Lincoln Shot on Good Friday

Tonight at 9:00 p.m. on PBS Channel 2 in Boston, Bill Moyer hosts a special on Abraham Lincoln on his show, Bill Moyer's Journal. This special event program, Lincoln's Legend and Legacy, has been created and is being brought to television through the efforts of actor Sam Waterson and historian Harold Holzer.

Today being Good Friday is an anniversary of sorts as Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 at Fords Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was seated in his private balcony box watching a performance of "Our American Cousin" when the stage actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth fired a single shot into his head. Booth escaped from the theatre and was later caught and killed after a massive manhunt.

President Abraham Lincoln died from his wound on April 15, 1865, just six days after Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Northern of Virginia at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.