National

150 Years Later, Tributes to Lincoln On the Day of His Assassination

WASHINGTON (The Washington Post) -
The American flag flies at half-staff at the White House in Washington Wednesday. The 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, died 150 years ago, the result of being assassinated at Ford’s Theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865, by actor John Wilkes Booth. (REUTERS/Gary Cameron)
The American flag flies at half-staff at the White House in Washington Wednesday. The 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, died 150 years ago, the result of being assassinated at Ford’s Theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865, by actor John Wilkes Booth. (REUTERS/Gary Cameron)

Amid rainy spring weather that soaked the brick sidewalk outside the famous old theater, hundreds of people huddled under umbrellas Tuesday to see the place where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated 150 years ago to the day.

From California, Wyoming and Illinois they came, waiting to get into Ford’s Theatre, where the president was shot on April 14, 1865, and into the Petersen boarding house across the street, where he died the next morning.

The somber weather and anniversary were countered by the colorful rain gear and the pride many people said they felt in the slain chief executive who ended slavery and steered the nation through the Civil War.

“There’s something about doing something in kind of real time, as they put it, and the real place, that’s especially moving,” Joyce Hofmann, 66, of Urbana, Illinois, said as she waited outside the theater.