Lincoln's+Assassination

 __Lincoln's Assassination__ By **CG ** & **WD ** [|(SOTH)]  
 * How would our country be different if Lincolns Assassination never occurred?

 Abraham Lincoln was killed April 14th 1865. He was attending a play with his wife along with two other guests at Fords Theater. John Wilkes Booth, an actor of the play Our American Cousin, thought that if he assassinated Lincoln it would benefit the Confederacy, (or South) even though the war was completed. Many Southern people held grudges against Lincoln and wanted a Southern president to take over the office of president. The act that Booth preformed against the North, would lessen the chance of a peace treaty with the North and South. ~CG SOTH~ If Abraham Lincoln had not been killed we would have more history on our 16th president. We would not know how to protect our presidents and to watch out for potential threats against our president. Lincoln's assassination brought on more security to new presidents and politically famous people.~CG-SOTH This is an important question for American history because President Lincoln got assassinated early in his second term... which means that we didn't get to see all of things he would have done as the 16th President and how he maybe would have changed our country. The country could have gone downhill or uphill depending if Lincoln never got assassinated. Ever since Lincoln got assassinated there is more security and protection for the Presidents.. even though more got killed after Lincoln. ~WD-SOTH  
 * __Why Lincoln's Assassination is important to American History:__** [[image:abraham-lincoln-625.jpg align="right" caption="Abraham Lincoln -16th President"]]
 * __Primary Sources__**

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">On the night of Lincoln's Assassination, Mary (his wife) was complaining of not feeling good. Mary wanted to go home but Lincoln insisted on going. If Lincoln would have stayed home or gone home we would still have our 16th president. Into Our American Cousin, the door to the presidential booth was unlocked and the guard stood watching the door armed. When John Wilkes Booth asked to come inside and see the president. The guard let him come into the booth, not knowing what task Booth was going to perform. Booth entered and shot the president with out the guard knowing. When Booth tried to escape we caught his leg on a banner when he was jumping down from the balcony of the where our president lies dieing. Through the injury Booth broke his leg and tried to escape. He escaped with his comrad on horses. After three days of hiding, they were found, trialed, convicted and put on death row. He then was hung for the murder of Abraham Lincoln. ~CG-SOTH Primary Source: [|http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com.lincol.htm] <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 255);"> In life we make many bad decisions which cause an effect we disagree with. We look back on our decisions and wish we could change it. This is probably how Lincoln felt the night he got assassinated. Lincoln and his wife, Mary, got tickets to the performance of //Our American Cousin// playing at Fords Theater. Mary didn't feel so well that night so she demanded to not got to Fords Theater. But President Lincoln persuaded her into going. During the 3rd act, a guy by the name of John Wilkes Booth stepped into the box and shot Lincoln behind his left ear and went through his left rain wounding him badly. He went across the street to Mr. Peterson's house. The house became overflowing with people for Lincoln's cabinet, friends, and family. Lincoln died the next morning.
 * __Answer:__**

John Booth, guy who assassinated Lincoln, had plans to kidnap Lincoln. His plan was that he would capture him and hold him hostage until he would change how he was ruling the government. He then organized a group to help him carry out his plan on the 17 of March at the play //Still Waters Run Deep//. But Lincoln ended up not going..... so Booth killed him at Fords Theater instead. If Lincoln could look back at this, he would probably regret going... if he just listened to his wife and went home none of this would have ever happened.

Gideon Welles served a Secretary of the Navy. He was told that Lincoln had been shot so he rushed over to the Peterson House. He asked the doctor about how much longer President Lincoln would live and the doctor replied," Might live another 3 hours." Read Welles story about Lincolns death scene at this [|site].

When Lincoln was assassinated, there were many city attacks. Also there are towns named after him and are focused around his death, he is on the US penny, and Fords Theater got destroyed. Our country might be different today if Lincoln was never killed because a lot less battles and wars would have occurred causing the US to be in less debt and not hurting as much with trade and many lives would have been saved. Also Andrew Johnson took over to be President and Lincoln would have done different things so if Lincoln made such an impact before his death he would have done the same if he wasn't killed. (WD-SOTH)



<span style="font-size: 87%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Websites included: http://www.ustreas.gov/uss/protection.shtml [] http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com.lincol.htm http://memory.loc.gov/amman/alhtml/alrinrt/html http://www.nps.gov/history/logcabin/html/al5/html <span style="font-size: 77%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> []