Abraham Lincoln's assassination was a malevolent ending to an already bitter and spiteful event in American history, the Civil War. John Wilkes Booth and his group of co-conspirators developed plans in the late summer of 1864 to only kidnap the President and take him the Confederate capital of Richmond and hold him in return for Confederate prisoners of war. Booth's group of conspirators: Samuel Arnold, Michael O"Laughlen, John Surratt, Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Mary Surratt (John's wife), made plans on March 17, 1865, to capture Lincoln, who was scheduled to see a play at a hospital in the outskirts of Washington. However, Lincoln changed plans and remained in the capital ("Booth" 98).
On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox. Two days later Lincoln delivered a speech in front of the White House to a group that had gathered outside. Booth, being present in this group, heard Lincoln suggest that certain voting rights should be granted to the blacks. Infuriated, being a racist, Booth's plans now turned from the kidnapping of Lincoln to his assassination (Lewis, Neely 115).
Three days before his assassination Lincoln told of a dream he had to his wife and one of his friends, Ward Hill Lamon. According to Lamon, the President said:.
"About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been waiting up for some important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed.