John Wilkes Booth traces the career of the celebrated actor and Confederate sympathiser who assassinated Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. It follows his theatrical background, radicalisation during the Civil War and the earlier kidnapping plot that developed into a coordinated attack on the Union government.
The narrative reconstructs the shooting at Ford’s Theatre, Booth’s escape through Maryland and Virginia and the federal manhunt that ended with his death. It also considers the conspirators’ trials and the assassination’s effect on national mourning and the difficult transition from war to Reconstruction.
