John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer; denouncing President Lincoln, he lamented the then-recent abolition of slavery in the United States.
Samuel Alexander Mudd Sr. was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth concerning the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt was an American boarding house owner in Washington, D.C., who was convicted of taking part in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Sentenced to death, she was hanged and became the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. She maintained her innocence until her death, and the case against her was and remains controversial. Surratt was the mother of John Surratt, who was later tried in the conspiracy, but was not convicted.
David Edgar Herold was an American pharmacist's assistant and accomplice of John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. After the shooting, Herold accompanied Booth to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set Booth's injured leg. The two men then continued their escape through Maryland and into Virginia, and Herold remained with Booth until the authorities cornered them in a barn. Herold surrendered, but Booth was shot to death by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Herold was tried by a military tribunal, sentenced to death for conspiracy, and hanged with three other conspirators at the Washington Arsenal, now known as Fort Lesley J. McNair.
George Andrew Atzerodt was a German American repairman, Confederate sympathizer, and conspirator assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. He was assigned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve and made no attempt. Atzerodt was tried by a military tribunal, sentenced to death for conspiracy, and hanged along with three other conspirators.
Joseph Holt was an American lawyer, soldier, and politician. As a leading member of the Buchanan administration, he succeeded in convincing Buchanan to oppose the secession of the South. He returned to Kentucky and successfully battled the secessionist element thereby helping to keep Kentucky in the Union. President Abraham Lincoln appointed him the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. He served as Lincoln's chief arbiter and enforcer of military law, and supporter of emancipation. His most famous roles came in the Lincoln assassination trials.
Lewis Thornton Powell was an American Confederate soldier who attempted to assassinate William Henry Seward as part of the Lincoln assassination plot. Wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, he later served in Mosby's Rangers before working with the Confederate Secret Service in Maryland. John Wilkes Booth recruited him into a plot to kidnap Lincoln and turn the president over to the Confederacy, but then decided to assassinate Lincoln, Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson instead, and assigned Powell the task to kill Seward.
Lafayette Curry Baker was a United States investigator and spy, serving the Union Army, during the American Civil War and under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Otto Eisenschiml was an Austrian-born chemist and industrial executive in the American oil industry, and a controversial author. He may be best known for his provocative 1937 book on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in which he proposed that a senior member of Lincoln's Cabinet orchestrated the plot to kill the president.
Louis J. Weichmann was an American clerk who was one of the chief witnesses for the prosecution in the trial following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Previously, he had also been a suspect in the conspiracy because of his association with Mary Surratt's family.
Henry Reed Rathbone was a United States military officer and lawyer who was present at the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln; Rathbone and his fiancé Clara Harris were sitting with Lincoln and Lincoln's wife Mary Todd Lincoln when the president was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre. When Rathbone attempted to apprehend Booth, Booth stabbed and seriously wounded him. Rathbone may have played a part in Booth's leg injury. Although he recovered, Rathbone's mental state deteriorated afterwards, and in 1883, he murdered his wife, Clara, in a fit of madness, later being declared insane by doctors and living the rest of his life in a lunatic asylum.
John Harrison Surratt Jr. was an American Confederate spy who was accused of plotting with John Wilkes Booth to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln; he was also suspected of involvement in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. His mother, Mary Surratt, was convicted of conspiracy by a military tribunal and hanged; she owned the boarding house that the conspirators used as a safe house and to plot the scheme.
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth 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 of his wounds the following day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. His funeral and burial were marked by an extended period of national mourning.
Michael O'Laughlen, Jr. was an American Confederate soldier and conspirator in John Wilkes Booth's plot to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and later in the latter's assassination, although he ended up not directly participating.
Samuel Bland Arnold was an American Confederate sympathizer involved in a plot to kidnap U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. He had joined the Confederate Army shortly after the start of the Civil War but was discharged due to health reasons in 1864.
The Lincoln Conspiracy is a 1977 film directed by James L. Conway that dramatizes certain conspiracy theories concerning the 1865 assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Adapted from the 1977 book of the same name by David W. Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier Jr., the production stars Robert Middleton as Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, John Dehner as Colonel Lafayette C. Baker, Bradford Dillman as John Wilkes Booth, Ted Henning as Robert Campbell, and John Anderson as Lincoln.
John Minchin Lloyd was a bricklayer and police officer in Washington, D.C., in the United States. He was one of the first police officers hired by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia when its Day Watch was first formed in 1855. He played a role in the trial of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. Arrested but never charged in the conspiracy, Lloyd's testimony was critical in convicting Mary Surratt.
The Conspirator is a 2010 American mystery historical drama film directed by Robert Redford and based on an original screenplay by James D. Solomon. It is the debut film of the American Film Company. The film tells the story of Mary Surratt, the only female conspirator charged in the Abraham Lincoln assassination and the first woman to be executed by the US federal government. It stars Robin Wright as Mary Surratt, together with James McAvoy, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, Jonathan Groff, Tom Wilkinson, Alexis Bledel, Kevin Kline, John Cullum, Toby Kebbell, and James Badge Dale.
The Mary E. Surratt Boarding House in Washington, D.C. was the site of meetings of conspirators to kidnap and subsequently to assassinate U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It was operated as a boarding house by Mary Surratt from September 1864 to April 1865.
Lucy Lambert Hale was the daughter of U.S. Senator John Parker Hale of New Hampshire, and was a noted Washington, D.C., society belle. She attracted many admirers including Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Robert Todd Lincoln; and stage actor and presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth, to whom she was secretly engaged. Lucy's photograph was found in Booth's pocket after Sergeant Boston Corbett mortally wounded Booth 12 days after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
