Before the year had elapsed, however, there was a great reversal in public opinion, and at the succeeding election, Lincoln received 212 out of 233 electoral votes. The end of the Confederacy was by this time in sight. A month after his second inauguration, Richmond fell, and five days later, Lee surrendered his army to General Grant. Lincoln at once paid a visit to Richmond and then returned to Washington for the last act of the drama. The fourteenth of April was Good Friday, and the President arranged to take a small party to Ford's theatre to witness a performance of a farce comedy called "Our American Cousin." The President entered his box about nine o'clock and was given a tumultuous reception. Then the play went forward quietly, until suddenly the audience was startled by a pistol shot, followed by a woman's scream. At the same instant, a man was seen to leap from the President's box to the stage. Pausing only to wave a dagger which he carried in his hand and to shout, "Sic semper tyrannis!" the man disappeared behind the scenes. Amid the confusion, no efficient pursuit was made. The President had been shot through the head, the bullet passing through the brain. Unconsciousness, of course, came instantly, and death followed in a few hours. Eleven days later, the murderer, an actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth, was surrounded in a barn where he had taken refuge; he refused to come out, and the barn was set on fire. Soon afterwards, the assassin was brought forth with a bullet at the base of his brain, whether fired by himself or one of the besieging soldiers was never certainly known. It is startling to contemplate the fearful responsibility which Booth assumed when he fired that shot. So far from benefiting the South, he did it incalculable harm, for the North was thoroughly aroused by the deed. Thousands and thousands flocked to see the dead President as he lay in state at the Capitol, and in the larger cities in which his funeral procession paused on its way to his home in Springfield. The whole country was in mourning, as for its father; business was practically suspended, and the people seemed stunned by the great calamity. That so gentle a man should have been murdered wakened, deep down in the heart of the North, a fierce resentment; the feelings of kindliness for a vanquished foe were, for the moment, swept away in anger; and the North turned upon the South with stern face and shining eyes. The wild and foolish assassin brought down upon the heads of his own people such a wrath as the great conflict had not awakened. We shall see how bitter was the retribution.