The Night of Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

Five days after the end of the American Civil War, on the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. John Wilkes Booth – one of the most popular actors in the country – slipped into the Presidential box and, standing a mere four feet from the President, discharged a single bullet into the back of Lincoln’s head.  It immediately rendered the president unconscious and paralyzed, and caused his death, the next day, at 7:22 in the morning.

These manuscripts include the accounts of several eyewitnesses to the assassination, the medical report of the physician who attended Lincoln that night, and ephemera from that evening and the president’s funeral.