George Andrew Atzerodt (June 12, 1835 – July 7, 1865) was a German American repairman, Confederate sympathizer, and conspirator with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. He was assigned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, but lost his nerve and made no attempt. Atzerodt was tried by a military tribunal, sentenced to death for conspiracy, and hanged along with three other conspirators. Early life Atzerodt was born in in the Prussian Province of Saxony, today part of Anrode, Thuringia, Germany. He immigrated to the United States in 1843 at the age of eight. As an adult, he opened his own carriage repair business in Port Tobacco, Maryland. Despite having lived in the United States for most of his life, Atzerodt could not speak English fluently. Conspiracy In January 1865, some years after opening his failed carriage repair business, Atzerodt was introduced to John Wilkes Booth in Washington, D.C., by John Surratt. Atzerodt was willing to join in Booth's earlier conspiracy to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln, as he later admitted in his trial. According to the prosecution, Booth assigned Atzerodt to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson on April 14, 1865. On that morning, Atzerodt booked room 126 at the Kirkwood House in Washington, where Johnson was staying. At 10:15 P.M. that night, the same moment John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater, Lewis Powell attacked the already injured Secretary of State William Seward, but Atzerodt could not muster the courage to kill Andrew Johnson. Instead, he began drinking at the hotel bar, becoming heavily intoxicated, and lost his nerve. He spent the rest of the night drunkenly walking the streets of Washington. He dropped his knife in a nearby gutter; a sharp-eyed woman saw this and reported it to the police immediately. During his stay at the hotel, Atzerodt had asked the bartender about Johnson's whereabouts. That aroused suspicion the next day, after Lincoln was assassinated. An employee of the hotel contacted the police regarding a "suspicious looking man in a gray coat". The military police then conducted a search of Atzerodt's room on April 15 and found that he had not slept in it the night before. Additionally, he had a loaded revolver concealed under his pillow as well as a concealed Bowie knife. The police also found a bank book belonging to Booth in the room. Atzerodt was arrested on April 20,