Tweeting Lincoln’s Assassination
An 1869 painting of Abraham Lincoln by George Peter Alexander Healy. (Wikimedia Commons)
The nation went into mourning when, just after the Civil War had finally ended, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
No one alive today can remember, but a class project may make you get a sense of what it was like, or at least what went on.
Students at the University of Illinois Springfield began "live-tweeting" on April 14 - the date that that Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater back in 1865. They've continued, tweeting in real time -- 150 years after the fact -- about the pursuit of John Wilkes Booth, and the funeral cortege from Washington, D.C. to Springfield.
UIS history professor Ken Owens's class is "live-tweeting" President Lincoln's assassination and funeral procession.
If you want to read the "live tweets" follow @AbesLastRide.
A couple of other twitter handles to follow if you're interested in this: the Looking for Lincoln project is doing something similar using the twitter handle @ElizaStavely (a journalist in 1865). There's also @Mr_Lincoln, the Presidential Library and Museum is @ALPLM, and many twitterers are using the hashtag #Lincoln150.