April 14, 1865

[Turdacious]

From the original AP dispatch:

President Lincoln and wife visited Ford's Theatre this evening for the purpose of witnessing the performance of 'The American Cousin.' It was announced in the papers that Gen. Grant would also be present, but that gentleman took the late train of cars for New Jersey.

The theatre was densely crowded, and everybody seemed delighted with the scene before them. During the third act and while there was a temporary pause for one of the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President's box, waving a long dagger in his right hand, exclaiming, 'Sic semper tyrannis,' and immediately leaped from the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across to the opposite side, made his escape amid the bewilderment of the audience from the rear of the theatre, and mounted a horse and fled.

The groans of Mrs. Lincoln first disclosed the fact that the President had been shot, when all present rose to their feet rushing towards the stage, many exclaiming, 'Hang him, hang him!' The excitement was of the wildest possible description...

There was a rush towards the President's box, when cries were heard — 'Stand back and give him air!' 'Has anyone stimulants?' On a hasty examination it was found that the President had been shot through the head above and back of the temporal bone, and that some of his brain was oozing out.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/91fed035 ... assination

[Protobuilder]

OK, and then what happened next?

[Beer Jew]

One can only hope that in 30 years time, people will remember today as the day Phaedrus left the internet forever.

[TerryB]

One can only hope that in 30 years time, people will remember today as the day Phaedrus left the internet forever.

:snigger

[Protobuilder]

One can only hope that in 30 years time, people will remember today as the day Phaedrus left the internet forever.

I know you didn't mean it and are probably simply angry at something so accept your apology.

[bennyonesix]

I can't keep my mouth shut any longer.

Lincoln was one of the worst legitimately elected leaders of a country ever.

I mean, just looking at the facts it would be hard to conclude he was anything other than the most murderously incompetent.

620,000 military deaths (the most conservative estimate) and hundreds of thousands more from disease and starvation. All under his watch. All because his method for winning the war was to give the command to different incompetents until the South killed itself into an inability to resist...

He basically killed off a generation of Americans.

I think the guy was legitimately insane.

[TerryB]

Can an insane man adjudicate another man insane?

:ponder

:philosorapter

[bennyonesix]

Takes one to know one you stup[id moron.