The American Civil War brought death to more than 750,000 people, two percent of the nation's population at the time. But an assassin's bullet inflicted the war's worst casualtyâ??—â??the death of Pres. Abraham Lincoln.
John Wilkes Booth did more than kill a presidentâ??—â??he killed the one man who could have secured a compassionate peace that would somehow honor both the North and the South.
This is the story of how the murder of a president 150 years ago killed Lincoln's wish that the nation “with malice toward none, with charity for all” would pursue reconciliation and healing that would lead to “a just and a lasting peace.”
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