Julia Adelaide Shepard wrote that she had and her friends had barely choked down their breakfasts on the morning of April 15, 1865, when the church bells tolled to announce President Lincoln’s demise.

Miss Shepard had been part of the audience at Ford’s the prior night.

After John Wilkes Booth jumped to the stage with the bloody dagger and exclaimed, “The South is avenged,” Ms. Shepard’s friend turned to her and said, “Did you hear what he said, Julia? I believe he has killed the president.”

Source: The Century Magazine, April 1909