Lets imagine we are back in Ford Theater its April 1865. Lincoln and wife are sitting watching American Cousins. Booth is sneaking up to the door to Presidential box. A Stagehand sees whats going on and pacifies Booth, saving President Lincoln.
Actually, if a stagehand had seen Booth enter through the back door of the theater and then go up the stairs toward the Presidential box, he wouldn't have thought anything of it. Booth was a well known actor and was constantly in and out of theaters at all hours. He would have been a familiar sight around Ford's Theater, where he played often. The stagehand would simply have thought, "There goes Mr. Booth, to pay his respects to President Lincoln."
A better POD might be to have Lincoln's door guard, Washington policeman John Frederick Parker, not decide to leave his post to go to a local tavern during intermission, and thus be at his post when Booth came up the stairs.
I think Lincoln surviving gives a successful Reconstruction a much better chance -- I started a
TL on it way back, in fact
Well, I suppose if anyone is qualified to write such a timeline, you are. I hope you've gotten
your problems with booze and whores under control, though.

