The Terrible Tragedy at Washington. Assassination of President Lincoln.
- Creator(s):
- Title:
- The Terrible Tragedy at Washington. Assassination of President Lincoln.
- Description:
- President Lincoln would not live to see the end of the Civil War. Less than a week after Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender, Lincoln was shot in the back of the head while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. He died the next day, on April 15, 1864—the first American president to be killed while in office. The above two pamphlets were printed within days of the assassination, before all the persons involved in the murder plot were identified and captured. The pamphlet to the left follows a nineteenth-century printing tradition in which a thick black border in newspapers and on stationery indicated bereavement. The pamphlet on the right was published by the popular press to provide updates on the assassination’s aftermath, sometimes sensationalistic.
- Source:
- Photograph by Vincent Dilio. Courtesy of David M. Rubenstein.
- Citation:
- The Terrible Tragedy at Washington. Assassination of President Lincoln. Philadelphia: Barclay & Co, [1865].