Lincoln Assassination and the Derringer Pistol

Lincoln Assassination and the Derringer Pistol

Introduction

In the account of history, an actor known as John Wilkes Booth earned an immoral status of firing the great president of America, Abraham Lincoln. This first event of assassination of an American President was broadly recorded in the history of America with regard to political and social repercussions, and ultimately the death of Lincoln became the reason of splitting the greatest nation. The paper is designed to describe the responses of American people over the doom of Abraham Lincoln and the role of Derringer pistol in the assassination occurred on 15April, 1865, in Washington, DC.

Discussion Analysis

It has been observed that the Derringer pistol was again become a piece of interest in Washington, 132 years after the death of Abraham. The United States National Park Service and Park Police in June 1997 reached the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the evaluation of Derringer pistol used by Booth in Abraham's assassination. The legitimacy of pistol that is exhibited at the Theatre National Historic Site of Ford in Washington, which was depicted into the issue during the judgment of a New England estate that belongs to the member of burglary(Kunhardt, 1965). This estate operates entirely in the northeastern U.S between the ending part of 1960s and the beginning of 1980s. In the late 1960s, it was proposed that members of this ring were alleged for replacing the original pistol of Booth with a replica pistol. On that time, the security system at the Theatre of Ford was unsophisticated than that in current period. According to the records of Curator, the pistol of Booth was not able to solve the issue of genuineness (U.S. Department of the Interior). The laboratory of FBI was consequently attributed to fix beyond the sensible doubt that whether Derringer pistol is the same pistol which displayed at Ford's Theatre or not? (www.fbi.gov).

Background of the event

On April 14, 1865, the assassination of Lincoln was taken place when Mary Todd Lincoln and President Abraham Lincoln along with Major Henry Reed Rathbone and Clara Harris, his fiancée, attended a play displaying at the Theatre of Ford in Washington, DC. Around 10:15pm, John Wilkes Booth, an actor made his way to the state box, which was hold by President and his fellows. Booth entered in the sitting area without facing any challenge, and directed the muzzle of Derringer pistol at the back side of Abraham's head, and fired him in a single shot (U.S. Department of the Interior). Between this motion of chaos, Booth threw his pistol and stabbed Major Rathbone with a knife in his arm. After that he arched over the barrier of the state box to the stage side, and got away from the backside of the theater on his horse (Kunhardt, 1965).

Unconscious Abraham was carried from the Theatre of Ford to the house of Petersen, which is an assembly of boarding rooms that situate crossways the street from the theater. On the 15 April morning, Lincoln died under ...