1. A Most Uncivil War!
Part V
Losing a Leader

2. The worst manpower drain of all occurred on April 14, 1865, just five days after Lee surrendered to grant at Appomattox.

3. It was Good Friday, and President Lincoln had decided to go to Ford’s Theater in Washington to see the comedy Our American Cousin.

4. At about 10:30 p.m., during the second act, an actor and Southern sympathizer named John Wilkes Booth snuck into the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the back of the head.

6. The presidential box today

7. View from underneath the balcony

8. Lincoln was taken to a lodging house across the street from the theater, where he lingered until the next morning and then died, surrounded by several members of his cabinet.

11. Peterson Lodging House

12. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

13. Booth was from a prominent American acting family.

14. He was born in Maryland and was a white supremacist who had plotted to kidnap Lincoln and use him as a bargaining chip to end the war on better terms for the South.

15. But Lee’s surrender changed his plot to assassination.

16. Booth made his escape from the theater after stabbing a Union officer who was in Lincoln’s box and jumping to the stage, breaking his leg in the attempt.

19. He was cornered in a Virginian barn a week later, and was shot to death or killed himself – it was never clear which.

20. Four of Booth’s fellow conspirators were hanged.

21. Four others were convicted of helping the conspirators after the fact and were sentenced to prison.

22. O Captain, My Captain Walt Whitman

23. O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

24. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead.

25. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

26. Answer the following questions… 1. Who is the “Captain”. 2
Answer the following questions… 1. Who is the “Captain”? 2. What is the “fearful trip”? 3. What is the ship that has “weather’d every wrack”? 4. What is the “prize we sought”? 5. What is the attitude of the crowd regarding the ship nearing the port? 6. Why does the poet want the Captain to Rise up (what is awaiting him)? 7. What is the poet’s emotion regarding the fate of the Captain?

27. America’s four-year Civil War was over
America’s four-year Civil War was over. The healing would take more than a century.