A wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin, and his accomplices. John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. He was a Confederate sympathizer who denounced the Lincoln Administration and was outraged by the South's defeat in the Civil War. He opposed the abolition of slavery and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to recently emancipated slaves. Booth and a group of co-conspirators planned to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward in a bid to help the Confederacy's cause. After the the shooting, Booth fled on horseback making his way to a farm in rural northern Virginia. He was tracked down and shot by Boston Corbett, a Union soldier who acted against orders. Eight other conspirators or suspects were tried and convicted, and four were hanged shortly thereafter.