John Wilkes BOOTH

1838 - 1865  (26 years)

• Name	John Wilkes BOOTH
  Birth	10 May 1838	Belair, Harford County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Burial	1865
  Noteworthy Event	14 Apr 1865	Ford's Theatre
  	On April 9, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Gen. U.S. Grant. On April 11 the Stars and Stripes of the United States were raised over Fort Sumter, where the war had begun. To celebrate the end of the war, Lincoln took his wife Mary and two guests to Ford's Theatre on the night of April 14. During the third act of the play, 'Our American Cousin', John Wilkes Booth, a young actor who was pro slavery, crept into the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the head. Booth then leapt onto the stage, and, brandishing a dagger, he escaped. He was shot and killed on April 26 in a Virginia tobacco barn when soldiers and detectives surrounded and set fire to it. Soldiers carried the unconscious president across the street to the nearest residence, a boardinghouse. There, stretched diagonally on a bed too small for his long body, he died without regaining consciousness at 7:22 in the morning. It was April 15, 1865 28 years to the day since he had left New Salem. As the Great Emancipator died, Secretary of War Stanton said softly, "Now he belongs to the ages." A funeral train carried the president's body back home to Springfield, Ill., where he lies buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery. Only after his death did the world come to realize Lincoln's greatness. He was a superb statesman, a firm idealist who would not be swayed from the right course of action, a man of kindly and brave patience, and a believer in what he called the "family of man".
  Occupation	14 Apr 1865
  	Actor & Assassin of Abraham Lincoln 14/4/1865.
  Death	26 Apr 1865	Shot in a Tobacco Barn at Bowling Green, Virginia, USA   [1]
  Person ID	I1003	Fitzgerald-Wells Family Tree
  Last Modified	17 Jul 2019

  
  

  Father	Junius Brutus BOOTH, Snr.,   b. 1 May 1796, St. Pancras, London, Middlesex, England d. 30 Nov 1852, near Lousville on Mississippi Riverboat "J.S.Chenoweth" (Age 56 years)
  Relationship	Birth
  Mother	Mary Ann HOLMES,   b. 27 Jun 1802, Lambeth, London, England d. 22 Oct 1885, New York, USA (Age 83 years)
  Relationship	Birth
  Marriage	10 May 1851	Baltimore, Maryland, USA   [1]
  Family ID	F337	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Martha Lizola MILLS,   b. 11 Sep 1837, Aboard Ship, Duke Co, Ma d. 9 Nov 1887, Canterbury, CT (Age 50 years)
  Marriage	9 Jan 1859
  Family ID	F345	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	14 Jul 2019

  
  

• Notes

  1. Noted Shakespearean actor, but of wild and erratic behavior. 2. Advocate of slavery and the Confederacy.

  
  

• Sources

  [S158] Stanley Kimmel, "The Mad Booths of Maryland" 2nd Ed, (New York: Dover Publications 1969).