A riderless horse. Boots turned backwards. A silver sword hung from an empty saddle. And the quiet clip clop of hooves slowly walking down a Washington, D.C. street.
A traditional ceremony marking the death of a beloved leader was seen Monday afternoon, nearly 150 years after the murder of President Abraham Lincoln. It was the same honor other presidents who have died that the 16th president received 150 years after being assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
The ceremony traced Lincoln's last ride from the White House to his summer home, now called President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldiers' home in suburban Washington, the Washington Post reported.
Lincoln, historians told the paper, visited the cottage during his final full day. The next evening marked his fateful trip to Ford's Theater that ended with the president's assassination by actor John Wilkes Booth.
As historical sites like Ford's Theater that were central to Lincoln's life and death are marking the week's anniversary, The Associated Press is also republishing its original account of the president's murder.
Associated Press correspondent Lawrence Gobright, wrote of the moment the fatal shots rang out:
"During the third act and while there was a temporary pause for one of the actors to enter, a sharp report of a pistol was heard, which merely attracted attention, but suggested nothing serious until a man rushed to the front of the President's box, waving a long dagger in his right hand, exclaiming, 'Sic semper tyrannis,' and immediately leaped from the box, which was in the second tier, to the stage beneath, and ran across to the opposite side, made his escape amid the bewilderment of the audience from the real of the theatre, and mounted a horse and fled."
>>Click here to read the entire Associated Press report from April 14, 1865
Lincoln was killed less than a week after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee signed the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, ending the Civil War and preserving the Union.
Tuesday night, starting at 9 p.m. Eastern, Ford's Theater will stream a sold-out tribute, "Now He Belongs to the Ages: A Lincoln Commemoration."
The theater also is displaying in its museum the pistol Booth used, a blood-stained American flag that hung in the theater, and what was in Lincoln's pockets the night he died. Click here to take a virtual tour of Ford's Theatre.
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