Travel back to the night of Abraham Lincoln's assassination days after the end of the Civil War

NARRATOR: Ford's Theatre, the night of April 14, 1865, at a performance of "Our American Cousin," a popular comedy, John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln [screaming and shouting; ticking clock]. The President was carried across the street to the home of William Petersen, a tailor. His friends and family kept vigil with the doctors through the night. But it was clear he was dying. One of the most extraordinary men ever to be president of the United States had been fatally wounded by a fanatic. Lincoln was, in a way, the last victim of the Civil War that had torn the country apart for four years--a war that had ended only five days before. When he died at 7:22 on that gray morning, Edwin M. Stanton is said to have whispered: "Now he belongs to the ages."