Assassination of President Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth shot and killed US President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The American Civil War had ended only five days earlier with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. Born in a cabin in Kentucky, Lincoln had been the Republican Party’s first presidential candidate in 1860. The election of an opponent of slavery had led to the secession of the Southern states and, in April 1861, the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1863, when the Confederacy was in crisis, Lincoln emancipated the slaves and was re-elected in 1864. He is considered by many to be America’s greatest president, for saving the Union and abolishing slavery, as well as for his wit and oratory skills.
