassination. Stanton ordered her out of the room by shouting, "Take that woman out of here and do not let her in here again!" While Mary Lincoln sobbed in the front parlor, Stanton set up shop in the rear parlor. He was effectively running the United States government for several hours from there, sending and receiving telegrams, taking reports from witnesses, and issuing orders for the pursuit of Booth.
For most of the night, Leale held the president's hand, and afterwards said that "sometimes, recognition and reason return just before departure. I held his hand firmly to let him know, in his blindness, that he had a friend." Lincoln's wound was fatal. He would die the following morning.
Today, Ford's Theatre operates a museum commemorating this tragic event.