There's no such thing as luck, just fate

On this day in 1865, a day where the North was still celebrating the surrender of Robert E. Lee, not all of the citizens were happy. Two nights earlier, Lincoln addressed a crowd with what would be his last public speech, by candlelight, with his son Tad at his side at the White House. Here, Lincoln laid out hs plans for Reconstruction and the equality of all men, regardless of race. One person in the crowd had been stalking Lincoln for months. His mind was clouded with hatred and a desire to set America free from its tyrant leader, old Abe Lincoln; that person was John Wilkes Booth.

Listening to Lincoln's words echo through the night, and hearing that blacks should have the right to vote, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. The plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for imprisioned soldiers no longer made sense, and his fury boiled over. He said to his companion and fellow conspirator to remove the Union's leaders by force, "That means n--- citizenshp. Now, by God, I'll put him through."

The question was when or how? When would he realistically have a chance to strike? As famous as he was, and how many times he was close enough to Lincoln to do something, indicates that Booth felt it was his destiny; it was inevitable.

Then on April 12, 1865, by a freak chance fate gave him the opportunity he was looking for. As an actor, Booth had his mail delivered to Harry Ford's Theatre. There, he made his dramatic entrance into the box office stating, "We are all slaves now." Harry Ford and Booth once were friends until politics split their friendship across the street during an argument at the Petersen boarding house. (It should be noted that this would be the building where Lincoln would die -- fate?)

General Grant had arrived in Washington and met with Lincoln. Booth so badly wanted to make the assassination happen on April 13th, which was Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Things were looking Booth's way. What a better way to assassinate Lincoln, then to have the man that forced the unquestioned leader of the Southern armies there in town to suffer? The queston was still lingering, when and how?

One hundred and forty-six years ago this afternoon, Booth burst into the office at the National Theatre inquiring about the itenerary for theatre productions. He learned that the Lincolns would be attending something likely in the future. Still not enough.

Picking up his mail on the morning of April 14th at Ford's Theatre, where he had already crept around the interior to refresh his memory of the floorplan (which he also did at the National), he learned that the Lincolns. Quietly, he absorbed this information that his hated enemy would be coming to a theatre that he was very familiar with and the Lincolns' guests would be none other than US Grant and his wife Julia. This had to make Booth salavate at the thought of how luck was playing into his hands. There is no such thing as luck, just fate.

The plan was laid out in Booth's head. He would kill Lincoln that night, and possibly Grant for good measure. He would let his conspirators handle the rest of the cabinet for the federal government; all of which would be murdered, sending the nation into a tailspin and igniting a new spark to fuel the Confederacy's come back for the final blow.

He didn't realize that fate was in charge. We have no way to control it, and rarely it gives us the end result that we expect or count on.

John Wilkes Booth was overconfident, out of touch, and had a blood lust that would only be quenched by Lincoln's death the following Friday night, April 14th.

He didn't realize the historical significance if his plan worked. Friday, April 14, 1865 was more commonly known as something else: Good Friday. The day in which a great and controversial man was martyred for a greater cause on a cross after being persecuted. There would be a parallel drawn that Booth would never have dreamed of, and damned his plans of becoming a hero. He would have a spot next to Judas Iscariot. Fate would see to that and Lincoln would be projected to something above and beyond Booth's fears.