George Andrew Atzerodt (12 June 1835-7 July 1865) was a German-American Confederate sympathizer who, on 14 April 1865, plotted to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson before ultimately abandoning his task.
Biography[]
George Andrew Atzerodt was born in Unstruttal, Saxony, Prussia in 1835, and he immigrated to the United States at the age of eight; he was still unable to speak English fluently. He ran a carriage repair business in Port Tobacco, Maryland, and, in January 1865, he met John Wilkes Booth through John Surratt. Atzerodt was willing to join in Booth's conspiracy to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln in March 1865, and, in April, he was assigned to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson at the Kirkwood House in Washington DC. Atzerodt got drunk in the hotel lobby while attempting to calm his nerves ahead of Johnson's assassination, and he eventually lost his nerve and spent the rest of the night drunkenly walking the streets of Washington. A woman witnessed him dropping his knife in a nearby gutter, while the hotel bartender recalled Atzerodt asking about Johnson's whereabouts. Atzerodt was arrested at his cousin's home in Germantown, Maryland on 20 April, and he was convicted and sentenced to death before being hanged on 7 July 1865.