157 years ago this evening, April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife Mary and two others went to Ford’s Theatre to see the comedy “Our American Cousin.” April 14 was Good Friday that year. John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirers had plotted to assassinate Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. The would-be assassin of Johnson got cold feet. Although Seward was seriously injured, he was not killed. But Booth entered Lincoln’s theatre box, at a moment in the play where Booth knew the gunshot would be drowned out by audience laughter: "Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap." At that, Booth fatally wounded Lincoln with a single shot and jumped onto the stage, breaking his leg in the process. He escaped, and a few days later he was located and killed. Lincoln was carried to the house across the street from the theatre, where he died at 7:22 AM Saturday morning, April 15. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton is reported to declared, "Now he belongs to the ages."
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