BOOTH, JOHN WILKES (1839-65), American actor, assassin of President Lincoln, was born in Hartford Co., Md., in 1839. He was the son of Junius Brutus, and brother of Edwin Thomas Booth (q.v.) and an actor of prominence. He sympa thized with the South in the American Civil War, and in 1865 organized a conspiracy to assassinate the President, the Vice President and members of the cabinet. On the night of April 14, 1865, while Lincoln was watching a play from a box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, Booth stealthily entered the box and dis charged a pistol at the head of the president from behind, the ball penetrating the brain. Brandishing a huge knife, the assassin rushed through the stage-box, leaped down upon the stage and escaped from the building. He was pursued, and twelve days later was shot in a barn where he had concealed himself.