Why did John Wilkes Booth assassinate Lincoln?
John Wilkes Booth was an actor and a Confederate sympathizer who plotted to overthrow the Union government by assassinating Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Abraham Lincoln died in 1865, at the age of 56 in Washington D.C John Wilkes Booth killed President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 at Ford’s Theater. ” Our American Cousin ” was the name of the play President Lincoln Attended when John Wilkes Booth shot him.