The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
Booth, John Wilkes
The assassin of Abraham Lincoln. Booth, an actor, was fanatically devoted to the Confederate cause in the Civil War. While Lincoln was attending a play, Booth stole into his theater box and shot him in the head at pointblank range. He then leaped down to the stage, breaking his leg, and escaped. Cornered later in a barn, he died of gunshot wounds, possibly inflicted by himself.
