138 years ago...
Apr. 15th, 2003 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khaosworksApril 14, 1865. Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth holds a final meeting with his co-conspirators. The plan is set for a series of simultaneous assassinations to set the stage for civil disorder and the rising again of the South. George Atzerdodt is to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson. Lewis Paine, accompanied by David Herold, is assigned to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward. The attacks are all to take place around 10.15 pm. Booth himself takes on the responsibility of shooting President Abraham Lincoln.
At 10.07 pm, Booth enters Ford's Theatre, where the Lincolns, together with Miss Clara Harris and Mr Henry Rathbone are watching the evening performance of "Our American Cousin". John Parker, Lincoln's bodyguard, was not at his post. At 10.15 pm, Booth opens the door to the State Box and shoots Lincoln in the back of the head at point-blank range. Rathbone struggles with Booth, who stabs Rathbone in the arm, then leaps 11 feet from the Box to the stage, breaking his left leg just above the ankle in the process. As Mrs Lincoln screams, Booth brandishes his knife at the audience and makes his way out the back door and onto his horse before anyone can stop him.
Some in the audience report hearing him say, "Sic Semper Tyrannus" - Thus Always To Tyrants.
At 10.07 pm, Booth enters Ford's Theatre, where the Lincolns, together with Miss Clara Harris and Mr Henry Rathbone are watching the evening performance of "Our American Cousin". John Parker, Lincoln's bodyguard, was not at his post. At 10.15 pm, Booth opens the door to the State Box and shoots Lincoln in the back of the head at point-blank range. Rathbone struggles with Booth, who stabs Rathbone in the arm, then leaps 11 feet from the Box to the stage, breaking his left leg just above the ankle in the process. As Mrs Lincoln screams, Booth brandishes his knife at the audience and makes his way out the back door and onto his horse before anyone can stop him.
Some in the audience report hearing him say, "Sic Semper Tyrannus" - Thus Always To Tyrants.
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Date: 2003-04-14 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-14 10:56 am (UTC)May Booth continue to burn in Hell.
A.
(no, no strong opinions on the subject at all...)
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Date: 2003-04-14 10:59 am (UTC)from Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins".