MIAMI – A scarce reward poster seeking the capture of the adult males responsible for President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination has offered at auction for $166,375.
The poster, printed on April 20, 1865, advertises a full of $100,000 in benefits for the capture of John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices. Booth fatally shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.
The poster advertises $50,000 for the apprehension of Booth, to be paid out out by the “War Office.” An further $25,000 each was available for the apprehension of John Surratt and David Herold (misspelled as “Harold”), described as two of Booth’s accomplices.
Bidding for the document begun at $100,000, in accordance to a information launch from Nate D. Sanders Auctions, which offered the poster on Thursday. The piece is from the to start with printing of the poster and is the rarest of three different poster models released by the War Department, says the auction household.
The poster has been handed down for decades in the exact Philadelphia spouse and children, in accordance to the launch. This is the to start with time the artifact has been sold or auctioned.
“This poster viscerally brings you back to the times soon after he was killed — the shock of the murder, and the anxiety of the assassin however out there on the loose,” mentioned auction owner Nate Sanders in the launch. “It was an incredibly tense several times and this poster is a person of the few mementos that have survived from it.”
The poster advertises “liberal rewards” for “any information that shall conduce to the arrest of both of the earlier mentioned-named criminals, or their accomplices.”
“Enable the stain of harmless blood be removed from the land by the arrest and punishment of the murderers,” the poster suggests. “All very good citizens are exhorted to assist community justice on this event. Each and every person need to look at his very own conscience charged with this solemn responsibility, and relaxation neither evening nor day until finally it be achieved.”
Booth, an actor, is explained as “5 Feet 7 or 8 inches superior” with a “slender build” and “a major black moustache.” Surrat is described as “a slender gentleman” with “hair alternatively thin and dim” and “eyes instead light.” Herold is explained as “a very little chunky person” with a “slim moustache.”
Booth was killed just six days soon after the printing of the poster. He was found hiding in a barn in northern Virginia and was shot by a Union soldier. Herold, who was hiding with Booth, surrendered and was sentenced to death by hanging. Surrat fled to Canada, then Europe and Egypt. His eventual extradition resulted in a mistrial and he was introduced.
