assassination of Abraham Lincoln

A new series dramatizes Edwin Stanton's hunt for John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators in the aftermath of the president’s 1865 assassination.

A new television miniseries depicts the pursuit of Lincoln’s killer. But the public appetite for tales about the chase began even as it was happening.

Suspected of orchestrating the Lincoln assassination, the South’s most prominent Jew escaped to London to start a new life as a high-powered lawyer.

Almon F. Rockwell's newly resurfaced journals, excerpted exclusively here, offer an incisive account of the assassinated presidents' final moments.

How the insurrection on January 6th brought a legendary assassin back to life.

April 15 may be Tax Day, but for some, it’s the 14th of April that’s notorious.

Meet Boston Corbett, the self-castrated hatmaker who was John Wilkes Booth's Jack Ruby.

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.

A new history of spiritualism during the Civil War era suggests an unexpected link between the Lincoln family and that of John Wilkes Booth.

Why abolitionist Lydia Maria Child raged at President Lincoln’s political calculations.

Were the Knights of the Golden Circle responsible for Lincoln’s assassination? No one knows, but far-right secret societies always draw power from speculation.

We compiled Reconstruction-era documents to identify 1,250 formerly enslaved Black Americans given land—only to have it returned to their enslavers.

It’s important to remember why analogies to Jesus should stay out of the political realm. The results are always ugly.

Shelby Foote, failed novelist and closeted member of the Tribe, turned the Civil War into a masterpiece of American literature.

Soon after he was elected, Abraham Lincoln received a rather bizarre letter.

The Natchez USCT not only contributed to the war effort but was essential to establishing a post-war monument honoring President Lincoln and emancipation.

“It is a better likeness of Lincoln than anything in plaster, stone, marble, or bronze that I have ever seen."

How the self-proclaimed "First Widow" used her celebrity to influence public opinion.

We must be cautious of the inclination to find a “usable history” that proves those points we want to prove, that reinforces the lessons we want reinforced.

On the aesthetics and history of the Freedman’s Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Revisionist biographers have given us countless perspectives, from Honest Abe to Killer Lincoln. Is there a version that’s true to his time and attuned to ours?

A profile of UVA graduate R.T.W. Duke Jr., who presided over the 1924 dedication of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville.

Was the impeachment of Andrew Johnson a matter of national principles? Or an affair of pragmatic politics?

Johnson’s impeachment was driven by his refusal to rid the country of the lingering effects of slavery.

Starting the process will rein in a president undermining American ideals—and bring the debate into Congress, where it belongs.

The America that emerged out of the Civil War was meant to be a radically more equal place. What went wrong?

The notorious union-busting agency has resurfaced in a telecommunications labor dispute, showing how it's adapted to the 21st century.

But her memoir caused a rift with Mary Todd Lincoln.

Once John E. Washington started to dig, he found an incredible wealth of untapped knowledge about the 16th president.

One famous image of the president features a body that isn't his.