John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was born in Maryland in 1838. He was the ninth of ten children, and studied shortly at the military academy at St. Timothy's Hall, but dropped out after his father died in 1858. Instead, he took up acting. Booth had a series of very successful plays and performances, often assuming the lead role. He was known for his good looks and became popular among women who attended his shows. All this masked an opinionated, highly volatile young man who had a fierce sense of Southern pride. When the Civil War came around, he refused to volunteer with the Confederates because he had promised his mother otherwise. Still, he felt the need to contribute, and the surrender of the Confederacy was too much for him to bare. He hatched a plan to kill president Lincoln and followed through with it in what would be the first presidential assassination in our history.
"Tell my mother, I died for my country." -John Wilkes Booth
"Tell my mother, I died for my country." -John Wilkes Booth