About nine o'clock in the evening the President entered his box at the theatre; with him were his wife, Major Rathbone, and a lady; the box had been decorated with an American flag, of which the folds swept down to the stage. Unfortunately it had also been tampered with, in preparation for the plans of the conspirators. Between it and the corridor was a small vestibule; and a stout stick of wood had been so arranged that it could in an instant be made to fasten securely, on the inside, the door which opened from the corridor into this vestibule. Also in the door which led from the vestibule into the box itself a hole had been cut, through which the situation of the different persons in the box could be clearly seen. Soon after the party had entered, when the cheering had subsided and the play was going forward, just after ten o'clock, a man approached through the corridor, pushed his visiting card into the hands of the attendant who sat there, hastily entered the vestibule, and closed and fastened the door behind him. A moment later the noise of a pistol shot astounded every one, and instantly a man was seen at the front of the President's box; Major Rathbone sprang to grapple with him, but was severely slashed in the arm and failed to retard his progress; he vaulted over the rail to the stage, but caught his spur in the folds of the flag, so that he did not alight fairly upon his feet; but he instantly recovered himself, and with a visible limp in his gait hastened across the stage; as he went, he turned towards the audience, brandished the bloody dagger with which he had just struck Rathbone, and cried "_Sic semper tyrannis!_" Some one recognized John Wilkes Booth, an actor of melodramatic characters. The door at the back of the theatre was held open for him by Edward Spangler, an employee, and in the alley hard by a boy, also employed about the theatre, was holding the assassin's horse, saddled and bridled. Booth kicked the boy aside, with a curse, climbed into the saddle with difficulty,--for the small bone of his leg between the knee and ankle had been broken in his fall upon the stage,--and rode rapidly away into the night. Amid the confusion, no efficient pursuit was made. The President had been shot at the back of the head, on the left side; the bullet passed through the brain, and stopped just short of the left eye. Unconsciousness of course came instantaneously. He was carried to a room in a house opposite the theatre, and there he continued to breathe until twenty-two minutes after seven o'clock in the morning, at which moment he died. * * * * *