When President Lincoln was assassinated on the night of April 14, 1865,
while witnessing a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, he was removed
to the Peterson house, which was directly opposite the theater.
The late John T. Ford related that he had occasion to visit John Wilkes
Booth at the Peterson house once. The Davenport-Wallack combination was
playing “Julius Cæsar” at Ford’s theater. Booth had been cast to play
Marc Antony and was late in coming to rehearsal. Ford went over to the
house to ask him to hurry up. He found Booth lying in bed studying his
lines. He little dreamed then that Lincoln would so shortly die in the
same house, the same room and on that identical bed, or that Booth would
turn out to be his assassin.