April 2015: Honoring Lincoln on the 150th Anniversary of His Assassination
April 14, 2015, is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
He was shot during an evening performance at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC, by John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer, and Lincoln died the next morning. The attack came only five days after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
What made Booth want to kill the president?
To find out, we interviewed Civil War expert Adam Goodheart, author of “1861” and the upcoming “1865” — two books that capture the essence of that era.
A historian, essayist, and journalist, Goodheart’s articles have appeared in National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine. Goodheart is also the director of Washington College’s C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He splits his time living there and in Washington, DC.
Scroll down to read our Q&A, and click here to listen to the entire interview as a podcast on the Grateful American™ Radio Show. And be sure to watch the recent appearance of Goodheart and Smith on News Channel 8’s “Let’s Talk Live,” which is posted on Grateful American™ TV Show. — David Bruce Smith, Founder, Grateful American™ Foundation, and Hope Katz Gibbs, Executive Producer, Grateful American™ Series