Lincoln Assassination 151 Years Later: Virginia's Role in Manhunt

One-hundred fifty-one years ago this week, the country was on edge after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln was shot April 14, 1865 and died the next morning, the hunt was on for his assassin.

Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth had shot the 56-year old president during a performance at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. and was on the loose. Booth had made his way to Maryland and then to Virginia, crossing the Potomac on April 22.

Virginia's role in the manhunt for Lincoln's killer is featured in a tour coming up Saturday, April 30.

The "John Wilkes Booth Escape Tour" explores the path Booth took after he crossed the Potomac into Virginia, and includes a stop at Belle Grove, where Union cavalry stopped during their pursuit of Booth.

The daylong tour will end at the site of Garrett Farm, where Booth died in a tobacco barn in the Port Royal area of Virginia.

Author Michael W. Kauffman will lead the tour. Kauffman is the author of "American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies," as well as "In the Footsteps of an Assassin."

After Lincoln's death, his body was transported back to his hometown for burial after services in the nation's capital. The Lincoln funeral car was built in Alexandria in early 1865 as a private traveling car, according to the Library of Congress. The only time Lincoln traveled in the car was when his body was returned to Springfield for burial.

Also in Alexandria, four civilian employees of the Quartermaster Corps—Peter Carroll, Samuel N. Gosnell, George W. Huntington, and Christopher Farley, who drowned crossing the Rappahannock River in pursuit of Booth on April 24, 1865—are buried in Section A, Graves 3174-3177 at Alexandria National Cemetery. The Federal Government erected a bronze tablet atop a granite boulder base in 1922 to honor the men.

The cemetery is located on 1450 Wilkes St. in Alexandria; the street is named for Englishman John Wilkes.

PHOTO of John Wilkes Booth by Alexander Gardner, Library of Congress; President Abraham Lincoln's railroad funeral car/ S.M. Fassett, photographer, Chicago.