Why did John Wilkes Booth kill Abraham Lincoln

Though not quite in the most genial way possible, but John Wilkes Booth succeeded in leaving an indelible imprint on the political history of the United States by assassinating the President Abraham Lincoln of the U.S. on the fourteenth of April, 1865.

John Wilkes, a renowned actor of those times, was a hard cooked Confederate who did not agree with the President’s assertions and attempts to confer the blacks with the right to vote. The ideology was so hard planted in his mind and soul that he decided to escalate the evil plans of the Confederates to kidnap the President and hold him hostage to blackmail the government into something even more ghastly and sinister. While attending Lincoln’s speech on 11th April of the fateful year, John Wilkes decided that the ‘black sympathizing’ President had to go. He wove a toxic plan of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson pretty soon after that and found a perfect execution opportunity just three days later. On the 14th of April, the President had plans of watching a play titled “Our American Cousin” which was being performed at the Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. As an unsuspecting Lincoln savored the play, Wilkes stealthily moved into the special box and aimed his 0.44 caliber Derringer at the back of the head of the President. Unflinchingly, he pressed the trigger. The rest, as they say, is history. Major Henry Rathbone tried to nab the culprit amidst all the chaos, but the agile John Wilkes dodged and ducked, thus escaping arrest. As the nation mourned the loss of a great leader, the Federal agents went on a scavenging spree all over the nation. After a meticulous search, they finally laid their hands on the runaway murderer.

Though there are slightly varying versions of this part of the story, most agree that John Wilkes spent a day in the state of coma before succumbing to the bullet fragments that had made their way inside his head, in the tussle with the Federal agents.