America's most celebrated actor shot Lincoln five days after the war ended — convinced history would call him a hero, he died a hunted fugitive whispering 'useless, useless.'
John Wilkes Booth was one of the most celebrated actors in America — handsome, magnetic, and from one of the country's most famous theatrical families. He had everything. And he threw it all away on a political obsession that consumed him completely.
Booth was a fanatical Confederate sympathizer who believed Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant destroying the South. He initially hatched a plan not to kill Lincoln, but to kidnap him — dragging the president to Richmond as a bargaining chip to force a prisoner exchange and restart the war.
After Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Booth's kidnapping plan became irrelevant overnight. He pivoted to something more extreme: a coordinated plot to assassinate Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward simultaneously — hoping to decapitate the Union government and spark chaos.
On April 14, 1865 — just five days after Appomattox — Booth walked into Ford's Theatre during a performance of 'Our American Cousin,' entered the State Box unimpeded, and shot Lincoln in the back of the head with a single-shot .41 caliber Derringer. He then leapt to the stage, caught his spur on the bunting, broke his leg, and escaped into the night.
Only one of the three attacks succeeded. The man sent to kill Vice President Johnson lost his nerve and never entered the house. Lewis Powell stabbed Secretary Seward repeatedly in his bed but failed to kill him. Booth alone completed his mission — and Lincoln died the next morning.
Booth fled south through Maryland and Virginia with co-conspirator David Herold, hiding in swamps and farmhouses for twelve days while thousands of Union troops hunted him. He was finally cornered in a tobacco barn on the Garrett farm in Virginia. When he refused to surrender, soldiers set the barn on fire — and Boston Corbett shot him through a gap in the boards.
Booth died on the Garrett farmhouse porch at dawn on April 26, 1865, paralyzed from the neck wound, aged 26. His last words, looking at his own hands, were reportedly: 'Useless, useless.' Eight conspirators were convicted; four were hanged, including Mary Surratt — the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government.