Home > Back to Search Results > First report of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln...
Click image to enlarge 614858
Hide image list »

First report of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln...



Item # 614858

Currently Unavailable. Contact us if you would like to be placed on a want list or to be notified if a similar item is available.



April 15, 1865

NEW-YORK TRIBUNE, April 15, 1865 

* Abraham Lincoln assassination (1st report)
* Ford's Theater - John Wilkes Booth


This newspaper had already set their front page Civil War reports when the news of Lincoln's assassination came in causing them to report the tragic news on an inside page.
The photos show the page four column heads stating that President Lincoln had been shot. Included are twelve dispatches which chronicle the events and provides various particulars based on the best reports available. At press them, this newspaper still reports Lincoln being alive.
The first dispatch, dated "Friday, April 14, 1865", simply states: "The President was shot in a theatre tonight, and perhaps mortally wounded." Each subsequent dispatch provides more information, and in the sixth it mentions that "At about 10 1/2 o'clock, in the midst of one of the acts, a pistol shot was heard, and at the same instant a man leaped upon the stage from the same box occupied by the President, brandished a long knife, and shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis!" The next dispatch mentions Lincoln's condition and reveals the identity of the assassin: "No hopes are entertained for his recovery. Laura Keene claims to have recognized the assassin as the actor, John Wilkes Booth." Much more in the remaining dispatches, especially with regard to Lincoln's hopeless condition, as well as the confusion as revealed in the last dispatch: "The accounts are confused and contradictory....We go to press without knowing the exact truth, but presume there is the slightest ground for hope..." All columns on all pages are black-bordered to commemorate this tragic event.
Complete in 8 pages, various tears at margins with most on the inside leaves & to the bottom margins. The back two leaves have holes affecting only ads or non-Lincoln content. There are many tears at the spine margins of the inside leaves as well. Partially loose at the spine.

Category: Yankee