The Men Who Killed Lincoln

On April 14, 1865, an actor and disgruntled Confederate sympathizer crept into the presidential box during a performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and fired a shot into the back of Abraham Lincoln's head. That man was John Wilkes Booth, familiar from history books as the man who assassinated the 16th American president (pictured circa 1861, the year the Civil War began). But Booth actually had help from co-conspirators along the way, men who got him into the theater, aided in his escape, even planned attempts on the lives of key Lincoln cabinet members. Their plot against the president was successful, and yet theirs is not a story of a slick plan executed without a hitch. It's a story of lost nerve and dumb luck. In the following gallery, see the faces of the men connected to the plot, as LIFE chronicles the bumbling story of the first presidential assassination. Note: Most photographs of conspirators are post-arrest.