Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 a.m., in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first American president to be assassinated, and Lincoln's funeral and burial marked an extended period of national mourning. Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger
Abraham Lincoln election. Anticipating the war's conclusion, Lincoln pushed a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. A few days after victory was complete he was assassinated, and ever since Lincoln has been remembered as the martyr hero of the reunited nation. Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U.S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, as the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking