The Story of the 1865 Assassin At the age of twenty-six, a young American actor decided to commit horrible mistake that soon changed America and his life forever. In the year 1865, a man named John Wilkes Booth assassinated the United States President, Abraham Lincoln. John Wilkes Booth was a good and well-known actor on the side of the Union. America wasn’t always one nation as you and I know it today; there was a great war where two American sides fought against each other. This conflict was called the Civil War. The North was called the Union; the Union was against slavery and was all about being one nation. The South was called the Confederacy and thought that America should allow slavery and be separate countries yet import foreign goods…show more content… In the eyes of Booth he saw Lincoln as a tyrant that needed to be taken care of. Booth devised a plan that would assassinate the secretary of state, vice president, and the U.S President, but this was not Booth’s first attempt at conspiracy. Originally Booth wanted to kidnap President Lincoln and then offer him to the Confederate States as a prisoner making the Confederate side likely to be the dominant side of the two;but because Booth didn’t know where Lincoln would be on the day of the supposed capture, he ended up not catching Lincoln and resorted to plan B. For Booth to succeed in his second plan he needed men not only to assassinate these Union leaders, but also be loyal to him until death. Fortunately enough for Booth, he found three men that met his needs. These three men names were Lewis Powell, an ex-Confederate soldier assigned to kill the Secretary of State William H. Seward; George Atzerodt, assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson; and David Herold. David Herold wasn’t exactly an assassin; he was more like a guide. However his involvement with Booth made him a conspirator. Now that Booth had his three conspirators he could finally take care of the Union…show more content… Thus making Herold and Booth travel directly South. Therefore, Booth and Herold tried to travel to Virginia to find loyal Confederate officers and share the news of his assassination. Although it was not easy for David Herold and John Wilkes Booth to reach Virginia, in fact it was much harder than trying to kill the Secretary of State William H. Seward. When Booth and Herold arrived in Virginia, they both looked like old homeless people, so all they could do was pray that someone took them in, offer them a place to stay and food. Eventually a family did but soon the family became suspicious of them and led to Booth and Herold's