Changes

:''In the theater President and Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Sallie Clay and I, Mr. Nicolay and Mr. Hay, occupied the same box which the year after saw Mr. Lincoln slain by Booth. I do not recall the play, but Wilkes Booth played the part of villain. The box was right on the stage, with a railing around it. Mr. Lincoln sat next to the rail, I next to Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Sallie Clay and the other gentlemen farther around. Twice Booth in uttering disagreeable threats in the play came very near and put his finger close to Mr. Lincoln's face; when he came a third time I was impressed by it, and said, "Mr. Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you." "Well," he said, "he does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he?"'' (Helm, pg. 243)

:''In the theater President and Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Sallie Clay and I, Mr. Nicolay and Mr. Hay, occupied the same box which the year after saw Mr. Lincoln slain by Booth. I do not recall the play, but Wilkes Booth played the part of villain. The box was right on the stage, with a railing around it. Mr. Lincoln sat next to the rail, I next to Mrs. Lincoln, Miss Sallie Clay and the other gentlemen farther around. Twice Booth in uttering disagreeable threats in the play came very near and put his finger close to Mr. Lincoln's face; when he came a third time I was impressed by it, and said, "Mr. Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you." "Well," he said, "he does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he?"'' (Helm, pg. 243)

Booth began making plans to stage a kidnapping of Lincoln during the summer of 1864; the president would be taken to Richmond and held hostage in exchange for Confederate soldiers languishing in Federal prison camps.  To this end he collected several men as co-conspirators, among them childhood friends Michael O'Laughlen, Samuel Arnold, John Surratt, and David Herold.  German immigrant George Atzerodt came into the plans later, as he had owned a ferry at Port Tobacco on the Potomac in Maryland.  Ex-Confederate soldier Lewis Thornton Powell was brought in to add some muscle, as Lincoln was a physically-powerful man.  In Washington D.C. on March 15, 1865 Booth met with all the men to stage an abduction; Lincoln was to attend a play at Campbell Hospital outside Washington on March 17, with the plan that he would be taken from his carraige while on the way there.  But the plans fell through when Lincoln attended another event.  Within days, and with the realization that teh South was going to lose the war, Booth changed his plans from kidnapping to murder.

Booth began making plans to stage a kidnapping of Lincoln during the summer of 1864; the president would be taken to Richmond and held hostage in exchange for Confederate soldiers languishing in Federal prison camps.  To this end he collected several men as co-conspirators, among them childhood friends Michael O'Laughlen, Samuel Arnold, John Surratt, and David Herold.  German immigrant George Atzerodt came into the plans later, as he had owned a ferry at Port Tobacco on the Potomac in Maryland.  Ex-Confederate soldier Lewis Thornton Powell was brought in to add some muscle, as Lincoln was a physically-powerful man.  In Washington D.C. on March 15, 1865 Booth met with all the men to stage an abduction; Lincoln was to attend a play at Campbell Hospital outside Washington on March 17, with the plan that he would be taken from his carraige while on the way there.  But the plans fell through when Lincoln attended another event.  Within days, and with the realization that the South was going to lose the war, Booth changed his plans from kidnapping to murder.

===The assassination===

===The assassination===