John Wilkes Booth

Born May 10, 1838, into Maryland's prominent Booth theatrical family, he built a career as a noted stage actor while nursing Confederate sympathies and denouncing Lincoln over the abolition of slavery. He and a small group first plotted to kidnap the president to aid the Southern cause, then shifted to murder—targeting Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. On April 14, 1865, four days after Robert E. Lee's surrender, Booth shot Lincoln once in the back of the head at Ford's Theatre, convinced General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee meant the war…