John Wikes Booth and the Lincoln Assassination Theories

JOHN WIKES BOOTH AND THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION THEORIES
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The death of Abraham Lincoln came as a great shock to Americans especially to the people of the North who were only five days into the celebration of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender and marking the end to the civil strife. The fateful assassination of the 16th president of the United States on April 14, 1865, on a Good Friday, remains a hotly contested discussion with multiple conspiracies making it hard to differentiate fact from fiction. Competent evidence, however, confirms that John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators plotted and ultimately killed Abraham Lincoln. Despite the many misconceptions about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor at the height of his acting career and a known sympathizer, assembled he accomplishes readying to kidnap the president and hold him in exchange for Confederate prisoners held in prison camps in the North. A mere actor, one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite actors and at the height of acting career, orchestrated an atrocious crime that changed the course of history bringing the entire nation to emotional moments of mourning, grief, and confusion giving birth to multiple misinformed conspiracy theories about the death of the president.
Throughout the history after the assassination, some Americans, as well as well researched historians, find it difficult and unbelievable that the well-orchestrated assassination was done by none other than John Wilkes Booth, a theatre actor whom Abraham Lincoln adored. John Wilkes Booth is described as a carefree, jovial, lighthearted and captivating young man whose actions were “nothing like his terrible dead suggests.” His brilliant personality, simplicity, and sweet-disposition as a young actor made John Wilkes Booth a favorite of many, including the Ford Family. The lovable personality portrayed by John Wilkes Booth made it difficult to believe he would ever do such a thing, even among his acquaintances. The saddening news traveled far and wide bringing a moment of national calamity and public confusion following the death of the president and swearing of Andrew Johnson as the 17th president almost immediately. Immediately after the inauguration of Andrew Johnson as the new president, the then Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton that Lincoln’s assassination had been a plot “to murder the President, his cabinet, and leading Union generals.” Stanton postulated that Jefferson hatched the plan to assassinate President Lincoln.[Clarke, Asia Booth, and Terry Alford - John Wilkes Booth (1999)] [Frank, Seymour J- "The Conspiracy to Implicate the Confederate Leaders in Lincoln's Assassination." (1954)] [Ibid. p. 629]
Davis and other Southern leaders in a war retaliation attack against the South. Edwin M. Stanton appointed himself as the prime minister and took over the affairs of the government. Without giving Jefferson Davis and other Southern leaders a chance to respond to the purported assassination plot, Stanton used the state resources lavishly to support his assassination theory. Using the state resources, Stanton’s assistants offered bribes and other rewards to a g...