The Night Lincoln Died

"'The president,' was his answer, 'he was killed by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since."

To relieve himself from the stresses of war, Lincoln often liked to attend the theater. That night, he and Mary Todd were to be accompanied to Ford's Theater by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia, to see a production of "Our American Cousin," one of Lincoln's favorite plays. At the last minute, however, the general and his wife decided to catch an earlier train out of town, and informed the Lincolns that they would not be attending. In their stead, Mary Todd invited Maj. H.R. Rathbone and Clara Harris, the stepson and daughter of Sen. Ira Harris.

The theater was laced with American flags and packed with a crowd anticipating the president's arrival. When the Lincoln walked out onto the balcony with his entourage, the crowd paid their respects as he nodded and waved politely. A special chair with a slight rocking motion had been put in to accommodate comfortably the president's large frame.

He sat peacefully.

In the bar next door sat another man, sulky and perturbed. John Wilkes Booth had been waiting for this moment, and when he had heard earlier that day of the president's plans to attend the evening performance, he knew that the time was ripe. He hated this man, the destroyer of the South, the tyrannical oppressor. In March, he had led a plan to kidnap the president, but it had failed. Now that the war was just about over, there was only one thing for him to do.

"I'm going to kill the president." he reportedly told someone.