Samuel Bland Arnold was implicated in the plot to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The group also included John Wilkes Booth, David Herold, Lewis Powell, Michael O'Laughlen and John Surratt, who wanted to exhange the president for Confederate prisoners in Washington D.C. When Lincoln was assassinated by Wilkes Booth on 14th April 1865, Arnold was arrested on suspicion that he too was implicated.