 John Wilkes Booth ( May 10 , 1838 – April 26 , 1865 ) was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford 's Theatre , in Washington , D.C. , on April 14 , 1865 . Booth was a member of the prominent 19th @-@ century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and , by the 1860s , was a well @-@ known actor . He was also a Confederate sympathizer , vehement in his denunciation of Lincoln , and was strongly opposed to the abolition of slavery in the United States . 
