The largest mass execution in the United States , of 38 Sioux Indians sentenced to death for engaging in massacres of American settlers , was carried out by hanging in Mankato , Minnesota in 1862 . A total of 40 suspected Unionists were hanged in Gainesville , Texas in October 1862 . On 7 July 1865 , four people involved in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln — Mary Surratt , Lewis Powell , David Herold , and George Atzerodt — were hanged at Fort McNair in Washington , D.C . The last public hanging in the United States took place on 14 August 1936 , in Owensboro , Kentucky . Rainey Bethea was executed for the rape and murder of 70-year-old Lischa Edwards . The execution was presided over by the first female sheriff in Kentucky , Florence Shoemaker Thompson
assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Hanging