Friday, April 15 1865

Dear diary, 

I am ashamed of myself. The guilt that I feel in the bottom of my heart is unbearable. I could have been a hero. Oh all I had to do was stop him. Him ran right by me, I was so clueless. Bang. I heard screams, I looked up to my right. A man jumps down into the crowd from the president’s box. I still heard screaming from there. I was confused, is it part of the show? Is the president safe? The man ran right by me, I heard him say “I’ve done it!” I pondered what he had done, and then I heard it. “The president has been shot!” I quickly realized what had happened but it was too late. Oh if only I had known seconds before. He escaped, I wonder where he would have gone. There’s no way he could escape Washington. Or so I thought. He escaped, and I feel it is all because of me. 

No one blamed me more than I blamed myself. I could have been a hero. I think back on what he said, and the way that he said it. He sounded so happy and accomplished. If only I could be like him. I have no one to talk to but myself. I have no one to be with but me. Me, myself and I. Alone. My wife died so long ago. I can’t take my mind off what he said.

I have just learned who the assassin is. John Wilkes Booth. My favorite actor. It keeps getting worse. How do I live with this guilt and depression? That is all I can think about. 

My wife has died, all my friends are gone, and now it is my fault that my president is also dead. What do I have to live for. Diary, you are the only person I can talk to. And you’re not even a person. I have no one. I need something, anything. Maybe I will go to the pub, and drink away my problems. Would that really help. My problems will just come back. I can never escape.

I ponder why he feels so accomplished. I assume he is a confederate, a Unionist would never do such a thing. Though the war is over, what did Booth gain? There is no more Confederacy. The union has won. It must have just been for himself. The thing he did cannot change the war anymore. The war that we won. That I won. Though I still feel as if I have lost. The war changed many things, and most of them for the better. The war even changed me. I am different, I used to be so happy. No guilt or bad thoughts in my mind. Now, those are the only feelings and thoughts in my mind. I must go now, to the pub. UntilI I write again.