Rick Snider

1 day ago | yardbarker.com | Rick Snider

Washington Commanders general manager Adam Peters readies for Thursday’s NFL Draft with a long-term path paved by short-term deals. Peters arrived last year facing a 4-13 team with little talent, but nine draft picks. The selections were a resounding success, with quarterback Jayden Daniels leading a rookie class that complemented a large free agent group to reach the NFC Championship. Now, Peters has a second chance to bolster depth, but only five picks after two offseason trades for starters.

6 days ago | ricksniderswashington.com | Rick Snider

Whatever happened to the men and women that conspired to kill Abraham Lincoln? This is Edman Spangler’s story. Spangler worked at Ford’s Theater as a carpenter and scene shifter. He helped set up the President’s box for that evening; moving furniture and removing a partition between another box to make it bigger. He then had a drink with assassin John Wilkes Booth and other stagehands. Booth returned around 9:30 p.m. and asked Spangler to hold his mare.

1 week ago | ricksniderswashington.com | Rick Snider

Reprinting our favorite past columns on Lincoln. Ben Franklin, sewer gas and someone running late – it’s the unexpected that make tours memorable. About 20 people came on my free John Wilkes Booth-Abe Lincoln assassination tour on Saturday. I prefer smaller groups so that number is fine. But it’s the funny and odd stuff that I’ll remember. Like a Ben Franklin character walking through my group at Lafayette Park. That’s a showstopper.

1 week ago | ricksniderswashington.com | Rick Snider

For many years, I’ve walked past Petersen House en route to Ford Theatre. I should have detoured across the street years earlier. President Abraham Lincoln died at Petersen House on April 15, 1865 after shot the night before at Ford’s on 10th St. N.W. near F St. Moving the president so he wouldn’t suffer the indignity of dying in a theater, the military was in the street amid thousands knowing Lincoln couldn’t survive the trip to the White House, but not knowing where to go.

1 week ago | ricksniderswashington.com | Rick Snider

We’re reprinting some of our favorite columns on Lincoln this week. The 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural was a bigger success than the original. Lincoln only gained 39 percent of the popular vote and 18 of 34 states when becoming president in 1861. Soon after the South broke away and the Civil War was on. But the March 5 remembrance was filled with more than 300 Lincoln backers at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel for a re-enactment of that first inaugural banquet.