John Wilkes Booth was a famous Southern sympathizing actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, five days after the end of the Civil War. Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head during a performance of "Our American Cousin" and escaped, but broke his leg in the process. After a two-week manhunt, Booth was found hiding in a Virginia barn by the Union Army and was shot and killed there on April 26th.

1. Lincoln’s assassination
April 15, 1865
150 Years Ago Today!

2. Who was John Wilkes booth?
• Born in Maryland in 1838
• Southern sympathizer (he wanted the Confederacy to
win)
• He stayed in the North during the Civil War
• Famous Actor
• He planned to kidnap the President one month earlier,
but the President did not show up to the spot where
Booth thought he would be.

3. Who was John Wilkes booth?

4. “Our American Cousin”
• Five days after the Civil War ends, Lincoln attends a
play with his wife.
• They sit in a private booth above the stage.
• John Wilkes Booth sneaks in the booth and shoots
the President in the head.
• Booth leaps off the booth to the stage and breaks
his leg, but escapes.
• Lincoln is carried to a farmhouse across the street
and dies the next morning.

5. “Our American Cousin”

6. Booth on the run…
• The Union Army searched for Booth
• Booth, with a broken leg, escapes Washington D.C.
on a horse with an accomplice.
• They stop at a farmhouse where a doctor sets
Booth’s broken leg.
• Using a boat, they go across the Potomac River and
hide in a barn in Virginia

7. Booth on the run…

8. Booth on the run…
• The Union Army found Booth on April 26th
• They surrounded the barn and set it on fire.
• As the barn burned, Booth was shot.
• He was carried out of the building and died 3 hours
later.