Maryland in the American Civil War
Assassination of President Lincoln
The issue of slavery may have been settled by the new constitution, and the legality of secession by the war, but this did not end the debate. On April 14, 1865 the actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Booth was born in Harford County, Maryland, a northern county on the Pennsylvania border, which had few slaves. After he shot Lincoln, Booth shouted "Sic semper tyrannis" ("Thus always to tyrants"). Other witnesses — including Booth himself — claimed that he only yelled "Sic semper!" Some didn't recall hearing Booth shout anything in Latin. Some witnesses said he shouted "The South is avenged!" Others thought they heard him say "Revenge for the South!" or "The South shall be free!" Two said Booth yelled "I have done it!" After shooting the President, Booth galloped on his horse into Southern Maryland, where he was sheltered and helped by sympathetic residents and smuggled at night across the Potomac River into Virginia a week later.
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