Name ___________________
Antietam
Sharpsburg
September 16 - 18, 1862
Washington County, Maryland
On September 16, 1862, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan and his Union
Army of the Potomac confronted Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern
Virginia at Sharpsburg, Maryland. At dawn on September 17, Maj. General
Joseph Hooker’s Union corps mounted a powerful assault on Lee’s left
flank that began the Battle of Antietam, and the single bloodiest day in
American military history. Repeated Union attacks, and equally vicious
Confederate counterattacks, swept back and forth across Miller’s cornfield and the West Woods.
Despite the great Union numerical advantage, Stonewall Jackson’s forces near the Dunker Church
would hold their ground this bloody morning. Meanwhile, towards the center of the battlefield,
Union assaults against the Sunken Road would pierce the Confederate center after a terrible struggle
for this key defensive position. Unfortunately for the Union army this temporal advantage in the
center was not followed up with further advances.
Late in the day, Maj. General Ambrose Burnside’s corps pushed across a bullet-strewn stone bridge
over Antietam Creek and with some difficulty managed to imperil the Confederate right. At a crucial
moment, A.P. Hill’s division arrived from Harpers Ferry, and counterattacked, driving back Burnside
and saving the day for the Army of Northern Virginia. Despite being outnumbered two-to-one, Lee
committed his entire force at the Battle of Antietam, while McClellan sent in less than three-quarters
of his Federal force. McClellan’s piecemeal approach to the battle failed to fully leverage his superior
numbers and allowed Lee to shift forces from threat to threat. During the night, both armies tended
to their wounded and consolidated their lines. In spite of crippling casualties, Lee continued to
skirmish with McClellan on the 18th, while removing his wounded south of the Potomac. McClellan,
much to the chagrin of Abraham Lincoln, did not vigorously pursue the wounded Confederate army.
While the Battle of Antietam is considered a draw from a military point of view, Abraham Lincoln
and the Union claimed victory. This hard-fought battle, which drove Lee’s forces from Maryland,
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would give Lincoln the “victory” that he needed before delivering the Emancipation Proclamation —
a document that would forever change the geopolitical course of the American Civil War.
Chancellorsville
April 30 - May 6, 1863
Spotsylvania County, Virginia
General Ambrose E. Burnside only lasted a single campaign at the head of
the Army of the Potomac. His abject failure at Fredericksburg, followed by
further fumbling on January's "Mud March," convinced President
Abraham Lincoln to make a change.
Hooker's energetic make-over polished the Northern army into tip-top
condition, and with more strength than ever before. The army commander
outmaneuvered Lee in late April, when the weather finally allowed roads to harden enough for
marching.
Swinging far beyond Lee's left, Hooker closed up on the Chancellorsville intersection on the last
evening in April. He never managed to escape the clutches of the Wilderness, though—the tangled,
brush-choked thickets that covered about 70 square miles around Chancellorsville.
On May 1, Lee hurriedly gathered his army from its far-flung camps across the Old Dominion. He
used his regiments to hem the quiescent Hooker into the Wilderness, pushing west along the two
primary corridors in the region—the Orange Turnpike and the Orange Plank Road.
That evening Lee and his incomparable lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson,
conceived their greatest, and last, collaboration. Early on May 2 Jackson
took nearly 30,000 men off on a march that clandestinely crossed the
front of the enemy army and swung around behind it. That left Lee with
only about 15,000 men to hold off Hooker's army. He managed that
formidable task by feigning attacks with a scant line of skirmishers.
Soon after 5 p.m. Jackson, having completed his circuit around the enemy, unleashed his men in an
overwhelming attack on Hooker's right flank and rear. They shattered the Federal Eleventh Corps
and pushed the Northern army back more than two miles.
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When Jackson's men burst out of the thickets screaming the Rebel Yell that afternoon, they dashed
across the high-water mark of the Army of Northern Virginia. About three hours later the army
suffered a nadir as low as the afternoon's zenith, when Jackson fell mortally wounded by the
mistaken fire of his own men.
The long marches, high risks, and veiled stratagems of May 1-2 gave way on the 3rd to a slugging
match in the woods on three sides of Chancellorsville intersection. Hooker abandoned key ground in
a further display of timidity; Confederate artillery roared from a crucial hilltop, employing a brandnew battalion organization; and Southern infantry doggedly pushed ahead.
When a Confederate artillery round smashed into a pillar against which Hooker was leaning, the
Federal leader spent an unconscious half hour. His return to semi-sentience disappointed the
veteran corps commanders who had hoped, unencumbered by Hooker, to employ their army's
considerable untapped might.
By mid-morning, Southern infantry smashed through the final resistance and united in the
Chancellorsville clearing. Their boisterous, well-earned, celebration did not run long: word came
from the direction of Fredericksburg that a Northern rearguard had broken through and threatened
the rear.
The May 3 Battle of Salem Church, just west of Fredericksburg, halted the threat from the east. Lee
went to that zone in person to ensure final success on the 4th, then returned to Chancellorsville to
superintend the corralling of Hooker's defeated army.
Hooker re-crossed the Rappahannock River to its left bank, whence he had come, early on May 6.
The campaign had cost him about 18,000 casualties, and his enemy about 13,000. None of the losses
on either side would resonate as loudly and long as the death of Stonewall Jackson.
The Death of Jackson
It was around 9 p.m. on May 2, 1863, during what would later be known as the Battle of
Chancellorsville in central Virginia. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, with a few aides, was
in front of Confederate lines scouting the federal position. The day had been a horrible one;
Jackson, a senior general under Robert E. Lee, had attacked the Union’s right flank, demolishing
the XI Corps. But the Union troops regrouped and counterattacked, and night fell on a confusing,
bloody scene. Thousands were dead; thousands more would die in the coming days.
Jackson had decided to venture forth to see the damage and plan for the next day. Suddenly there
was a shot; then a volley. They came from the 18th North Carolina Regiment, who mistook the
general and his party for Union cavalry.
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Jackson’s horse bolted, charging into the trees. He checked him with difficulty. “Cease firing!”
yelled Lt. Joseph G. Morrison, Jackson’s brother-in-law and a member of his entourage. “You
are firing into your own men.”
Library of Congress Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was mortally wounded at the Battle of
Chancellorsville.
But the chaos continued. “Who gave that order?” replied Major John D. Barry of the 18th. “It’s a
lie! Pour it into them, boys!” The North Carolinians obeyed with another volley.
Jackson was hit three times. His horse bolted again. This time it could be stopped only by two of
his aides.
When the firing stopped, Jackson’s men gathered around him. It took a few minutes for them to
realize that their general, a living god who ranked just below Robert E. Lee in the Confederate
pantheon, had been seriously wounded. “How do you feel, General?” asked Capt. R.E. Wilbourn
after he halted Jackson’s horse. “Can you move your fingers?”
Jackson could not. His arm was broken. A musket ball had broken two bones in his right hand; a
second bullet hit the left forearm. The third wound was the most dire: the bullet struck him about
three inches below the left shoulder, severing the artery and breaking the bone. Jackson, nearly
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fainting, was helped from his horse. His aides supported him as he staggered into the woods to
lie down. They gave him a little whiskey, which the teetotaling general resisted before drinking.
Then they applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
A federal attack seemed imminent. The general had to be moved. The officers tried to walk him
back to Confederate lines, but it became obvious that he was too weak. They placed him on a
stretcher, just as Union artillery opened fire. Canister and grapeshot ripped through the woods
and struck sparks on the road. One of the stretcher-bearers fell, wounded in both arms. An officer
caught the handle of the stretcher just in time; Jackson did not fall.
The firing continued. The soldiers lay around Jackson, shielding him with their bodies. Shortly
thereafter, still under fire, they again tried to help the wounded general walk. Again he was too
weak. They returned him to the litter. They had not gone far before one of the bearers tripped.
This time Jackson fell. He groaned in pain.
Finally the party found a horse-drawn ambulance. Morrison got in to hold the general’s wounded
arm. At Chancellor’s, the house from which the battle took its name, the men were joined by
Jackson’s friend and medical director for his unit, Dr. Hunter McGuire. “I am badly injured,
Doctor; I fear I am dying,” Jackson told him. “I am glad you have come. I think the wound in my
shoulder is still bleeding.”
The situation was grave. “I found his clothes still saturated with blood,” wrote McGuire, “and
blood still oozing from the wound.” McGuire put his finger on the artery. “Then I readjusted the
handkerchief which had been used as a tourniquet, but which had slipped a little.” If he hadn’t
done so, McGuire said, “he would probably have died in 10 minutes.”
Jackson was in tremendous pain, but controlled it, wrote McGuire, “by his iron will.” Still, the
doctor noted that his lips “were so tightly compressed that the impression of his teeth could be
seen through them.”
McGuire administered whiskey and morphine, and rode with Jackson in the ambulance to a field
hospital some four miles away. There, Jackson was stabilized in a hospital tent. A team of
doctors assembled. Chloroform would be administered, McGuire told Jackson around 2 a.m. His
wounds would be examined. Amputation was probable. Did the general consent?
“Yes, certainly, Dr. McGuire, do for me whatever you think best.”
The anesthetic took effect. “What an infinite blessing!” said Jackson. He repeated the last word
“Blessing … blessing …” as he drifted off. The musket ball was removed from his right hand;
then his left arm was amputated.
Afterward, Jackson seemed to be doing well. He ate and drank and talked to visitors about
military matters and theology. He also sent Morrison to Richmond to bring Anna — Jackson’s
wife and Morrison’s sister — to be with him as he convalesced. One puzzling and disturbing
episode: a pain in his side. Jackson told McGuire he had injured it during his fall from the litter
the night before. McGuire examined him and found nothing.
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An unfolding history of the Civil War with photos and articles from the Times archive and
ongoing commentary from Disunion contributors.
Meanwhile, the Battle of Chancellorsville continued; May 3 was the second-bloodiest day of the
war. Robert E. Lee feared the hospital would be overrun. He sent word for Jackson to be moved,
suggesting Guinea Station, some 27 miles east and south on the Richmond, Fredericksburg and
Potomac Railroad. From there, Jackson could easily be evacuated further south if necessary.
The move was accomplished Monday, May 4. “The rough teamsters sometimes refused to move
their loaded wagons out of the way for an ambulance until told that it contained Jackson,”
McGuire wrote, “and then, with all possible speed, they gave the way and stood with hats off and
weeping as he went by.” The country people brought such gifts of food as were to be had from
their meager stores “and with tearful eyes they blessed him and prayed for his recovery.”
At Guinea Station Jackson seemed to be recovering. He settled into the plantation office of
“Fairfield,” the home of the plantation owner Thomas Chandler, and slept well the first night.
McGuire was optimistic. He was also vigilant, strictly limiting the number of visitors and
watching through the night while Jackson slept.
Jackson’s chaplain, the Rev. Beverly Tucker Lacy, arrived the next day. He held a bedside
prayer service, which deeply gratified the profoundly religious Jackson. Lacy later took
Jackson’s amputated arm to Ellwood, his brother’s nearby home, and buried it in the family
cemetery, and returned the next morning for another prayer service. That evening, thinking that
Jackson’s recovery was underway, McGuire allowed himself to sleep on the couch in the
sickroom.
Jackson awoke with nausea around 1 a.m. He directed his body servant, Jim Lewis, to wet a
towel with cold water and place it on the painful area on his side. Lewis wanted to wake
McGuire. Jackson refused, knowing how much sleep the doctor had lost the last few nights. The
hydrotherapy continued until dawn, with Jackson’s pain increasing. When McGuire awoke and
examined his patient, he diagnosed pneumonia, certainly resulting from his fall from the litter the
night he was wounded.
Mrs. Jackson arrived with their infant daughter as the crisis was unfolding. She seemed to sense
the prognosis immediately.
More doctors arrived. There were consultations, prayers and hymns. Jackson sank into delirium,
talking as though he were still commanding his troops. Then he would rally, talking to his wife
and playing with his daughter. “Little comforter,” he called her, still insisting to those around
him that he would recover. He was relieved to learn that Lee had won the field at
Chancellorsville, though at an almost incomprehensible cost of 13,000 casualties, against the
Union’s 17,000.
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But Jackson continued to decline, and by Sunday, May 10, McGuire was certain that he would
not last the day. Mrs. Jackson went into him and, weeping, broke the news. Jackson sent for
McGuire. “Doctor,” he said, “Anna informs me that you have told her I am to die today; is it so?”
McGuire answered in the affirmative.
“Very good, very good,” said Jackson. “It is all right.”
He tried to comfort his wife. After he died, he said, she should return to live with her father, who
was “kind and good.” They discussed his wish to be buried in Lexington, Va., near where they
had lived when he taught at the Virginia Military Institute.
There was a farewell visit with his daughter. “Little darling,” he called her. “Sweet one.”
Before sinking into a final delirium, he took note of the time. “It is the Lord’s Day,” he said. “I
have always desired to die on Sunday.” He then began talking as though he was still on the
battlefield: “Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front!”
Jackson died at 3:15 p.m. His final words: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of
the trees.”
Gettysburg
July 1 - 3, 1863
Adams County, Pennsylvania
After his astounding victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, in
May 1863, Robert E. Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia in its second
invasion of the North—the Gettysburg Campaign. With his army in high
spirits, Lee intended to collect supplies in the abundant Pennsylvania
farmland and take the fighting away from war-ravaged Virginia. He wanted
to threaten Northern cities, weaken the North's appetite for war and,
especially, win a major battle on Northern soil and strengthen the peace
movement in the North. Prodded by President Abraham Lincoln, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker moved
his Union Army of the Potomac in pursuit, but was relieved of command just three days before the
battle. Hooker's successor, Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade moved northward, keeping his army
between Lee and Washington, D.C. When Lee learned that Meade was in Pennsylvania, Lee
concentrated his army around Gettysburg.
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Elements of the two armies collided west and north of
the town on July 1, 1863. Union cavalry under Brig. Gen.
John Buford slowed the Confederate advance until
Union infantry, the Union 1st and 11th Corps, arrived.
More Confederate reinforcements under generals A.P.
Hill and Richard Ewell reached the scene, however, and
30,000 Confederates ultimately defeated 20,000
Yankees, who fell back through Gettysburg to the hills
south of town--Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill.
On the second day of battle, the Union defended a
fishhook-shaped range of hills and ridges south of
Gettysburg with
around 90,000
soldiers.
Confederates essentially wrapped around the Union position
with 70,000 soldiers. On the afternoon of July 2, Lee launched
a heavy assault on the Union left flank, and fierce fighting
raged at Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, the
Peach Orchard and Cemetery Ridge. On the Union right,
demonstrations escalated into full-scale assaults on Culp's Hill
and East Cemetery Hill. Although the Confederates gained ground, the Union defenders still held
strong positions by the end of the day.
On July 3, fighting resumed on Culp's Hill, and cavalry battles raged to the east and south, but the
main event was a dramatic infantry assault by 12,000 Confederates against the center of the Union
line on Cemetery Ridge--Pickett's Charge. The charge was repulsed by Union rifle and artillery fire,
at great losses to the Confederate army. Lee led his army on a torturous retreat back to Virginia. As
many as 51,000 soldiers from both armies were killed, wounded, captured or missing in the threeday battle. Four months after the battle, President Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for
Gettysburg's Soldiers National Cemetery to honor the fallen Union soldiers and redefine the purpose
of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address.
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The Gettysburg Address
At the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, more than 51,000 Confederate and Union
soldiers were wounded, missing, or dead. Many of those who died were laid in
makeshift graves along the battlefield. Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin
commissioned David Wills, an attorney, to purchase land for a proper burial site for the
deceased Union soldiers. Wills acquired 17 acres for the cemetery, which was planned
and designed by landscape architect William Saunders.
The cemetery was dedicated on November 19, 1863. The main speaker for the event
was Edward Everett, one of the nation’s foremost orators. President Lincoln was also
invited to speak “as Chief Executive of the nation, formally [to] set apart these grounds
to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks.” At the ceremony, Everett spoke for
more than 2 hours; Lincoln spoke for 2 minutes.
President Lincoln had given his brief speech a lot of thought. He saw meaning in the
fact that the Union victory at Gettysburg coincided with the nation’s birthday; but rather
than focus on the specific battle in his remarks, he wanted to present a broad statement
about the larger significance of the war. He invoked the Declaration of Independence,
and its principles of liberty and equality, and he spoke of “a new birth of freedom” for the
nation. In his brief address, he continued to reshape the aims of the war for the
American people—transforming it from a war for Union to a war for Union and freedom.
Although Lincoln expressed disappointment in the speech initially, it has come to be
regarded as one of the most elegant and eloquent speeches in U.S. history.
The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in
Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men
are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that
we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our
poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it
can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall
have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.
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Sherman’s March to the Sea
The Fall of Atlanta
General Sherman’s troops captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864. This was an important triumph, because Atlanta
was a railroad hub and the industrial center of the Confederacy: It had munitions factories, foundries and warehouses
that kept the Confederate army supplied with food, weapons and other goods. It stood between the Union Army and
two of its most prized targets: the Gulf of Mexico to the west and Charleston to the East. It was also a symbol of
Confederate pride and strength, and its fall made even the most loyal Southerners doubt that they could win the war.
(“Since Atlanta,” South Carolinian Mary Boykin Chestnut wrote in her diary, “I have felt as if…we are going to be
wiped off the earth.”)
March to the Sea
After they lost Atlanta, the Confederate army headed west into Tennessee and Alabama, attacking Union supply lines
as they went. Sherman was reluctant to set off on a wild goose chase across the South, however, and so he split his
troops into two groups. Major General George Thomas took some 60,000 men to meet the Confederates in Nashville,
while Sherman took the remaining 62,000 on an offensive march through Georgia to Savannah, “smashing things”
(he wrote) “ to the sea.”
"Make Georgia Howl"
Sherman believed that the Confederacy derived its strength not from its fighting forces but from the material and
moral support of sympathetic Southern whites. Factories, farms and railroads provided Confederate troops with the
things they needed, he reasoned; and if he could destroy those things, the Confederate war effort would collapse.
Meanwhile, his troops could undermine Southern morale by making life so unpleasant for Georgia’s civilians that they
would demand an end to the war.
To that end, Sherman’s troops marched south toward Savannah in two wings, about 30 miles apart. On November 22,
3,500 Confederate cavalry started a skirmish with the Union soldiers at Griswoldville, but that ended so badly--650
Confederate soldiers were killed or wounded, compared to 62 Yankee casualties--that Southern troops initiated no
more battles. Instead, they fled South ahead of Sherman’s troops, wreaking their own havoc as they went: They
wrecked bridges, chopped down trees and burned barns filled with provisions before the Union army could reach
them.
The Union soldiers were just as unsparing. They raided farms and plantations, stealing and slaughtering cows,
chickens, turkeys, sheep and hogs and taking as much other food--especially bread and potatoes--as they could
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carry. (These groups of foraging soldiers were nicknamed “bummers,” and they burned whatever they could not
carry.) The marauding Yankees needed the supplies, but they also wanted to teach Georgians a lesson: “it isn’t so
sweet to secede,” one soldier wrote in a letter home, “as [they] thought it would be.”
Sherman’s troops arrived in Savannah on December 21, 1864, about three weeks after they left Atlanta. The city was
undefended when they got there. (The 10,000 Confederates who were supposed to be guarding it had already fled.)
Sherman presented the city of Savannah and its 25,000 bales of cotton to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift.
Early in 1865, Sherman and his men left Savannah and pillaged and burned their way through South Carolina to
Charleston. In April, the Confederacy surrendered and the war was over.
Total War
Sherman’s “total war” in Georgia was brutal and destructive,
but it did just what it was supposed to do: it hurt Southern
morale, made it impossible for the Confederates to fight at
full capacity and likely hastened the end of the war. “This
Union and its Government must be sustained, at any and
every cost,” explained one of Sherman’s subordinates. “To
sustain it, we must war upon and destroy the organized rebel
forces,--must cut off their supplies, destroy their
communications…and produce among the people of
Georgia a thorough conviction of the personal misery which
attends war, and the utter helplessness and inability of their
‘rulers’ to protect them…If that terror and grief and even
want shall help to paralyze their husbands and fathers who
are fighting us…it is mercy in the end.”
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American Civil War
Robert E. Lee Surrenders
Surrender at Appomattox
On April 9, 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at
Appomattox, Virginia. This signaled the start of the end of the American Civil War.
Prior to Surrender
In early 1865, the Union Army began marching through the state of Virginia, pushing back
the Confederate forces. In hopes of uniting with more Confederate troops in North Carolina,
General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army abandoned the capital of Richmond and
retreated. However, the Union Army soon cut off their retreat and they were forced to stop
at Appomattox, Virginia.
General Grant and the Union Army had the Confederates surrounded. The Confederates
were low on supplies, many soldiers were deserting, and they were greatly outnumbered.
Upon looking at the conditions and the odds, General Lee felt he had no choice but to
surrender.
Surrender
The two Generals, Lee and Grant, met on April 9, 1865 to discuss the surrender of Lee's
army. General Grant came and met Lee at the McLean house in Appomattox. Grant had
great respect for Lee and, before they got down to surrender terms, he actually made some
small talk with Lee.
Terms of Surrender
General Grant had already discussed terms with President Lincoln. President Lincoln
wanted peace to come to the Union and felt he needed to treat the Confederate soldiers
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such that they would not rebel again. The terms of the surrender were generous:
Confederate soldiers would have to turn in their rifles, but they could return home
immediately and keep their horses or mules. They were also given food as many of them
were very hungry.
These terms were more than Lee and the Confederate
Army could ask for. Although they were crushed to
have to surrender, they could not dispute the fairness
with which they were treated by the North.
Appomattox Court House
The Rest of the Southern Army
There were many more soldiers and armies throughout the south that had not yet
surrendered. However, when they heard of Lee's surrender at Appomattox, many of them
knew the war was over. General Joseph Johnston surrendered his army to General
Sherman on April 26, 1865. Many other officers followed in surrendering. The last
Confederate general to surrender was General Stand Watie who surrendered on June 23,
1865.
President Jefferson Davis Captured
On May 5, 1865 Confederate President Jefferson Davis held the last meeting of his cabinet.
They officially dissolved, or ended, the Confederate government. Davis tried to escape, but
was soon captured. He spent the next two years in prison.
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, was a Maryland native born in
1838 who remained in the North during the Civil War despite his Confederate
sympathies. As the conflict entered its final stages, he and several associates
hatched a plot to kidnap the president and take him to Richmond, the
Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned
kidnapping, Lincoln 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
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April, with Confederate armies near collapse across the South, Booth came up with a desperate plan to
save the Confederacy.
Learning that Lincoln was to attend Laura Keene's acclaimed performance of "Our American Cousin" at
Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, Booth—himself a well-known actor at the time—
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 co-conspirators hoped to throw the U.S. government into disarray.
Lincoln occupied a private box above the stage with his wife Mary, a young army officer named Henry
Rathbone and Rathbone’s fiancé, Clara Harris, the daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris. The Lincolns
arrived late for the comedy, but the president was reportedly in a fine mood and laughed heartily during
the production.
At 10:15, Booth slipped into the box and fired his .44-caliber single-shot
derringer into the back of Lincoln's head. After stabbing Rathbone, who
immediately rushed at him, in the shoulder, Booth leapt onto the stage
and shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis!" ("Thus ever to tyrants!"–the Virginia
state motto). At first, the crowd interpreted the unfolding drama as part of
the production, but a scream from the first lady told them otherwise.
Although Booth broke his leg in the fall, he managed to leave the theater
and escape from Washington on horseback.
A 23-year-old doctor named Charles Leale was in the audience and hastened to the presidential box
immediately upon hearing the shot and Mary Lincoln’s scream. He found the president slumped in his
chair, paralyzed and struggling to breathe. Several soldiers carried Lincoln to a house across the street
and placed him on a bed. When the surgeon general arrived at the house, he concluded that Lincoln
could not be saved and would die during the night.
Vice President Andrew Johnson, members of Lincoln's cabinet and several of the president's closest
friends stood vigil by Lincoln's bedside until he was officially pronounced dead at 7:22 a.m. The first lady
lay on a bed in an adjoining room with her eldest son Robert at her side, overwhelmed with shock and
grief.
The president's body was placed in a temporary coffin, draped with a flag and escorted by armed cavalry
to the White House, where surgeons conducted a thorough autopsy. Edward Curtis, an Army surgeon in
attendance, later described the scene, recounting that a bullet clattered into a waiting basin during the
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doctors’ removal of Lincoln’s brain. He wrote that the team stopped to stare at the offending weapon, “the
cause of such mighty changes in the world's history as we may perhaps never realize.” During the
autopsy, Mary Lincoln sent the surgeons a note requesting that they clip a lock of Lincoln's hair for her.
News of the president's death traveled quickly, and by the end of the day flags across the country flew at
half-mast, businesses were closed and people who had recently rejoiced at the end of the Civil War now
reeled from Lincoln's shocking assassination.
The president’s corpse was taken to the White House, and on April 18 it was carried to the Capitol
rotunda to lay in state on a catafalque. On April 21, Lincoln's body was boarded onto a train that
conveyed it to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived before becoming president. Tens of thousands of
Americans lined the railroad route and paid their respects to their fallen leader during the train's solemn
progression through the North. Lincoln and his son, Willie, who died in the White House of typhoid fever
in 1862, were interred on May 4, 1865, at Oak Ridge Cemetery, near Springfield.
As the nation mourned, Union soldiers were hot on the trail of John Wilkes Booth, who many in the
audience had immediately recognized. After fleeing the capital, he and an accomplice, David Herold,
made their way across the Anacostia River and headed toward southern Maryland. The pair stopped at
the home of Samuel Mudd, a doctor who treated Booth's leg. (Mudd’s actions earned him a life sentence
that was later commuted). They then sought refuge from Thomas A. Jones, a Confederate agent, before
securing a boat to row across the Potomac to Virginia.
On April 26, Union troops surrounded the Virginia farmhouse where Booth and Herold were hiding out
and set fire to it, hoping to flush the fugitives out. Herold surrendered but Booth remained inside. As the
blaze intensified, a sergeant shot Booth in the neck, allegedly because the assassin had raised his gun
as if to shoot. Carried out of the building alive, he lingered for three hours before gazing at his hands and
uttering his last words: "Useless, useless.”
Four of Booth’s co-conspirators were convicted for their part in the assassination and executed by
hanging on July 7, 1865. They included David Herold and Mary Surratt, the first woman put to death by
the federal government, whose boarding house had served as a meeting place for the would-be
kidnappers.
The War Officially Over
On August 20, 1866 President Andrew Johnson signed a document stating that the
American Civil War was over and all of America was at peace.
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