Final answer:
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, killed Lincoln at Ford's Theater and was later killed by Union troops while on the run. This act was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the Union government.
Step-by-step explanation:
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, just 5 days after the South's surrender at the end of the Civil War. This event took place on April 14, 1865, when Lincoln was attending a play titled Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. The assassination was part of a larger conspiracy orchestrated by Booth and other Confederate sympathizers to destabilize the Union government. Booth was a staunch defender of the Confederacy and was driven by his radical beliefs, including white supremacy. He not only killed the president but also set in motion an attempt to eliminate other key figures in the Union government.
The impact of Lincoln's assassination was immediate and profound, especially in the North, where it caused widespread hysteria and further emboldened militant Republicans to pursue harsher policies during Reconstruction. Despite Booth's efforts, his actions ultimately failed to revive the Confederate cause.