On this day, March 20, in 1865, a plan by John Wilkes Booth to abduct President Abraham Lincoln was ruined when Lincoln failed to show up at the Soldier’s Home in Northwest Washington.
Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, learned that the president was visiting a hospital near the Soldier’s Home, and hatched a plan to kidnap Lincoln and smuggle him to Richmond.
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Booth and his team lay in waiting on the roadside, but Lincoln never showed. The president had changed plans at the last moment to attend a reception at the National Hotel in Washington, where, coincidently, Booth was staying.
Booth’s frustration over his mission’s failure is believed to have contributed to his decision to assassinate Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre a month later.
— Scott McCabe
