The Civil War was the bloodiest war in American history. For four years it slogged on, and when it was finished there was much jubilation. On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, his wife, Major Henry Rathbone and his date Clara Harris attended Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in downtown Washington D.C. However, their revelry was cut short when famous actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln and escaped from Ford’s Theatre. For 12 days, manhunters were searching for the most wanted man in America. The 12 day manhunt culminated at the Garrett farm in Northern Virginia with a fiery barn that was an inferno, a dead assassin who was at his prime in life, and a grieving nation left to heal its wounds. John Wilkes Booth committed the …show more content…
David Herold gave himself up, and walked out of the barn with no arms, but Booth remained inside of the barn, defiant. Booth offered to fight the two detectives present, along with the 26 soldiers there in a gentlemanly manner. The two detectives declined the offer because Edwin Stanton had requested that they capture Booth alive if at all possible. Booth continued to stay in the barn, so the detectives set the barn on fire to flush him out (Norton 9). Their decision came from the fact that the morning sun was rising and it would have illuminated soldiers and made them easy targets for Booth (Swanson 388). Booth gathered his weapons and his crutches and prepared to go out to fight the soldiers. Private Boston Corbett had been waiting at the side of the barn, and saw Booth prepare himself to fight. Since he was out of Booth’s line of sight, Corbett lined up the shot, and pulled the trigger. Booth fell to the ground, and the detectives rushed into to retrieve Booth’s body before the entire barn was encompassed by the inferno. Corbett had shot Booth because he believed that Booth was ready to open fire on his fellow soldiers (Booth 19). They laid Booth on the porch, where he laid for hours, paralyzed. He disgustedly called his hands “Useless, useless” and his final words were “Tell my mother I died for my country” (Swanson 411). Around 7 A.M. on April 26, 1865, almost two weeks after assassinating the President of the United States, the paralyzed John Wilkes Booth died (Booth 19). Lincoln’s assassination dramatically changed how the North and South would be reconciled after the brutal four-year Civil War (White 8). Lincoln’s death brought out many different reactions from Americans across the country (White 28). According to Joel Achenbach, Lincoln’s assassination “was a true conspiracy, born of the war and its underlying causes” (Achenbach 49). At Lincoln’s