Part of the front page of 'The New York Times', 15 April 1865. [NLS shelfmark: H.S.383(11)]
Emancipation
Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 less than a week after General Lee's surrender.
'The New York Times' reports on the 'act of a desperate rebel' as events unfolded.
On Good Friday, 14 April, John Wilkes Booth, a well-regarded actor, shot the president in Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC.
Booth had 'a mad attachment to the Southern cause' and shouted 'Sic semper tyrannis' ('Thus always to tyrants') as he leapt from the Presidential Box and fled.
News of Lincoln's death travelled, and extraordinary mass mourning spread. Lincoln, saviour of the United States, martyred president, was instantly deified and celebrated.
Booth was killed during capture, but following a military trial, three of his accomplices were hanged and one imprisoned.
This item featured in our American Civil War display, 'Yankee cries and Rebel yells', at the Library from 21 January to 29 March 2015.