Katelin petersen biography of abraham lincoln
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WASHINGTON — Exactly 150 years ago, during the overnight hours of April 14-15, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s…
February 22, 2025 | (Jason Fraley)
WASHINGTON — Exactly 150 years ago, during the overnight hours of April 14-15, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre, changing the course of American history.
Now, for one special moment in time, the historical arc bends to align 1865 and 2015 with 36 hours of free activities continuously from 9 a.m. Tuesday to 9 p.m. Wednesday between Ford’s Theatre and the Petersen House across the street, where the president died.
“We’re just offering you a very intimate look at an epic event,” says Patrick Pearson, director of artistic programming at Ford’s Theatre. “You can see the contents of his pockets; you can see his top hat; you can be in the theatre overnight at the time right after he was shot; you can be in the Petersen House at the time when he was dying. … It’s incredibly unprecedented access. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. … You have this cross-section of 1865 and 2015, and hopefully it makes us all realize how we’ve grown, how we’ve changed and how we continue to grow and change.&
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Friday, April 14, began as a glorious day. Five days earlier Robert E. Lee surrendered the once mighty Army of Northern Virginia, now a ragged remnant of its once proud self, to Union general Ulysses S. Grant at the village of Appomattox Court House in Virginia
To Lincoln the war was all but over. To John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer and Lincoln hater, hope for a dying cause was still very much alive. “Our cause, being almost lost,” Booth would write, “something decisive and great must be done.” The something decisive and great would be his plan to decapitate the Federal government, thus buying precious time for the Confederacy to regroup.
Having plotted for eight months to kidnap the President and present him to Confederate leaders as a bargaining chip in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners of war, Booth turned to a more desperate plan following the fall of Richmond. Targeting the President, vice president and secretary of state for assassination, Booth set his plan in motion in the waning hours of Good Friday. Booth assigned the murder of the vice president and secretary of state to three of his cohorts. He would reserve Lincoln for himself.
FOX: ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S LAST DAY ALIVE
Shortly after 10 p.m., Booth entered
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Opportunities for Students
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