The Lincoln assassination conspirators

As a nation mourns, eight men await judgment

Alex Q. Arbuckle

1865

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/L-6ENhpzLJM0fzXi3kqZa83C_Es=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F2%2Fconspirators_8.jpg" caption="Lewis Powell, also known as Lewis Payne, who attempted to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward." credit="Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress" alt=""]

On April 14, 1865, at the climax of a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., actor John Wilkes Booth entered Abraham Lincoln’s private balcony and shot the president in the back of the head. He leaped to the stage below, shouting “Sic semper tyrannis” — “thus always to tyrants" — before fleeing into the night. Booth’s brazen murder of the president was the only successful part of a larger, hastily organized conspiracy to kill the president, vice president and secretary of state simultaneously, with the aim of throwing the Union government into disarray just as the Civil War was ending.The conspirators had originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln and try to ransom the release of Confederate prisoners, but that plan was rendered moot with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and effective end of the war on April 9, 1865.An embittered and furious Booth was picking up his mail at Ford’s Theatre five days later when he heard that Lincoln would be in attendance that night. He hurriedly hatched a plan — he would kill Lincoln, George Azterodt would kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Lewis Powell, aided by David Herold, would kill Secretary of State William Seward.

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/z1CXZ3Zostkxdn2EW-YvjCPaKJE=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F2%2Fconspirators_23.jpg" caption="A man (name undisclosed) arrested on suspicion of being a conspirator." credit="Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress" alt=""]

While Booth completed his task and fled south, Azterodt lost his nerve and spent the night drinking. Powell broke into Seward’s home with a revolver and knife and viciously injured the secretary and several others, but failed to kill his target.After a 12-day manhunt, Booth was surrounded and killed at a farm in Virginia. The other failed conspirators, along with many innocent suspects, were rounded up one by one and imprisoned, mostly aboard the monitors Montauk and Saugus at the Washington Navy Yard.Beginning on April 27, the conspirators and suspects aboard these ships were photographed by experienced Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner, who had also photographed Lincoln seven times.As they awaited trial (and for several, execution), the prisoners were seated in the sunlight on the iron deck and asked to assume various poses while contemplating their fates.

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/P3558csGanpoMoI2rRhBnocA_SY=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F2%2Fconspirators_17.jpg" caption="George Azterodt, who was recruited into the conspiracy to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, but backed out and spent the night drinking in a hotel bar. He was hanged in July 1865." credit="Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress" alt=""]

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/MFcsOls9aMLC-w2GUHoCYr4T6jA=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F2%2Fconspirators_18.jpg" caption="Michael O'Laughlen, an ex-Confederate soldier and childhood friend of Booth. Though his role in the conspiracy is unclear, he was sentenced to life in prison and died in 1867." credit="Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress" alt=""]

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/XS2zvJrTQO9Hp0g9tWc7gvH0Jzs=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F2%2Fconspirators_9.jpg" caption="" credit="Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress" alt=""]

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/-MCzqVHZ06_yIyhUzzYSQs2pB_s=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F2%2Fconspirators_3.jpg" caption="Conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt are placed in nooses at the Washington Arsenal." credit="Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress" alt=""]

[img src="http://i.amz.mshcdn.com/WvwJJKOe4Dr_TE2lbByYGaqLVcE=/fit-in/1440x1440/uploads%2F2016%2F6%2F2%2Fconspirators_5.jpg" caption="The rocking chair used by President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre." credit="Library of Congress" alt=""]