John Wilkes Booth

"Sic Semper Tyrannus!" --Booth, seconds after shooting Lincoln.

John Wilkes Booth was the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

Background
John Wilkes Booth was born on April 26, 1838 in Bel Air, Maryland, the illegitimate son of British Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth and his mistress Mary Ann Holmes. Booth followed in his father's footsteps and became an actor.

As a young boy, John Wilkes Booth was athletic and popular. He become skilled at horsemanship and fencing. Booth attended the Bel Air Academy, where the headmaster described Booth as "[n]ot deficient in intelligence, but disinclined to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered him".

From 1850–1851, Booth attended the Milton Boarding School for Boys in Sparks, Maryland, which was run by Quakers. Later, he attended St. Timothy's Hall, an Episcopal military academy in Catonsville, Maryland when he was 13 years old. He left a year later after his father's death.

While he was still attending the Milton Boarding School, a Gypsy fortune-teller read his palm and predicted a grim destiny for Booth, telling him that he would have a grand but short life, doomed to die young and "meeting a bad end".

On August 14, 1855, in the supporting role of the Earl of Richmond in Richard III at Baltimore's Charles Street Theatre, Booth became an actor.

Civil War
While Booth was staring in Albany, New York on April 12, 1861, civil war broke out between the United States and the Confederate States of America. Booth was a quick supporter of the Confederacy, calling their cause "heroic". Local citizens were so enraged that they demanded him being banned from stage for making "treasonable statements". Albany's drama critics just gave him rave reviews. One called him a genius, praising his acting for "never fail[ing] to delight with his masterly impressions".

Booth ventured into business in the early 1860s as well as acting.

On December 2, 1859, Booth attended the hanging of John Brown, executed for leading a raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virgina (now West Virginia). As an anti-abolitionist joined the Richmond Grays, a volunteer militia of 1,500 men traveling to Charles Town for Brown's hanging, preventing anyone from rescuing Brown from being hanged.

After Civil War broke out, many pro-secession people of Maryland allied with the Confederacy. In response to this, President Abraham Lincoln made a writ of habeas corpus and imposed martial law in Baltimore and other areas of Maryland, imprisoning pro-secession Maryland political leaders and stationing Federal troops in Baltimore. Newspaper editorials and many Marylanders, including Booth, agreed with Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's decision in Ex parte Merryman that Lincoln's actions were unconstitutional.

Kidnapping Plot
"I have begun to deem myself a coward and to despise my own existence."

In 1864, the Confederacy's chances of survival was becoming slim. Booth was angered by the thought of Abraham Lincoln being re-elected for President in the 1864 election. After U.S. General Ulysess S. Grant made the decision to stop the exchange of prisoners of war, Booth recruited Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael O'Laughlen, Lewis Powell, and John Surratt in a plot to kidnap President Lincoln, deliver him to Confederate Army and hold him hostage unless the Union agreed to release all Confederate POWs from Federal and military prisons.

On March 17 1865, Booth learned that President Lincoln would be attending a performance of the play Still Waters Run Deep at a hospital near Soldier's Home. Booth assembled his team on a stretch of road near the Soldier's Home in their attempt to kidnap Lincoln en route to the hospital. However, their plan went astray as the president did not appear at the Soldier's Home. Booth later learned that Lincoln had changed his plans at the last moment, attending a reception and giving a speech at the National Hotel in Washington. Coincidentally, Booth was residing in the same hotel.

Assassination of Lincoln
On April 11, 1865, Booth was in the crowd outside the White House when Lincoln gave a speech from his window. Booth declared that it would be the last speech Lincoln would ever make in his life.

On April 12, 1865, Booth heard that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia to General Grant. Booth told Louis J. Weichmann that he was done with the stage and that the only play he wanted to perform in was Venice Preserv'd.

Venice Preserv'd is about an assassination plot. With Lee's surrender and Union occupation for Richmond, kidnapping Lincoln was no longer an option. His goals were changed to assassination.

Booth and his conspirators made a plan to decapitate or severely cripple the Union government by assassinating its three head political leaders, President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.

On April 14, 1865, Booth and his conspirators launched their attack. Booth successfully managed to kill President Lincoln, also stabbing Major Henry Rathbone in his escape. Jumping off the balcony, he landed on the stage, breaking his ankle. Raising his bloodied knife, Booth yelled "Sic Semper Tyrannus!", Latin for "Thus Always to Tyrants". Some have speculated that he said "Sic Semper Tyrannus! The South is avenged!"

George Atzerodt, the would-be-assassin of Vice President Andrew Johnson, lost his nerve and left.

Lewis Powell was assigned to assassinate the Seward. He came up the stairs, and attempted to shoot Frederick W. Seward, the Secretary of State's son, but the gun misfired. Bludgeoning the boy, Seward burst into Seward's room and stabbed him. Seward's splint was the only thing that prevented the blade from penetrating his jugular vein.

Death
Booth and all of his co-conspirators escaped, but were eventually hunted down and captured. Booth was killed in a barn in Port Royal, Virginia.

Known Victims

 * April 14, 1865
 * Abraham Lincoln
 * Henry Rathbone

On Criminal Minds
Booth was mentioned in Somebody's Watching.