i'm brandis friedman reporting for the pbs newshour from chicago. >> woodruff: president abraham lincoln0 years ago today. he had been shot by actor john wilkes booth while watching a play at ford's theater in the nation's capitol. his assassination came just five days after general robert e. lee surrendered the main confederate forces in appomattox, virginia, ending four years of civil war, with over 750,000 casualties. two events with long lasting effects. jeffrey brown takes it from there. >> brown: "when lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, and the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night i mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring." walt whitman wrote those famous lines about the death of abraham lincoln. we take our own look at that moment, and the legacy of the civil war. we're joined by martha hodes, a professor of history at new york university and the author of the recently published "mourning lincoln." james mcpherson, professor emeritus of history at princeton university, his new book is "the war that forged a nation: why the civil war still matt