Summary Of The Play 'Our American Cousin' At Ford's Theater

Abraham Lincoln was the United States sixteenth President. Lincoln had deep feelings for peace and though that it was best reached through talking and calm manners than war and bickering, so when he was president before the Civil War and saw all the arguing that was going on he tried to solve it with a calm demeanor but that did not work and the States went to war against each other. After the election of Abraham Lincoln North Carolina seceded from the Union. Many states followed North Carolina and others waited until the Battle of Fort Sumter where on April 13, 1861 Major Robert Anderson surrendered his arms to General P.G.T. Beauregard. That was just the beginning of the Civil War. After a few years of fighting the last Confederate General had surrendered to the Union starting the era or
Before the play Lincoln had a meeting with Grant and once the meeting got out Grant sorrowfully proclaimed that he would not be able to attend the play. Lincoln after that was hesitant to go to the theater in fear of the statement told to him by a friend that somebody might try to shoot him down in the streets. Lincoln's wife pressed him to not turn the down invitation and he finally accepted to go. During the third act of the play while the couple was sitting up in the Presidential Box and holding hands, John Wilkes Booth, a Southerner who thought that he does the right thing for his fellow southerners shot Lincoln in the back of the head . Booth who had been an actor himself had gotten access into the Presidential Box by facial recognition. He had one of his helpers stab the man next to Abraham Lincoln until his bone showed. Then he leaped out of the box landing on the stage he broke his shin with the fall but hurriedly escaped out of the back door before anybody could catch