The Night of Lincoln's Assassination

The night of Lincoln's assassination, April 14, 1865, was when President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, aimed to revive the South's cause by eliminating Lincoln, the Union's leader. Lincoln was shot in the head and quickly fell into a coma. Despite efforts to save him, he died the next morning, making him the first U.S. president assassinated. The event shocked the nation and marked a tragic turning point at the end of the Civil War.