American Conspiracies: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

The Incident: The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, on April 14, 1865.

The Official Word: The president was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range, by a prominent actor named John Wilkes Booth, who escaped on horseback and was later killed by a soldier while hiding in a barn. Eight coconspirators were also caught and found guilty by a military court.

Ventuara's take: The plot is likely to have gone well beyond those who were rounded up, but except for Booth we don't hear much about any others in our history books. Besides leaders of the Confederacy, the conspiracy to kill Lincoln probably included people within his own cabinet.

My Take: When i went on my 8th grade trip to Washington DC, we stopped at Ford's Theatre (or what they told me was Ford's Theatre) they showed us the special box that president Lincoln sat in and was killed in. I recall the place being very small and thinking, "How could someone sneak around here?" I guess this theory makes sense. There seems to be a lot of proof in Ventuara's statements. Such as one Colonel Dahlgren, who was killed on a raid while trying to free some Union prisoners. The paper said that, once the Union made it into the Confederate capital, RIchmond, "it must be destroyed and Jeff Davis and cabinet killed." This was eye opening to me because often in our history books it was written as if it was a "gentleman's war." This seems preposterous to me. How could a group fight a war and not be willing to do anything that will give them an advantage, especially something as critical as the Civil War.

Another point raised was on the physical murder of John Wilkes Booth. We are told to believe that Booth was in a barn that was lit on fire. Ventura found out that what is rumored to have happen is Booth and a coconspirator, David Herold, fled to a barn that was lit on fire by Seregant Boston Corbett. Herold fled the barn and was tied to tree while Booth refused to leave the barn. That is when Corbett went in and shot Booth in the throat. The weird part is that one of the Union soldiers who was on the farm that night said that the body that was buried was in fact not John Wilkes Booth.