The other four were sent to a remote prison island off the coast of Florida. Four were sentenced to death and hung, including the first woman ever executed by the U.S. Eight others were convicted of being conspirators with Booth. The gang leader - 27-year-old John Wilkes Booth - was tracked down and shot to death by Union soldiers in Virginia. In the end, they managed to kill Lincoln and seriously injure Secretary of State William Seward. Their goal was to decapitate and destabilize the federal government in hopes of forcing a settlement to the war that would avoid the South's total defeat. It involves a gang of Confederate operatives and sympathizers that first plotted to kidnap the President and, when that failed, decided to murder not only him, but the Vice President and Secretary of State as well. Larger photo.īut in his appearance at the Camden County Historical Society, Lincoln scholar Hugh Boyle made clear that the real story is a sprawling epic. In the century and a half since it happened, populist history has largely boiled down the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to the story of a single perpetrator: John Wilkes Booth.įour of the eight convicted for participating in the conspirary to assassinate Lincoln in April of 1865 died on the gallows three months later. THE GANG THAT KILLED ABRAHAM LINCOLN A Kidnap Conspiracy That Turned Into MurderĬAMDEN, N.J.
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