| April 14 |  |
Editor says, what if Mrs Lincoln had enjoyed the play? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the August 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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It is 14th April 1865, and Abraham Lincoln is seated in the presidential box at Ford's Theater, watching "Our American Cousin". He has gone there with some misgivings, having had a nightmare three days earlier, which ended with his being told that an assassin had killed the president. He joins with the audience in laughing at all the jokes, but his nightmare has made him alert, and he is holding his pistol clutched in his hand. When he hears a movement behind him, he wheels to see John Wilkes Booth raising his gun.
Happy Endings Part 3
Death of an Actor But Booth's intended target is well acquainted with firearms, having served as a captain in the Black Hawk War. As Booth takes careful aim, Lincoln quickly raises his own weapon and fires straight at him.
Soon everyone is screaming in horror, having heard Lincoln's bodyguard, Major Rathbone, howling that, "The president has murdered John Wilkes Booth!" Lincoln keeps shouting that Booth had been trying to kill him first. But, with his last breath, the consummate performer whispers that he had brought his gun to help protect the president, when he had heard the alarming rumors of an assassins' conspiracy against the top government leaders.
The handsome actor had become a "matinee idol" during his lifetime, but now he is even more popular in his death. This is due largely to the newspaper cartoon that shows him dying on the floor while the president looms over him, still firing his gun with his homely face twisted in mindless rage. To avoid the scandal of a criminal trial and an impeachment hearing, Lincoln agrees to resign, and winds up eking out a living in his old career as a country lawyer. But somehow, as he later confides to Mary, he still feels he did the right thing.
Entry posted by
Jackie Rose
© Jackie Rose, 2011-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Happy Endings Source: Wikipedia Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Mary Lincoln, Ford's Theatre, Assassination, Premature Death.
~ But Booth would have fallen to the floor once Lincoln had shot him, so there would have been no escape. (And once more, I would like to explain that Cassandra and Jackie Rose are the same person, depending on which e-mail service I am using at the moment).
~ It might've given the Radical Republicans upset by Lincoln's soft treatment of the South during Reconstruction political ground to start an impeachment hearing. While it probably wouldn't have gone anywhere, it would be a stain on his reputation (which wouldn't have the resounding boom of the assassination). Lincoln, if suffering from the various disorders people suspect, might be very sick or dying by the end of his term.
~ Actually, as I understand it, Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater on the evening of April 14, not April 15; he died early in the morning on the fifteenth. A one-day delay in his attending the play might have derailed the assassination attempt, especially if rumors of a plot surfaced in the interim. Fixed - thanks. Ed
~ Good point, Jeff! And Rep. Thaddeus Steven would have been just the man to lead the impeachment, since he was about as radical a Republican and abolitionist as they came. And hey...what if this had helped lead to his own election as president, with Reconstruction still going on? The mind boggles!
~ And Eric, you are right, of course. I just looked at the dates on Wikipedia and should have remembered that he died the morning after he was shut. Blush.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
