The man who shot Abraham Lincoln left a diary, a Confederate code and a bank draft behind him, and people have long argued over who, if anyone, stood behind him.
John Wilkes Booth was a successful stage actor, born in Bel Air, Maryland, in 1838, who sided with the Southern Confederacy when the Civil War began [1].
From late 1864 he gathered a small group, at first to kidnap President Lincoln and trade him for Confederate prisoners of war. On 14 April 1865, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., he shot Lincoln in the back of the head and cut the arm of Major Henry Rathbone, a guest in the box, with a hunting knife.
He had already wedged a wooden brace behind the box's outer door. After the shot he jumped to the stage; accounts disagree on what he shouted, and on whether he broke his leg in that jump or later when his horse fell. He talked his way across a guarded bridge out of the city, had his broken leg treated by Dr. Samuel Mudd in Maryland, and crossed the Potomac River into Virginia. On 26 April 1865 soldiers surrounded him in a tobacco barn on the Garrett farm and set it on fire; Sergeant Boston Corbett shot him without orders, and he died on the farmhouse porch about two hours later.
In the autumn or winter of 1864 he had been in Montreal, Canada, where Confederate agents secured him $1,500 in backing; a Confederate government code matching one found in the Richmond, Virginia, office of the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah P. Benjamin, was in his hotel trunk; and he died carrying a draft on a Montreal bank. Against a Confederate hand in the killing, the U.S. Army's history office says little evidence shows the Confederacy was fully aware of his plans, key witnesses who testified to Confederate involvement in 1865 were later found to have lied under oath, and a 2023 article by Jay Solomon and Jane Singer in Tablet magazine found no concrete evidence that Benjamin or the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, knew of the murder plan. How much the Confederate government knew stays open. His diary was not shown at the 1865 trial. In 1867 four men who had held it gave four accounts of its missing pages: Lafayette Baker, the Union intelligence officer who handed it over, said 16 or 18 pages had been cut out after it was handed to Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, though he called his memory 'quite indistinct'; Everton Conger, the officer who carried it, said some pages were already missing; Joseph Holt, the Army's chief lawyer, who kept it, thought Booth may have torn them out himself; and Stanton, who had received it, wrote that pages appeared cut out but no one could tell when or by whom. Those pages have not been found.
[Report #200] WHO. 'John Wilkes Booth was born on 10 May 1838, in Bel Air, Maryland.' (
history.army.mil) 'John Wilkes Booth, a successful actor from Bel Air, Maryland' (
history.army.mil). 'When the Civil War began, he immediately became a Confederate sympathizer.' (
history.army.mil)
THE PLAN. 'Those who the U.S. government ultimately considered to be responsible for the assassination included John Wilkes Booth, Mary E. J. Surratt, George A. Atzerodt, David E. Herold, Lewis T. Powell, John H. Surratt Jr., Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, Samuel B. Arnold, Michael O’Laughlen Jr., and Edman "Ned" Spangler.' (
history.army.mil) 'When Booth brought the conspirators together in late 1864, they sought at first not to kill Lincoln but only to kidnap him.' (
history.army.mil) 'They planned to hold the president for ransom in order to demand the release of Confederate prisoners of war (POWs).' (
history.army.mil) On 11 April 1865: 'Booth, who is in attendance, is particularly angered by the mention of giving black people the vote.' (
history.army.mil) 'This event seems to have solidified his desire to kill the president.' (
history.army.mil)
MONTREAL. Army staff-ride guide: 'Booth traveled north to Montreal, Canada' (
history.army.mil) in October 1864; 'Through these Canada-based agents, Booth secured $1,500 in financial backing as well as introductions to Confederate sympathizers' (
history.army.mil). George S. Bryan (1940): 'During the winter of 1864-1865 he was in Montreal.' (
archive.org) On his body at the end: 'a bill of exchange in triplicate' (
archive.org) 'drawn on the Montreal branch of the Ontario Bank' (
archive.org). 'The level of connection between Booth and official Confederate channels is still a matter of debate.' (
history.army.mil) Against a Confederate hand in the killing, the same Army guide: 'Although Booth met with Confederate agents in Montreal, Canada, months before the Lincoln assassination, little evidence has been found to prove that the Confederacy was fully aware of Booth’s plans to kidnap or kill Lincoln.' (
history.army.mil) William Eidson (1988): 'Eventually as those who testified of Confederate involvement in the assassination were found to have perjured themselves and as no additional evidence connected the Confederates with the crime, the grand conspiracy theory collapsed.' (
filsonhistorical.org) Jay Solomon and Jane Singer, Tablet, 2023: 'No concrete evidence has emerged in the historical record that conclusively proves Benjamin or Davis had any knowledge of Booth’s murderous plans.' (
web.archive.org) Held.
THE ATTACK. 'Booth then quietly used a wooden brace, which he had placed in the box earlier in the day, to barricade the outer door of the box.' (
history.army.mil) Rathbone, sworn 17 April: 'he wrested himself from the grasp, and made a violent thrust at the breast of deponent with a large knife.' (
hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu) 'Booth dropped the one-shot Derringer pistol and used his hunting knife to slash Rathbone on his left arm.' (
history.army.mil) What he shouted. Rathbone: 'At the same time deponent heard him shout some word, which deponent thinks was "Freedom!"' (
hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu) Army guide: 'On the stage, Booth held his bloody knife above his head and reportedly said, "Sic Semper Tyrannis!"' (
history.army.mil) His diary: 'I shouted Sic semper before I fired.' (
archive.org) Bryan: 'According to W. J. Ferguson, who has been much quoted by vari-ous writers, he shouted nothing at all.' (
archive.org) All held. The leg. Army guide: 'It is commonly believed that this fall broke Booth’s left leg, although some argue that he did not break his leg until later, when his horse fell on the way to Surratt’s tavern.' (
history.army.mil) Diary: 'In jumping broke my leg.' (
archive.org) Both held.
THE ESCAPE. 'Approximately half an hour after he had assassinated Lincoln, Booth reached a checkpoint at the Navy Yard Bridge where he was able to talk his way past the guards, who did not yet know of the assassination.' (
history.army.mil) 'In the early morning of 15 April, the two conspirators reached the home of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd near Bryantown, Maryland.' (
history.army.mil) 'Mudd treated Booth’s broken leg' (
history.army.mil). 'Booth and Herold then made their way back across the Potomac River to Virginia on 23 April.' (
history.army.mil)
THE DIARY. Bryan prints the entry: 'For six months we had worked to capture. But our cause being almost lost, something decisive & great must be done.' (
archive.org) 'Our country owed all her trouble to him' (
archive.org). Holt to the House Judiciary Committee, 1867: 'There was nothing in the diary which I could conceive would be testimony against any human being, or for any one except Booth him-self, and he being dead, I did not offer it to the Commission.' (
archive.org) Lafayette Baker, 'the high-ranking Union intelligence officer, Col. Lafayette C. Baker,' (
history.army.mil) before the House Judiciary Committee, February 1867, as Bryan reports it: 'Moreover, he believed that at one place six-teen or eighteen leaves had been cut out since the book was handed over to the Secretary. He admitted that he had had the book in his possession but "a very short time" and that his "recol-lection" was "quite indistinct."' (
archive.org) Baker’s own 1867 book on the diary: 'The diary kept by Booth after the murder of the Presi- dent, to which I referred in connection with the giving of the personal effects of Booth to the Secretary of War,' (
archive.org) Everton Conger, one of Baker’s 'two of my detective officers—Colonel Conger and Lieutenant Baker' (
archive.org), who carried the diary on 26 April 1865, testifying 13 May 1867: 'A few leaves were missing then: "There were some out and I think the same."' (
archive.org) Joseph Holt, 'Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Holt' (
history.army.mil), who held it, 2 April 1867: 'I think it not unlikely that the missing leaves contained current entries in regard to his personal matters which he did not choose to have exposed, and that he had torn them out himself; or there is another theory which may possibly have been the correct one; they may have contained entries which compromised his friends and co-conspirators, and he for that reason tore them out.' (
archive.org) Stanton, in writing to President Johnson, 14 May 1867: 'Immediately preceding the entries some pages appeared to have been cut out, but there was nothing indicating what had been written thereon or whether anything had been written, nor when or by whom they had been cut out.' (
archive.org) Four accounts, each from a person who had custody of the diary; each held. Who removed the leaves, and when: not found (Oct 2026); would settle: the missing leaves themselves.
THE CIPHER. 'A cipher code was in Booth’s trunk at the National Hotel —one of the official Confederate ciphers, identical with that found by Assistant Secretary Dana at Richmond in the office of J. P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State.' (
archive.org)
HIS DEATH. 'At approximately 0200 on 26 April, Jett guided Doherty and his men to the farm, and the troops surrounded the tobacco barn where Booth and Herold were hiding.' (
history.army.mil) 'Herold immediately surrendered, but Booth did not.' (
history.army.mil) 'the soldiers set fire to the barn, hoping this would persuade Booth to come out.' (
history.army.mil) 'fired his Army-issue Colt revolver into the barn, shooting Booth in the back of the neck and severing his spinal cord.' (
history.army.mil) Conger to Sergeant Boston Corbett: '"Why in hell did you shoot without orders?"' (
archive.org) Corbett: '"I aimed at his body," he said; "I did not want to kill him.' (
archive.org) 'Booth was dragged from the burning barn and died about two hours later on the front porch of the Garrett house at approximately 0700.' (
history.army.mil) 'Booth’s body was positively identified by an array of individuals including family members, friends, and a doctor who had previously operated on him' (
history.army.mil). 'In 1869, Booth’s body was exhumed, returned to his family, and reburied in an unmarked grave at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.' (
history.army.mil) The survival story: 'Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth (1907) claimed that Booth had not been killed and was still alive after 1865.' (
history.army.mil)
HELD. His last words in the box (Freedom / Sic semper / nothing): held. When the leg broke: held. When the diary leaves went, and who removed them (Baker, Conger, Holt and Stanton each quoted above): held; would settle: the missing leaves themselves, not found (Oct 2026). Montreal in October 1864 (Army guide) or the winter of 1864-1865 (Bryan): both held. How far the Confederate government knew his plans: see lincoln_assassination_accounts, none picked.
THE OCTOBER 2026 RESEARCH REPORT SAID a "Confederate cipher cylinder" was found in the trunk of Booth and that "eighteen missing pages" were cut out before the 1867 Surratt trial; its source (Bryan) says a cipher code, and gives the estimate by Baker of "sixteen or eighteen leaves" made to the House Judiciary Committee.