The Glenn Beck Program - August 15, 2026


Lincoln’s Assassination and the Hunt for John Wilkes Booth ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 18

Hosted by
Glenn Beck
Mentioned
Jefferson Davis John Wilkes Booth Lewis Powell David Harold Andrew Johnson Mary Todd Lincoln Frederick Seward Richard Garrett Clara Harris Luther Baker Willie Jett Sergeant Robinson George Azeroth Samuel Mudd Edwin M. Stanton Robert E. Lee Abraham Lincoln William Seward Mary Surratt Thomas Jones and 31 more
Accused CEO Killer Luigi Mangione Confesses to WHAT？! ｜ 8⧸14⧸26 The El-Sayed Family Money Trail That Should End His Campaign ｜ 8⧸18⧸26

Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

154.21

Word count

6,946

Sentence count

511

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

20

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Got PC Optimum Points?
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00:00:07 Friday, August 14th to Wednesday, August 19th.
00:00:10 Valid in-store and online.
00:00:20 It's the night of April 11th, 1865.
00:00:24 It's just two days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his battered army
00:00:27 at Appomattox Courthouse.
00:00:30 Washington, D.C. is now erupting in celebration.
00:00:33 The streets overflow with soldiers and citizens
00:00:36 and newly freed black Americans waving flags,
00:00:39 singing, dancing around blazing bonfires.
00:00:43 And the city glows under thousands of lanterns and illuminations.
00:00:47 It was relief, triumph, and hope that was permeating the spring air.
00:00:55 Thousands now gather on the White House grounds
00:00:57 under a sea of flickering torches.
00:01:00 On the north side of the mansion, a second-story window opens, and a tall, gaunt figure steps forward into the glow of torchlight.
00:01:09 It was President Lincoln.
00:01:11 He grips several pages in his hands, the speech he had written for this occasion.
00:01:17 The crowd quiets.
00:01:19 As soon as Lincoln begins speaking, it's clearly not the kind of speech the crowd expects, because it's not a victory speech.
00:01:28 He doesn't celebrate. He doesn't gloat.
00:01:31 Instead, he speaks carefully about the immense task ahead,
00:01:35 reconstruction.
00:01:37 In the speech, Lincoln said,
00:01:39 It is fraught with great difficulty.
00:01:43 Unlike a case of war between independent nations,
00:01:47 there is no authorized organ for us to treat with.
00:01:51 No one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man.
00:01:57 We simply must begin with and mold from disorganized and discordant elements.
00:02:05 He outlines a plan already underway in Louisiana for a new state government
00:02:10 committed to being part of the United States again.
00:02:13 And then Lincoln says something that slices through the night.
00:02:17 He publicly endorses, for the first time, extending the right to vote to literate black Americans
00:02:22 and to black Union troops.
00:02:25 Well, seething among the crowd on the White House lawn is the famous actor named John Wilkes Booth.
00:02:31 He was flanked by two men, David Harreld, a young drugstore clerk, and Lewis Powell, a former Confederate soldier.
00:02:39 For months, their plan had been clear.
00:02:42 Kidnap Lincoln, smuggle him south to Richmond, and ransom him for Confederate prisoners of war.
00:02:49 But with Richmond's capture and Lee's surrender, the Confederacy had almost completely collapsed.
00:02:55 their leverage had evaporated. Booth writes in his diary. Our cause being almost lost,
00:03:02 something decisive and great must be done. Booth had been waiting, planning, biding his time.
00:03:08 He even stood in a crowd at Lincoln's second inaugural address one month earlier. Historians
00:03:13 have identified him in a photograph standing on the portico staring down at the president.
00:03:20 You can see that one and only copy of that photograph, the original,
00:03:23 at the American Journey experience in Dallas, Texas.
00:03:27 When Richmond fell, Booth was drowning in his sorrow
00:03:31 in a New York City saloon when he lamented to a friend.
00:03:35 What an excellent chance I had if I wished 0.99
00:03:37 to kill the president on Inauguration Day. 0.95
00:03:40 I was on the stand as close to him nearly as I am to you. 0.84
00:03:44 But now, with the Southern cause gasping its final breath,
00:03:47 Lincoln's speech infuriates Booth
00:03:50 As Lincoln's words about black suffrage drift across the lawn,
00:03:55 Booth sneers that it would mean full citizenship for blacks.
00:03:59 He turns to Harold and Powell, his voice cold and final. 0.57
00:04:02 By God, I'll put him through. 0.97
00:04:04 In a surge of fury, Booth urges Powell to draw his pistol and shoot Lincoln right there, 0.99
00:04:10 perfectly framed in the window.
00:04:12 But Powell hesitates, refuses.
00:04:15 The risk in the dense crowd was too great.
00:04:17 The president finishes speaking and the exuberant crowd cheers and applause.
00:04:23 Booth, his eyes ablaze as he says,
00:04:26 That is the last speech he will ever make.
00:04:28 Little does the celebrating city know,
00:04:30 this is the night John Wilkes Booth determines Lincoln must die.
00:04:39 This is the American story, The Beginnings.
00:04:44 Adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton.
00:04:49 Episode 18, Lincoln's Assassination and the Hunt for John Wilkes Booth.
00:05:02 April 14th, 1865.
00:05:05 It was Good Friday.
00:05:07 President Lincoln and his wife took an afternoon carriage ride.
00:05:10 They laughed, and they talked about the future.
00:05:13 Mary had not seen her husband in such a carefree mood
00:05:16 since they moved into the White House four years earlier.
00:05:19 That night, they were set to attend a play at Ford's Theater.
00:05:23 Lincoln liked attending plays.
00:05:25 It was really one of the only things in his life as president
00:05:27 that offered any break from the relentless pressures of the Civil War.
00:05:31 The White House had alerted Ford's Theater early in the day
00:05:35 that the Lincolns would attend with General Grant and his wife.
00:05:39 This notification was customary,
00:05:40 so the theater could advertise the president's attendance and spur ticket sales but it is also
00:05:46 how john wilkes booth found out precisely where lincoln would be that night later in the day the
00:05:53 grants changed their plans leaving washington to visit their children in new jersey so clara harris
00:05:58 a close friend of mary lincoln's and clara's fiancee major henry rathbone were invited instead
00:06:06 The theater was almost full, about 1,700 people.
00:06:10 The Lincolns, Major Rathbone, and Clara arrived late.
00:06:14 The play was a comedy called Our American Cousin, and it had already started.
00:06:20 Before they settled into their seats in the presidential box, the actors on stage stopped performing,
00:06:25 the orchestra struck up hail to the chief, and the audience erupted with cheers and applause for the president.
00:06:36 Not far from Ford's Theater, three men met at the Herndon House Hotel.
00:06:41 They were reviewing the final details of their new plan.
00:06:45 John Wilkes Booth was a dashing 26-year-old celebrity actor.
00:06:49 Lewis Powell was a 21-year-old former Confederate soldier, and he was built like a boxer.
00:06:54 And George Azeroth was a 29-year-old German immigrant who painted carriages for a living.
00:07:00 Their goal?
00:07:02 Take out the top three men of the executive branch in one synchronized strike at 10 p.m. that night. 0.91
00:07:08 Booth would kill President Lincoln,
00:07:10 Powell would finish off the Secretary of State, William Seward,
00:07:14 and Azeroth would eliminate Vice President Andrew Johnson.
00:07:17 Booth believed this would throw the Union government into chaos
00:07:21 and revive the Confederate cause.
00:07:24 About 8 p.m., the men split off to carry out their assignments.
00:07:28 Just nine days earlier, Secretary of State Seward had almost died in a horrific carriage accident.
00:07:34 He, his son Frederick, and daughter Fanny had been out for a spring ride when the horses bolted.
00:07:40 Seward tried to grab the reins.
00:07:42 He tumbled out and slammed into the street, shattering his jaw in two places and breaking his right arm.
00:07:49 By April 14th, he was still bedridden at his home in Lafayette Park, not far from the White House.
00:07:55 He was in constant pain, but he was still alive.
00:07:58 That night, 20-year-old Fannie and an Army nurse named George Robinson kept watch on Seward's room.
00:08:06 The family thought the worst was behind them.
00:08:09 And then, 10 p.m., Lewis Powell, carrying a small package, rang the doorbell at Seward's house.
00:08:16 Another of Boos conspirators, David Herold, held Powell's horse on the quiet street.
00:08:22 Powell told a young black servant, William Bell, that he was a messenger from Dr. Verde with medicine for Seward.
00:08:28 Powell insisted on personally handing the medicine to Seward.
00:08:33 Bell resisted, but after arguing for a few minutes, finally, Bell showed him up the stairs.
00:08:38 Frederick Seward met him there on the landing, and now he blocked the way, insisting that his father could not be disturbed.
00:08:46 Powell's eyes narrowed, and he suddenly drew a revolver.
00:08:49 He aimed it at Frederick and pulled the trigger. 0.98
00:08:53 Misfire. 0.66
00:08:54 In a blur, he pistol whipped Frederick across the head, cracking his skull, crumpling him to the floor.
00:09:00 Sergeant Robinson, the Army nurse, rushed out into the hallway and was immediately struck by Powell in the head.
00:09:06 Powell then burst into the bedroom and lunged at the sleeping Seward.
00:09:10 Powell slashed downward with his Bowie knife.
00:09:13 Once, twice, a third time.
00:09:15 One blow sliced the left side of Seward's face.
00:09:18 Then another ripped a five-inch gash across Seward's right cheek and neck, blood spraying the pillows and the walls.
00:09:25 As Seward rolled desperately to the floor, Sergeant Robinson regained his senses, rushed back into the room, and tackled Powell from behind.
00:09:35 They grappled, with Powell stabbing Robinson repeatedly in the shoulder.
00:09:40 Seward's daughter, Fanny, screamed for help, waking her brother, Gus, who was asleep in the other room.
00:09:44 She ran to the bedroom window, flung it open, and screamed into the street.
00:09:49 That's when David Harrell mounted his own horse and fled, leaving Powell's horse behind.
00:09:56 Now Gus rushed in.
00:09:58 With Sergeant Robinson, they wrestled Powell out of the bedroom and into the hallway.
00:10:02 But Powell was tall and strongly built and managed to punch his way out of the brawl.
00:10:07 He finally thundered down the stairs, out the front door, and into the night.
00:10:11 David Harrell was nowhere to be found.
00:10:13 So Powell threw away his bloody knife, swung onto his horse, and rode away in the darkness.
00:10:20 Secretary Seward, he lay in a pool of his own blood, writhing in pain.
00:10:26 Yet somehow, he was still alive.
00:10:31 Just a few blocks away, George Azeroth sat at a bar in the Kirkwood House Hotel.
00:10:37 He had a room there.
00:10:38 So did new Vice President Andrew Johnson.
00:10:42 Azeroth was almost uncontrollably nervous.
00:10:45 He was way out of his depth.
00:10:47 He kept asking the bartender suspicious questions about the vice president's habits.
00:10:52 He walked the halls.
00:10:53 He drank more whiskey.
00:10:54 He procrastinated.
00:10:55 He had signed on for what he thought was a kidnapping plot, not murder.
00:11:00 He had another drink.
00:11:01 Then Azeroth completely lost his nerve.
00:11:03 He never even knocked on Johnson's door.
00:11:06 He finally stumbled into Washington's gas-lit streets,
00:11:09 mounted his horse, and vanished into the night.
00:11:13 The vice president, he slept undisturbed.
00:11:21 Ford's Theater was like a second home to John Wilkes Booth.
00:11:25 Even had his mail delivered there, he had a personal stable in the back.
00:11:29 He knew every nook and cranny of the place.
00:11:32 All of the workers and the stagehands, they treated him like royalty.
00:11:35 And that night, during the play's intermission, Booth finished up a drink at the Star Saloon next door.
00:11:42 And then he walked to his stable and took his horse to the alley at the back of the theater where he had a stagehand hold the reins for him.
00:11:50 Booth had performed countless times on the Ford Theater stage, and he knew the rhythms of the play, Our American Cousin.
00:11:57 He knew the line in the final act that always got the biggest laugh.
00:12:01 And that would be the line that would be his cue.
00:12:05 10.15. Booth slipped upstairs.
00:12:09 There was only one man sitting near the entry to the small vestibule outside the presidential box.
00:12:14 It was Charles Forbes, Lincoln's valet, who had ridden to the theater with the Lincolns.
00:12:20 Booth approached Forbes and handed him something, most likely his calling card.
00:12:25 Booth was famous enough that his calling card opened most doors wherever he went.
00:12:28 So Forbes didn't suspect anything when, just a moment later,
00:12:32 Booth continued through the vestibule door outside Lincoln's box. In the darkness, Booth
00:12:38 felt along the floor for the wooden bar that he had left there earlier. Then he used it to wedge
00:12:43 the door shut. He then crept toward the inner door and pulled his weapon from his coat pockets,
00:12:50 small single-shot derringer in his right hand, a large bowie knife in his left. He listened to the
00:12:57 slightly muffled dialogue of the play and pulled back the hammer quietly of the Derringer. Booth
00:13:03 eased open the inner door. There, Lincoln, right in front of him. Mrs. Lincoln sitting on the
00:13:13 president's right, then Clara Harris and Major Rathbone. Booth was close enough now to reach out
00:13:19 and touch Lincoln's shoulder. An actor named Harry Hawk was now alone on stage, addressing a female
00:13:26 character who had just left the stage, and he delivered the line that Booth had been waiting for.
00:13:31 Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out,
00:13:36 old gal. You sock-dologizing old man-trap. At that exact moment, the audience erupted into laughter. 1.00
00:13:45 Booth stepped forward, pressed the Derringer toward the back of Lincoln's head, and fired.
00:13:50 A muzzle flash lit up the box, then a small cloud of smoke.
00:13:55 The president slumped forward, his chin resting on his chest.
00:13:59 For a split second, confusion, then Major Rathbone lunged at the assassin,
00:14:03 but Booth slashed him viciously with his knife, cutting deep into his left arm.
00:14:08 Booth quickly swung himself over the railing of the box, but Rathbone grabbed at Booth's coat,
00:14:13 just enough to cause the assassin's boot spur to catch on the flag draped below the box.
00:14:19 Booth managed to leap to the stage, landing on his feet,
00:14:22 but the fall snapped a bone in his left leg.
00:14:26 Booth then rushed to center stage and faced the audience.
00:14:29 Thrusting his bloody dagger in the air, he cried,
00:14:32 Six Semper Tyrannis.
00:14:34 It was Virginia's state motto, which means,
00:14:37 Thus Always to Tyrants.
00:14:39 Then he yelled,
00:14:40 The South is avenged.
00:14:41 For a brief moment, some in the audience thought this bizarre spectacle
00:14:45 might be part of the play.
00:14:47 But as Booth hobbled across the stage and out of sight,
00:14:50 Major Rathbone shouted,
00:14:52 Stop that man!
00:14:53 followed immediately by the anguished voice of Clara Harris, 0.82
00:14:57 who yelled,
00:14:57 He has shot the president!
00:14:59 Panic engulfed the theater.
00:15:01 Booth burst through the back door of Ford's,
00:15:03 where his horse was still being held for him.
00:15:05 He managed to haul himself into the saddle,
00:15:07 and within a few moments, he was gone.
00:15:10 Lincoln was unconscious, but he still had a pulse.
00:15:14 Barely.
00:15:15 He was carried directly across the street to a boarding house
00:15:18 and placed on the only available bed that was too small for his tall frame.
00:15:22 Doctors did their best, but there was little to be done.
00:15:26 He had been shot behind his left ear, and the bullet lodged in his brain.
00:15:32 Mary Lincoln insisted on staying,
00:15:33 though she was too distraught to be kept in the room with her husband.
00:15:37 Secretary of War Stanton arrived and kept watch all night,
00:15:40 giving orders to pursue the killers as word filtered to him of the attack on Seward.
00:15:46 Early the next morning, Abraham Lincoln breathed his last.
00:15:52 Stanton wrote out a telegram.
00:15:54 It was to be rushed to the War Department, where it could be dispersed across the nation.
00:15:58 The telegram read simply,
00:16:01 Washington City, April 15, 1865.
00:16:05 Abraham Lincoln died this morning at 22 minutes after 7 o'clock.
00:16:10 Edwin M. Stanton.
00:16:13 With that, the celebration of the war's end turned to mourning.
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00:18:02 as john wilkes booth spurred his horse through the streets of washington just after the shooting
00:18:10 of president lincoln he was convinced the whole south would celebrate him as a hero
00:18:14 booth reached the navy yard bridge where sentries had orders to stop everyone after curfew booth
00:18:22 just flashed his famous smile and gave his real name and spun a quick story about heading home
00:18:26 to maryland the sentries hadn't heard yet about the assassination so they just waved him through
00:18:32 Ten minutes later, his 23-year-old co-conspirator, David Harreld,
00:18:36 showed up at the bridge claiming he was headed to Charles County, Maryland.
00:18:40 He was also let through.
00:18:42 Harreld then met up with Booth, and they rode into Maryland.
00:18:46 They reached the Surratt Tavern just after midnight,
00:18:49 where they grabbed guns and field glasses that they had stashed there earlier.
00:18:53 Then around 4 a.m., they arrived at the farmhouse of Dr. Samuel Mudd.
00:18:58 it. Booth was in extreme pain from riding with his broken left leg. Dr. Mudd then set the bone,
00:19:06 put a splint on it, and gave Booth crutches. Later, Mudd gave his account to investigators.
00:19:12 I do not remember of their having assigned any reason for their great haste, other than that
00:19:17 they had made an early start and were anxious to get to Washington as soon as possible.
00:19:22 These men remained at my house until about between four and five o'clock in the afternoon.
00:19:28 I never saw either of the parties before, nor can I conceive who sent them to my house.
00:19:33 Mudd was lying.
00:19:35 He had met with Booth and the other conspirators multiple times before,
00:19:39 during the planning of the original plot to kidnap Lincoln.
00:19:43 Back in Washington, Secretary of War Stanton slammed the city into lockdown.
00:19:48 He dashed off telegrams, ordered roads to be watched, and trains inspected.
00:19:52 Posters went up, offering a $100,000 reward for Booth and his accomplices,
00:19:56 a staggering sum at the time. Stanton enlisted Union Army cavalry and New York City detectives
00:20:03 to hunt down Lincoln's killer. Lewis Powell, well, he made Stanton's job easy. After Powell's attack
00:20:10 on Seward, he wandered around Washington for a few days before ending up at a boarding house
00:20:15 owned by Mary Surratt around 11 p.m. His clothes were still covered in blood and he carried a
00:20:21 pickaxe, claiming he was just a handyman there to dig a ditch. But authorities were already there
00:20:27 questioning Surratt. She had supported Booth and his conspirators by using her boarding house as
00:20:34 a frequent meeting place, as well as storing weapons and supplies for them. She tried to claim
00:20:39 she had never seen Powell before, but Powell was arrested and shortly after identified by William
00:20:45 Seward's servant, the one who had let Powell into Seward's house. George Azeroth, the guy who was
00:20:52 assigned to kill Vice President Johnson but didn't go through with it, he made his way north out of
00:20:57 Washington. And after a tip from a suspicious drinking buddy, authorities found weapons and a
00:21:03 map in his hotel room. On April 20th, troops dragged him out of bed at his cousin's house
00:21:09 in Germantown, Maryland.
00:21:10 The news around the conspiracy was tightening.
00:21:14 By this time, Booth and Harold were hiding
00:21:17 in a pine thicket near Belle Alton, Maryland,
00:21:20 with help from a Confederate spy named Thomas Jones.
00:21:24 For four nights, they slept in the woods.
00:21:26 Jones brought them food and newspapers.
00:21:29 Booth brooded over his treatment in the papers,
00:21:31 which called him a monster.
00:21:33 He wrote in his diary,
00:21:34 I am hunted like a dog through swamps in despair.
00:21:38 He was still convinced that history would vindicate him.
00:21:41 But there was no sign of the South rising up to renew the rebellion like he dreamed.
00:21:46 On April 21st, Jones informed Booth and Harold that Union soldiers and detectives were scouring the area south of them.
00:21:54 That night, using a small rowboat supplied by Jones, Booth and Harold attempted to cross the Potomac River towards Virginia.
00:22:01 In Booth's mind, Virginia was the key to their safety and their freedom.
00:22:05 but they got lost in the foggy darkness and veered way off course. By morning, they discovered they
00:22:12 were still in Maryland, nine miles upriver from where they had started. Harold managed to find
00:22:19 them food and shelter at a friend's farm nearby, and they tried again to cross the Potomac that
00:22:23 night. This time, they were successful. Now, once in Virginia, they visited the homes of two separate
00:22:30 southern sympathizers, one of them a woman who was a member of the Confederate Secret Service
00:22:35 spy network. Both contacts provided food, but no shelter. So instead, Booth and Harold threatened
00:22:42 a free black family at Knife Point, forcing them out of their own cabin where the two men spent
00:22:47 the night. Booth was charming or cold-blooded, depending on what the situation required to get
00:22:55 what he wanted. On April 24th, they hitched a wagon to ride to Port Conway, where they bumped
00:23:01 into three Confederate soldiers. One of them was just a smooth-talking private named Willie Jett.
00:23:07 The men crossed the Rappahannock River on the ferry together, where Harold proudly told Jett
00:23:12 who Booth really was. Jett was starstruck and took them to Richard Garrett's tobacco farm near
00:23:20 Port Royal, Virginia. There, Booth introduced himself as John W. Boyd, a wounded Confederate
00:23:26 soldier. The Garrett family welcomed Booth, who spent the night, while Harold continued to the
00:23:31 next town with the three Confederate soldiers. At the Garrett farm the following morning, Booth
00:23:36 relaxed for his first time in days. That afternoon, Harold returned. A short time later, two of their
00:23:43 new Confederate soldier friends arrived warning of Union troops searching the area. They had no idea
00:23:49 that Willie Jett had already cracked under questioning from Union troops. By the night of
00:23:55 April 25th, the Garrett family had developed suspicions about their two guests. The Garrett's
00:24:00 sons thought they might be horse thieves. So that night, Booth and Harold were told to sleep in the
00:24:06 tobacco barn. Once in there, the Garretts locked it from the outside. At 2 a.m., following the tip
00:24:14 from Willie Jett, 29 troopers from the 16th New York Cavalry burst onto the farm. Guns drawn.
00:24:22 They questioned Richard Garrett on his front porch.
00:24:24 Then one of Garrett's sons, John, spoke up and said,
00:24:27 the men you're looking for are in the tobacco barn.
00:24:30 The soldiers quickly surrounded him.
00:24:32 At first, Lieutenant Luther Baker forced John Garrett into the barn to collect Booth and Harold's weapons.
00:24:38 Garrett timidly told the fugitives that they were surrounded and they should surrender.
00:24:43 Booth growled. 1.00
00:24:44 Damn you. You have betrayed me. 1.00
00:24:47 If you don't get out of here, I will shoot you. 1.00
00:24:49 Get out of this barn at once. 1.00
00:24:51 Booth raised his pistol. Garrett sprinted out of the barn.
00:24:55 Lieutenant Baker then gave the fugitives a warning.
00:24:58 Surrender, or we will burn down the barn in 15 minutes.
00:25:02 Well, that was enough for David Harold. He was ready to give up.
00:25:06 Baker demanded that Harold hand over the weapons first.
00:25:09 Booth refused. Harold said,
00:25:12 Let me out. Quick. I do not know anything about this man.
00:25:15 He is a desperate character, and he is going to shoot me. 0.97
00:25:18 To which Booth added, 0.98
00:25:19 Let him out. That young man is innocent.
00:25:23 The soldiers eased open the door and Harold rushed out.
00:25:26 Now Booth was inside the barn, alone, on crutches, armed with two revolvers,
00:25:32 a Spencer repeating carbine, and a Bowie knife.
00:25:36 A few days earlier, he had written in his diary,
00:25:39 I have too great a soul to die like a criminal.
00:25:42 Booth heard the man outside arranging kindling against the barn walls.
00:25:46 He made a desperate plea to go out on his own terms.
00:25:49 Captain, I know you to be a brave man, and I believe you to be honorable.
00:25:54 I am a cripple. I have got but one leg.
00:25:58 If you will withdraw your men in line 100 yards from the door, I will come out and fight you. 0.98
00:26:03 Captain, I have had half a dozen opportunities to shoot you, but I did not.
00:26:08 Lieutenant Baker replied,
00:26:10 We did not come here to fight you. We simply came to make you a prisoner.
00:26:14 Booth haggled for some more time, but Baker stood firm. Finally Booth said,
00:26:18 Well, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me.
00:26:22 The order was given, and the soldiers set fire to the barn.
00:26:27 Inside, Booth still clutched his rifle,
00:26:30 clearly prepared to try to shoot his way out,
00:26:32 playing as a tragic hero to the bitter end.
00:26:35 And then, against explicit orders not to shoot,
00:26:38 Sergeant Boston Corbett spotted Booth
00:26:41 through a crack in the boards.
00:26:43 He aimed his revolver and fired.
00:26:45 The bullet ripped through Booth's neck, severing his spinal cord.
00:26:52 He collapsed, paralyzed from the neck down.
00:26:55 Soldiers dragged him from the engulfing flames and laid him on Garrett's porch.
00:26:59 Booth looked at the detectives and said,
00:27:02 Tell mother I die for my country.
00:27:05 Colonel Everton Conger demanded to know who had shot Booth.
00:27:09 Sergeant Corbett immediately stepped forward.
00:27:11 He said he was the one that pulled the trigger because he thought Booth was about to shoot at his fellow soldiers.
00:27:18 Booth's life lingered for a few hours and then begged the soldiers to kill him.
00:27:23 But Secretary of War Stanton wanted him alive for questioning and, if possible, a trial.
00:27:29 But it was apparent to all those present that Booth would not survive.
00:27:34 Shortly after dawn, the assassin died.
00:27:37 Exactly 12 days after he forever altered American history.
00:27:42 Stanton ordered that Booth's body be returned to Washington and buried in secret,
00:27:46 the old arsenal penitentiary. It was a military prison.
00:27:50 With Booth dead and his co-conspirators in custody,
00:27:53 Stanton turned his attention now towards the other most wanted rebel in the land,
00:27:57 Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
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00:29:21 Two and a half weeks before he was murdered at Ford's Theater,
00:29:24 President Lincoln had a meeting with the generals, Grant, Sherman, outside of Petersburg, Virginia.
00:29:30 With the end of the war in sight, Sherman asked Lincoln what should be done with the Confederate soldiers and political leaders when it was over.
00:29:37 Lincoln didn't want retribution.
00:29:40 He told the generals,
00:29:42 Let them have their horses to plow with,
00:29:44 and if you like, their guns to shoot crows with.
00:29:47 I want no one punished.
00:29:50 Treat them liberally all round.
00:29:52 We want those people to return to their allegiance to the Union
00:29:55 and submit to the laws.
00:30:00 Sherman now wondered if that principle extended
00:30:02 to the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.
00:30:05 Lincoln understood the unique conundrum posed by Davis.
00:30:10 If the federal government executed Davis, he would become a martyr in the South, perhaps reviving the conflict.
00:30:16 If he was put on trial for treason and somehow acquitted, it would be the court admitting that secession wasn't treason after all.
00:30:24 Lincoln could not admit this in public, but privately he expressed hope that when the war finally ended,
00:30:30 Jefferson Davis might just conveniently escape the country.
00:30:34 Part of the strange phenomenon of the Civil War is how it caused capable men like Jefferson Davis
00:30:40 and Robert E. Lee to switch sides and suddenly war against the government that they had served
00:30:44 their whole lives. Davis was a graduate of West Point. He was a respected U.S. Army officer who
00:30:50 was wounded during the Mexican-American War. He served as the U.S. Secretary of War under
00:30:55 President Franklin Pierce. He was a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. And as secession talk consumed
00:31:01 the Senate, he was one of the so-called Committee of 13 that tried to put together yet another
00:31:07 compromise and avoid war. But when Mississippi seceded, he resigned his Senate seat, and just
00:31:15 a month later, the new Confederacy named him as president, though he didn't want the job because
00:31:21 he preferred a military role. As a slaveholder, Davis, like so many other Southern leaders,
00:31:27 let his racist devotion to that institution override all other loyalties.
00:31:37 On the night of April 2nd, 1865, as mobs looted warehouses and fires consumed the Richmond skyline,
00:31:45 Jefferson Davis and his cabinet loaded the last train out of the Confederate capital.
00:31:51 Davis had sent his wife, Verena, and their four young children out of the city days earlier.
00:31:57 Before they left, he gave his wife a revolver and taught her how to use it.
00:32:01 He wanted her to flee as far away from him as possible.
00:32:04 The government of the Confederacy, what remained of it, was now on the run.
00:32:09 But for Davis, it wasn't about saving his own skin or that of his cabinet members.
00:32:14 He was determined to keep the Confederate government going.
00:32:17 He expected that he would likely be killed by Union soldiers at some point,
00:32:22 but he was not going to surrender.
00:32:24 Davis and his cabinet fled south by rail,
00:32:27 carrying what was left of the Confederate archives and the Treasury
00:32:30 towards Danville, Virginia, where they set up a temporary capital.
00:32:35 There, Davis immediately wrote an address to the people of the Confederacy.
00:32:39 It is equally unwise and unworthy of us,
00:32:43 as patriots engaged in a most sacred cause,
00:32:47 to allow our energies to falter,
00:32:50 our spirits to grow faint,
00:32:52 or our efforts to become relaxed under reverses however calamitous.
00:32:58 We have now entered upon a new phase of the struggle,
00:33:02 the memory of which is to endure for all ages.
00:33:07 Let us meet the foe with fresh defiance,
00:33:10 with unconquered and unconquerable hearts.
00:33:14 Just five days after that address came the devastating blow.
00:33:18 General Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
00:33:22 Davis moved his government then to Greensboro, North Carolina.
00:33:26 There, his remaining generals laid out the harsh reality about their badly outnumbered forces.
00:33:32 Still, Davis refused to accept defeat.
00:33:34 He believed a core of resistance could be rallied west of the Mississippi River.
00:33:40 Even after Lee's surrender, President Lincoln made no move to capture Davis.
00:33:44 But Davis was clearly on the minds of Northerners.
00:33:48 And judging by the press, they weren't thinking as charitably as Lincoln.
00:33:53 The New York Times wrote, quote,
00:33:55 It's doubtful whether Jeff Davis will ever be captured.
00:33:59 He is probably already in direct flight for Mexico, but if he is caught, he should be hung.
00:34:08 The morning after Lincoln's assassination, Davis had no idea what had happened. 0.86
00:34:13 He wouldn't get the news until four days later.
00:34:16 In the meantime, northern newspapers, they were already accusing Davis of being the ringleader of the conspiracy to kill Lincoln.
00:34:23 But Davis didn't know John Wilkes Booth. He had no knowledge of Booth's plan.
00:34:29 Lincoln's death only deepened Davis' resolve to keep the Confederacy alive
00:34:34 because he expected that the South would be dealt with much more harshly under a new president, Andrew Johnson.
00:34:40 If Davis had wanted to avoid capture himself, he likely could have by reaching a coast and
00:34:46 sailing to Europe or the Bahamas or Cuba or Mexico, all options that were presented to him.
00:34:52 But instead, he stubbornly insisted on keeping the Confederate government going.
00:34:57 By April 27th, that seemed less likely because the day before John Wilkes Booth was killed.
00:35:04 Now, Secretary of War Stanton ordered Union cavalry units to fan out across the South
00:35:09 in pursuit of Davis.
00:35:11 Davis moved his mobile government
00:35:12 to Charlotte, North Carolina,
00:35:14 then to South Carolina.
00:35:16 He had developed a new aim
00:35:17 to reach Texas,
00:35:18 where the Confederacy
00:35:19 could regroup there,
00:35:20 form a new cavalry force,
00:35:22 and keep fighting the war.
00:35:24 But the South was collapsing
00:35:26 faster than Davis could ride.
00:35:27 By early May,
00:35:28 Davis had made it into Georgia,
00:35:30 where he reunited
00:35:31 with his wife and children.
00:35:33 He stayed on the move
00:35:34 with his family,
00:35:34 traveling with the ever-shrinking escort
00:35:36 and a few remaining cabinet members.
00:35:39 And at the same time, President Andrew Johnson signed a proclamation offering a $100,000 reward for Davis' capture.
00:35:46 Despite the lack of evidence, Johnson's proclamation implicated Davis in the conspiracy to kill Lincoln.
00:35:52 The Union troops scouring the South for Davis now had an extra financial motivation.
00:36:02 Union forces tracked Davis down using intelligence gathered from captured officials,
00:36:07 intercepted communications and local informants, especially newly freed slaves.
00:36:13 The net was tightening.
00:36:15 Two hard-charging cavalry units closed in on Davis,
00:36:19 a 400-man force from Michigan and a separate 150-man unit from Wisconsin.
00:36:24 On May 10th, Davis and his party camped in the woods near Irwinville in southeast Georgia.
00:36:31 The Michigan and Wisconsin units had been tracking Davis independently,
00:36:35 neither knew that the other unit was in the area.
00:36:37 Early in the morning darkness, they mistook each other for Confederate forces and opened fire.
00:36:45 Blue uniforms firing on blue uniforms.
00:36:48 Two soldiers were killed, several wounded, before officers managed to stop the chaos.
00:36:53 Davis' camp was startled awake by gunfire and a sudden storm of troops on horseback.
00:36:58 Davis was sleeping in a full gray suit and riding boots, just in case he had to make a run for it.
00:37:04 As Union troops closed in, Davis' wife handed him a raglan overcoat, known as a waterproof.
00:37:11 It was a loose-fitting cloak that he threw over his shoulders.
00:37:15 He glanced around desperately for his hat, but when he couldn't find it, his wife draped her shawl over his head.
00:37:21 Davis then bolted from the tent, sprinting towards the woods, but he didn't make it far.
00:37:26 A Union soldier galloped into his path and leveled his carbine at Davis.
00:37:31 His wife saw the soldier take aim, ran from the tent, and threw her arms around Davis.
00:37:37 It was over for the Confederacy's first and last president.
00:37:42 The image of Davis wearing a cloak during that capture quickly spread through the northern press.
00:37:48 But it was exaggerated into claims that he was disguised as a woman wearing his wife's dress.
00:37:53 Newspapers were filled with cartoons of Davis in a hoop skirt.
00:37:56 Within a week, the famous showman P.T. Barnum wrote to the Secretary of War, Stanton,
00:38:01 requesting to buy the supposed dress that Davis was wearing when he was captured.
00:38:06 He wanted to add it to his American Museum in downtown New York City, but Stanton denied the
00:38:11 request. Stanton stashed Davis's overcoat and shawl in a safe inside of his Washington office.
00:38:18 It was clearly not a dress and a bonnet, but he didn't necessarily want the public to know that.
00:38:24 If they wanted to believe that the Confederate president was caught trying to escape in his wife's clothes, that was really pretty fine with him.
00:38:35 Got PC Optimum points? Visit Shoppers Drug Mart for the bonus redemption event.
00:38:40 And get more for your points. Friday, August 14th to Wednesday, August 19th. Valid in-store and online.
00:38:46 For more of the history that inspired this podcast series, be sure to read The American
00:38:56 Story, The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton. Available now at wallbuilders.com.
00:39:11 Jefferson Davis was transported under heavy guard to Fort Monroe, Virginia.
00:39:16 There, he was locked in a casemate prison cell, indicted for treason, and held for two years without trial.
00:39:24 Just as Lincoln had anticipated, Davis' case was problematic for the federal government.
00:39:29 It couldn't quite decide what to do with a man who would help tear the country in two.
00:39:34 If he was put on trial, either verdict would bring its own turmoil.
00:39:39 In May 1867, the government let Davis walk free on a $100,000 bond.
00:39:45 One of the men who signed that bond was the abolitionist Garrett Smith, a member of the
00:39:51 Secret Six who had helped fund John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Smith and other Northerners
00:39:58 argued that Davis deserved either a speedy trial or his liberty. The country needed healing,
00:40:03 not endless grudges. For the Lincoln conspirators, justice moved much faster.
00:40:11 President Andrew Johnson and the Secretary of War, Stanton, they ordered a military tribunal.
00:40:16 Eight defendants were tried at the old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington, D.C.
00:40:21 Three of them got life in prison.
00:40:23 One got a shorter prison sentence.
00:40:25 And the remaining four, including Lewis Powell, who tried to kill Secretary of State Seward in his home,
00:40:31 David Harreld, who traveled with John Wilkes Booth as he tried to evade capture,
00:40:35 George Azeroth, the man who was supposed to kill Vice President Johnson,
00:40:39 and Mary Surratt, who owned the tavern in the boarding house
00:40:43 where Booth held meetings and stored his weapons.
00:40:46 Together, the four of them were hanged on July 7, 1865.
00:40:55 Surratt's execution was controversial.
00:40:58 Five members of the nine-man military tribunal
00:41:01 asked that President Johnson grant her clemency,
00:41:04 but Johnson denied the request.
00:41:07 She was the first woman executed by the U.S. government.
00:41:12 Dr. Samuel Mudd, who had treated Booth's broken leg,
00:41:15 he was sentenced to life in prison in Fort Jefferson
00:41:18 on an island 70 miles off the Florida coast.
00:41:21 But in 1869, President Johnson pardoned him,
00:41:24 in part because of his help in stopping the spread
00:41:26 of a yellow fever outbreak at the prison.
00:41:30 Miraculously, Secretary of State William Seward
00:41:33 survived Lewis Powell's vicious knife attack.
00:41:35 So did his son, Frederick, whose skull was cracked in his struggle to keep Powell out
00:41:40 of his father's room that night.
00:41:42 But Seward's wife, Frances, who was already fragile, died two months after the attack.
00:41:48 Seward's daughter, Fanny, who took care of him through the horrible injuries, died a
00:41:52 year and a half later of tuberculosis.
00:41:56 Clara Harris, who had sat in the presidential box at Ford Theatre with her fiancé, Major
00:42:00 Henry Rathbone, later married him.
00:42:03 Strathbone had bravely grappled with Booth that fateful night.
00:42:07 But over the years, guilt and paranoia consumed him.
00:42:11 In 1883, he shot and stabbed Clara to death in a fit of madness
00:42:15 before trying and failing to take his own life.
00:42:19 Doctors declared him insane, and he was committed to an asylum.
00:42:27 A special funeral train carried Abraham Lincoln's body on its solemn journey
00:42:31 from Washington, D.C. to his home in Springfield, Illinois.
00:42:36 The 1,600-mile trek became a rolling national wake,
00:42:40 with over 7 million Americans lining the tracks in grief.
00:42:48 In 1871, just six years after Lincoln's assassination,
00:42:52 Tad Lincoln died of tuberculosis.
00:42:54 He was just 18 years old.
00:42:57 Having lost three sons and her husband,
00:42:59 Mary Todd Lincoln battled crushing grief and declining health. She wore mourning black for
00:43:06 the rest of her life. Her eldest son, Robert, had her briefly institutionalized, something she never
00:43:12 forgave him for. She was living with her sister in Illinois when she died in 1882 at the age of 63.
00:43:20 Robert Lincoln lived until 1926. He became a successful attorney, a businessman, and a U.S.
00:43:27 Ambassador to England and Secretary of War under Presidents James Garfield and Chester
00:43:32 Arthur, the bloodiest, most tragic period in American history, was finally over.
00:43:39 Now the nation turned back to the problem of how to put so many broken pieces back together
00:43:44 again.
00:43:45 As President Lincoln had put it just weeks before his death, to do all which may achieve
00:43:50 and cherish a just and lasting peace
00:43:53 among ourselves and with all nations.
00:44:00 Coming up on the American Story, The Beginnings.
00:44:04 Suddenly, the police and armed white attackers open fire. 0.93
00:44:09 Black men fall by the dozens, 0.97
00:44:11 blood pooling out on the streets. 0.96
00:44:13 The marchers scatter, many rush into the Mechanics Institute
00:44:16 and barricade the doors, but the attackers follow.
00:44:20 Policemen smash the building's windows and pour gunfire inside, where delegates huddle for cover.
00:44:26 Some men leap from a second-story window only to be shot the moment they hit the ground.
00:44:31 Police break inside the building.
00:44:33 Some delegates wave white handkerchiefs and surrender,
00:44:36 only to be shot, trampled, beaten with clubs, and stabbed repeatedly as they lie wounded.
00:44:43 Some, on their knees, begging for mercy, are killed on the spot.
00:44:50 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.