Assassination of Abraham Lincoln jury could not reach a verdict and John Surratt was released. 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 Papers of Abraham Lincoln such as military commissions; legislative documents from the Illinois General Assembly and Congress not authored by Abraham Lincoln; and other government documents (such as court-martial files) that were under Lincoln’s purview but for which we cannot positively prove direct interaction. The first online release of material included every known Lincoln document through 1842, when his career in the Illinois General Assembly ended. This amounted to 340 documents written by or to Lincoln and 4,839 documents that provide context on what issues Lincoln faced as a lawyer and legislator. The first document was a small workbook that Lincoln used as a