The Lincolns have always praised my abilities as a great tragedian of this age. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that they came to me, each independent of the other, and asked me to create a tragedy on the stage of their own choosing.

He approached me first, following me outside after one of my theater performances. I must admit, I find him extremely unpleasant, not at all like the public presidential image he cultivates. He complimented me on my work, as he has done in the past, and I prepared myself for his fawning and rote appreciation. Instead, he pulled me aside, as if we were common thieves or scoundrels, and laid forth a plan that suggested our austere president was not above such base actions after all. Now, my friends will confirm my dislike for him and the way in which he manipulated the split in our great country to his advantage. And yet, he offered me quite a handsome sum as well as his personal support of me as an actor if I carried out the task set forth. As I am prone to the typical weaknesses of the human race, I could not refuse him, even though it was payment for murder.

It was a killing the president sanctioned and fervently sought, but a killing nonetheless. The thought of a simple stage actor as assassin seems incongruous, yet it appealed to my vanity. I listened with the proper show of sympathetic outrage as Mr. Lincoln described the wrongs committed against him by his wife. The president's straggled beard quivered with the emphatic force of his speech. I wonder at the source of his information, but Mr. Lincoln claims his wife has been having an adulterous affair with his very own general, the esteemed Ulysses S. Grant. I have no liking for that man either, but the general seems more confident and courageous and battle-tested, and I saw how it might have been for Mrs. Lincoln.

Still, I had been paid to align myself with the president, and I fully intended to do so. Mr. Lincoln assured me that on the 14th of April, he and his wife, along with the Grants, would attend a play at the Ford Theater, one in which I starred, which would give me access to the President's Box without arousing suspicion. Mr. Lincoln handed me his own gun, a rather handsome derringer, and advised me to shoot both his wife and the general, and he would take care of the details afterwards so that I did not hang for the crime.

The night of the proposed slayings, Mrs. Lincoln approached me as I prepared to enter the theater. She startled me, as she must have waited outside for an indeterminate amount of time to meet me. It seems she grew hateful of her husband, and this time, my sympathy remained unfeigned. She pulled money out of her bag and handed it over. At first I thought she had caught wind of her husband's scheme against her. She had not, but ironically, she had chosen the same instrument to carry out her plans. Mrs. Lincoln requested that I shoot her husband, and the thought certainly thrilled me. I hated the man on principle, and killing Abraham Lincoln would surely guarantee my name a place in history far more than my humble stage career ever could. Of course, the president's widow could grant me no immunity afterwards, and I would be recognized as the culprit, and likely hung for it. Well, I did take the money and decided to let fate choose my path that evening.

Mr. Lincoln had asked me to come to the President's Box after the second act; his wife bade me to come after the third. I scorned them both, and crept upstairs during an moment in the first. I cracked the door open, and noticed immediately that the Grants had not attended after all. That is when I knew that the plan had changed, and that I held the power. The laughter generated by the considerable crowd below muffled my steps as I walked out on to the balcony. I pulled the derringer from my waistband, pointed it at the dark, silhouetted head of the president's wife, and pulled the trigger.

The report was deafening, and in the ensuing confusion, I jumped down off the balcony and fled. The president met up with me later, of course, after delivering a speech in which he decried his wife as conspiring with General Grant to kill him, that the assassin's ineptitude had resulted in the guilty party's death. I had a chuckle over it, considering I had never reveled that Mrs. Lincoln had approached me with just such a plan. I think the American people might have believed him in his lie, so sincere a picture did he present before them as the wronged husband. They would have believed it, until I came forward with my story.

The president's gun had been identified by those closest to him, and as I hadn't touched the money yet, I was able to procure it as proof that I had been hired as the assassin. I concocted a tale of how my own life had been threatened if I did not carry out his wishes---he was the president, and I feared he could enforce any punishment on me that he chose, if I went against him. The public was truly sympathetic, highly supportive, and I became a tragic hero on and off the stage.

I'm attending a performance tomorrow afternoon, although not at the theater, and I take pride in knowing I played a part in it. Mr. Lincoln is to be hanged in the public square, where he gave his last famous speech, which I deem fitting. A monstrous crowd is expected, but I am famous now, a public figure; I already have my front row spot reserved.