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Bonus - John Wilkes Booth Part 2: Setting the Stage on The Vintage Villains Podcast with Allison Dickson
247 Plays1 year ago
This episode is a riveting deep dive into the aftermath of one of the most shocking events in American history: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Join Jayson and Allison as they follow a harrowing journey through the escape route of a killer. From swampy hideouts to the pursuit of cavalry, uncover the motivations, the missteps, and the myths that surround Booth's final days. Get ready for a historical adventure that brings the past to life with vivid storytelling and analysis.
Check out Allison's podcast Vintage Villains and visit our website, follow along with us on Instagram, join our Silver Linings Fireside Chat Facebook group and join us on Patreon.
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Transcript
Lincoln's Fate and Historical Coincidences
00:00:00
Speaker
And that takes a certain amount of courage and maybe a certain bit of crazy. Yeah, Lincoln had opportunity to get more security around him and he refused. And even the fact that Booth's brother Edwin unwittingly saved the life of Lincoln's son, you know, as we talked about his son Robert months before the assassination, it sort of adds to this notion that the stars of Lincoln and Booth were destined to cross.
00:00:24
Speaker
At least with when Kennedy was assassinated, we had no clue who this Oswald guy was. But when Lincoln was assassinated, it was Nicholas freaking Cage or the equivalent of it doing it. And so just I'm trying to put people back in that surreal spot. At the end of the last episode, we talked about how General Grant, Ulysses S. Grant and his wife were supposed to be at that play.
00:00:44
Speaker
And so that was certainly on John Wilkes Booth's mind as a juicy target. He was going to take down the main general of the Union Army alongside the president of the United States. But the grants got cold feet and nobody knows why. I almost wonder if they were tipped off.
00:01:02
Speaker
Like, maybe a message got to Grant, maybe there was a spy for the union. And it's not like today where, you know, the president's movements at least are somewhat guarded. But even today, like, the theater would know he's coming.
Exploring Lincoln's Assassination on Vintage Villains
00:01:30
Speaker
This is Jason Blair, and this is the Silver Linings Handbook Podcast bonus episode. This is the second of two episodes I did with my friend, colleague, and podcasting Allison Dixon on her new podcast called Vintage Villains. We explore in the second episode the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the aftermath, including the hunt for John Wilkes Booth.
00:01:54
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed this little trip down history. And if you get the opportunity, check out Allison's new podcast, wherever you get your podcast.
00:02:16
Speaker
This week we're traveling back to the year 1865 because we were only just getting started on last week's Bad Guy, John Wilkes Booth. If you missed that episode you'll definitely want to go back and listen before continuing on because now my friend Jason Blair and I are dressed for a night at the theater
00:02:37
Speaker
And we've also packed some extra gear because after Booth's final stage appearance, we're going to be tromping through some swamps and farmland on our escape from the cavalry. I tell you, it's never a dull moment here on Vintage Villains.
00:03:04
Speaker
Bye!
Ohio's Political Role and Cultural Insights
00:03:18
Speaker
I want to welcome back my amazing guests from last week, Mr. Jason Blair, Marylander, man of Virginia by birth, but Southern by the grace of God. There you go. There you go. Absolutely. And you know, I always feel like I have a foot in the North and a foot in the South as well. So.
00:03:36
Speaker
Well, you're from Ohio, so it is really unclear. Yeah. Oh, it's very clear, especially in Southwest Ohio. Well, and it's an interesting thing about Ohio. If you think of like the Western states, what were then the Western states? That's what the whole fight was over, right? Like what the Kansas-Nebraska Act,
00:03:55
Speaker
Was the Western expansion going to be pro-slavery, or was it going to be pro-abolitionist? And what that was really about was not about spreading slavery, it was about like, which way are these people going to vote? Bleeding Kansas. Kansas got torn apart.
00:04:10
Speaker
This country, people really need to appreciate how massive this country is, how big it is. And I always tell people when you have an opportunity to drive across the United States on either like the I-70 corridor, any of those major interstates, just do it. Because I don't think you truly appreciate why this country has
00:04:35
Speaker
The politics that it has, the culture that it has, that sort of rugged individualism feeling that it has, it's because so much of this country is still so rural. It's still so spread out and so empty. And until you can really appreciate that and the isolation that is still very possible here in this country, then you're never going to really understand the things that, say, fueled the sentiments of the Civil War that still exist.
00:05:02
Speaker
Well, I feel blessed, actually. You know, I don't joke about being Southern by the grace of God, but I am glad that I was born in Maryland, you know, like a middle state, very split, grew up in the empire. And I say this on purpose of Texas, Georgia, and then back to Virginia, lived in New York, lived in Boston.
00:05:24
Speaker
I think I and the reason why I think if I had not grown up in southern states, I think I would have had a harder time understanding the perspective. Yes. The devastation like, you know, being in school in Georgia and being able to like sit in Marietta, Georgia and know the story of how from Tennessee to the Atlantic Ocean, it was completely burned down.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yes, the destruction is just, it's hard to even imagine all the death and all the bodies across the battlefield. They didn't even know what to do with all these people. Imagining that kind of just filtering into a country's collective unconscious. We're coming up on another presidential election and every
00:06:10
Speaker
single time we have one. I tell myself I'm not going to become obsessed with it and then ultimately I do because I think it's the time that I think our history as this country is at its most alive. It's sort of like the full moon phase of our collective history because all those things kind of come into play even if you don't know say about Nixon's southern strategy or you don't know about
00:06:37
Speaker
you know, the reconstruction and you don't know about all these other various tiny things that affect why populaces vote the way that they vote.
Legacy of Slavery and Its Modern Impacts
00:06:46
Speaker
It all ties into things like this. And I just say, if you want to understand why people behave the way you do, because you hear it constantly during an election year, why are we like this? Why are we voting this way? Why are we, you know, having this debate? It should be obvious to everybody. Well, drive across, say, Montana.
00:07:04
Speaker
drive across Kansas, drive across Oklahoma. Maybe you'll understand it's because people or drive down south. I think like one way to think about it, like go back to Thomas Dew.
00:07:20
Speaker
who was at William and Mary, and he made this argument back in the 1830s that slavery was not just a sin. It was an original sin. In other words, a sin that could not easily be abolished or atoned for. And I think we live with the consequences and even do believe that slavery was a necessary sin for the prosperity and stability of the South.
00:07:49
Speaker
But he believed it was an original sin that, think of those two things, cannot easily be abolished. And in many ways it was not abolished with the Emancipation Proclamation, as the aftermath of Reconstruction tells us.
00:08:06
Speaker
and that it can't be easily atoned for. And you think about the debates that we have around affirmative action or other things, what level of affirmative action exactly would make up for that, for slavery? So, like, Dew was dead right in my mind when he said that it was an original son.
00:08:28
Speaker
I completely agree and I find a fascination that so much of our culture, I should say the generalized white culture here especially in this country thinks that once we abolished slavery, that was it. They don't think about the ways that slavery still continues to exist in current society. That sin doesn't go anywhere just like any other original sin. It transmogrifies, it changes itself, it changes its appearance.
00:08:55
Speaker
But it's still there. It's still something that we're always gonna have to fight. And of course, we're trying to deny it. It was even a factor in the Civil War now, which is just absurd to me. But, you know, we're talking now about the assassination day, the day that we live in infamy. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Here's where we play the scary music, right?
00:09:21
Speaker
Absolutely. And or in some cases, the Twilight Zone. Yes. Yes. Because some of this is straight out of the Twilight Zone. We have all this cosmic coincidence happening around us. And a lot of this has become the stuff of urban legend, especially as it relates to President John F. Kennedy, who would be assassinated himself nearly a century later.
Lincoln and Kennedy: Eerie Coincidences
00:09:42
Speaker
And I don't know. You've probably heard some of these coincidences between Kennedy and Lincoln. I know I heard a bunch growing up and I have a small list here.
00:09:51
Speaker
Listen to some of this. Both Kennedy and Lincoln were elected to Congress in 46. Lincoln was elected in 1846 from Illinois, and Kennedy was elected in 1946 from Massachusetts. Both were elected to the presidency in 60,
00:10:09
Speaker
Lincoln in 1860 and Kennedy in 1960, both were concerned with civil rights with Lincoln feeling strongly about freed slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation. Kennedy being concerned with racial equality and the first to propose what would become the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
00:10:27
Speaker
both married in their 30s to women who were in their 20s. Both were shot on a Friday. Lincoln was shot on a good Friday, April 14th, 1865, and Kennedy was shot on Friday, November 22nd, 1963. Both were shot in the head. Both of the president's successors were named Johnson.
00:10:47
Speaker
Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and Kennedy by Lyndon B. Johnson. Both were succeeded by Southerners, Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, Lyndon Johnson from Texas. Both were born in an 08 year. Johnson born in 1808 and Lyndon in 1908. Both assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. This isn't much of a distinction here.
00:11:13
Speaker
I should have taken this one off the list. They're both known by their three names, all assassins are. Most infamous murders are because you have to make it as unique as possible. Distinction. And each assassin's full name is composed of 15 letters for you numerologists out there. Oh, you're missing the best one. Oh, what's that? Kennedy Secretary.
00:11:38
Speaker
The last name was Lincoln and Lincoln Secretary's last name was Kennedy because it's Evelyn Lincoln was I believe Kennedy's Secretary and then I can't remember
00:11:51
Speaker
I actually looked this up and it is true that Kennedy secretary had a Lincoln had Lincoln. But I can't remember if it was true for Lincoln like for the other way around. But again, that is another coincidence. Oh, yes, that's right. That's right. That's right. That was an urban legend. I'm not urban legend. That was a myth because I realize his secretaries, because we know from this part of the story, he had two secretaries and they were both men.
00:12:18
Speaker
What's really interesting, too, in both of these cases, is that both assassins were killed before they could be tried. And it's true, they were both, of course, wartime presidents facing a lot of challenges in ire from both major parties. And there are also reports. We're done with the coincidences here because we're going to move on to something a little more supernatural feeling. But this is pretty well documented. There were reports that Lincoln had premonitions about his own death in the days leading up to it. He told people about a dream he had.
00:12:47
Speaker
walking into a funeral happening in the White House and the attendees telling him that the president had been assassinated. And according to even Wikipedia, Lincoln told his cabinet that he dreamed of being on a singular and indescribable vessel that was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore. And then he had the same dream before nearly every great and important event of the war. And so when you consider that his assassination would
00:13:16
Speaker
pretty much be a capstone on this war. But was it though? Have we finished the Civil War?
Historical Narratives and Revision
00:13:22
Speaker
No, you're right. You're right. I will say though, it's like, okay. I would say it was a chapter change. A chapter change. Thank you very much. That's a good one. Part two. Some might say this is supernatural, but I would also say that logically
00:13:38
Speaker
Lincoln had a lot of reasons to believe he was in danger of being killed. There had already been two previous attempts on his life, one that we had mentioned before that was foiled by the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I will have the link actually to the episode I did about the Pinkerton Agency in my show notes, but he was shot at all the time.
00:14:00
Speaker
So is Grant. Have you ever heard the story about Grant being shot at where he was given a speech and literally someone was shot right beside him and he just kept on giving the speech. Oh my God. I can't think of a bigger badass. Interesting time. Apparently people say he didn't even turn to look.
00:14:19
Speaker
I could believe it. I honestly could believe it. I think if you're going to be the general of either side of this war, whether you're I don't know a lot about Robert E. Lee's personality, to be honest. But I also imagine he probably debate about that. Oh, there's a lot of historical debate. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of interesting. It's interesting historical debate about his personality.
00:14:43
Speaker
I mean, when I was going to school, it was a very much Southern gentleman. The belief that he wasn't too hard for slavery or that he also wanted to surrender and not be memorialized. I think that was, you know, thrown in there. And then there's another side of him where there was some acts of brutality that were really, you know, way out there in the sense that like we normally would associate with Custer or other. Yeah. Like that or.
00:15:12
Speaker
Or who's the guy? Nathaniel Bedford Forrest, Calvary Ray. Right. You know, so people are complicated and that's true of all of us, but it's really hard when you look into history, and this is one of the neat things about history as opposed to modern times, and part of what I love about this podcast idea,
00:15:34
Speaker
is that the idea behind this podcast is essentially like history allows you to sort the first drafts and you begin to realize that everybody's a little bit more complicated than you thought. And I will say in my own doing research on things like this, I have noticed a
00:15:52
Speaker
distinct difference between if you read a book about a big historical event, if you read the books that happen closer to that event in terms of time, the lens is so much more distorted than say if you read one a little bit after. You find this distinction a lot in the study of say Jim Jones, the cult leader. David Koresh is another example.
00:16:16
Speaker
The original book, yeah, the Road to Jonestown, I think it was, was the first one. Raven, I think was, I can't, I'm probably reversing those two, but the one that was written much later, about 10 or 15 years later, way better. When you're too close to it, yeah, you're not going to see, you need to zoom out. When a traumatic event happens, we want
00:16:36
Speaker
simplified narratives and then over time, you know, and there are upsides and downsides to it because sometimes the wrong idea wins over time or the incorrect thing. But the great thing about history is eventually it tends to ferret out the truth. It may go through many different revisions, but it tends to ferret out the truth.
00:16:56
Speaker
It's a lot like science in its own way. Views of Columbus are another great example, right? Yes.
Leaders Facing Risks and Booth's Actions
00:17:02
Speaker
Like right now, and I know this isn't everyone, but many people view Columbus as like a hero for finding the Americas and others view him as a genocidal maniac. Yeah. And perhaps he was both. Yeah. I don't know hero, but Booth, less complicated.
00:17:22
Speaker
Much less so ends you know we've already talked about a lot of these crazy coincidences and of course like all the times booth had been in close proximity to link in i'm both at other stage plays as well as that link in second inauguration there actually photographs of booth.
00:17:40
Speaker
very close to Lincoln and he actually thought about taking a shot at him at that inauguration, apparently. And there are people that have found the actual photographs very blurry, but you can clearly see Booth probably about 30 feet away from Abraham Lincoln at that inauguration.
00:17:57
Speaker
Lincoln was a lot like Kennedy when it came to security. Like in reality, sort of disregarding what people thought was the best approach because of his belief that he needed to connect with people on some level. I think there is an overlap between the personality traits and quirks that make you rise to the status of a mythical figure. Like I would say Lincoln and Kennedy both were even even before their assassinations. Yeah, their assassinations didn't even have to happen to make that.
00:18:27
Speaker
a thing, but I think there's an overlap between that and sort of the cavalier attitude of maybe not taking your own safety seriously, because if you don't take yourself, your safety seriously, it means you're putting yourself
00:18:40
Speaker
out there as a figure. I also think there's another Kennedy Lincoln, you know, element. So Lincoln is the one and I'd also put this on King to, you know, ends the end slavery. Yes. It's a target on you. Kennedy civil rights again puts a target on you. Yes. King civil rights puts a target on you.
00:19:07
Speaker
I think there was probably an element of fatalism if you look into the writings and things that they said, Kennedy less than the other two, but an amount that like there's no amount of anything I'm going to do that's going to prevent people from trying to take my life. Like I think if somebody wasn't fatalistic, I'm not sure if Martin Luther King would ever walked on any balcony.
00:19:28
Speaker
It is an unfortunate paradox. And I think that people that rise to those kinds of occasions, they just you kind of already just have to have. I don't want to say a death wish because I don't think they wanted to die. I just think that they were probably prepared for the eventuality more so than people that choose not to enter those battles. Yes.
00:19:48
Speaker
And, you know, me included. I don't think I'm going to go out in that blaze of glory myself because I haven't put myself on that type of ledge. Like, say, a Martin Luther King or an Abraham Lincoln or anybody who, say, elevates themselves to that kind of status. And that takes a certain amount of courage and maybe a certain bit of crazy. Yeah, Lincoln had opportunity to get more security around him and he refused.
00:20:13
Speaker
And even the fact that Booth's brother Edwin unwittingly saved the life of Lincoln's son, you know, as we talked about his son Robert months before the assassination, it sort of adds to this notion that the stars of Lincoln and Booth were destined to cross.
00:20:29
Speaker
At least with when Kennedy was assassinated, we had no clue who this Oswald guy was. But when Lincoln was assassinated, it was Nicholas freaking Cage or the equivalent of it doing it. And so just I'm trying to put people back in that surreal spot. At the end of the last episode, we talked about how General Grant, Ulysses S. Grant and his wife were supposed to be at that play.
00:20:49
Speaker
And so that was certainly on John Wilkes Booth's mind as a juicy target. He was going to take down the main general of the Union Army alongside the President of the United States.
00:21:02
Speaker
But the grants got cold feet and nobody knows why. I almost wonder if they were tipped off. Like maybe a message got to Grant, maybe there was a spy for the union. And it's not like today where, you know, the president's movements at least are somewhat guarded. But even today, like the theater would know he's coming and Booth was associated with the
00:21:25
Speaker
The theater. Yeah, I think a more likely or sort of simpler solution to what Julia Grant was concerned about was, you know, they were in Washington, D.C., on the border of Virginia and Maryland, surrounded by Confederate sympathizers on every side.
00:21:45
Speaker
And Lincoln had just announced he was gonna let slaves vote and people were pissed. That week. That week. That week. And Johnson's still doing his thing in North Carolina. But remember, they changed their plans and what did they do? They went and visited New York. They got out of town.
00:22:07
Speaker
And I don't know that, you know, there are people, there's no real evidence of support that they knew anything about it. But I think it would be natural if you put yourself in the shoes of the wife of General Grant or even Mary Todd Lincoln or any of these people, it makes complete sense. There's another theory that it was actually the reason why Julia Grant didn't want to go was she had had a falling out with Mary Todd Lincoln and didn't want to spend time with them. There are lots of different
00:22:35
Speaker
theories, but I think the most likely and logical one, at least from my perspective, is she just did not want to be out in public. Right. And that makes sense. Surrounded by Southern sympathizers.
00:22:52
Speaker
And so when they decided not to go, Major Henry Rathbone decided
Assassination Plots and Modern Parallels
00:22:57
Speaker
to come along. He was a union officer. But again, like we said before, Booth had a lot more in mind than killing the president. He and his merry band of miscreants, that would be David Harold, George Atzerat and Lewis Powell, and to a lesser extent, Mary Sarat. But we'll get to her in a little bit. He wanted to go after Lincoln's two immediate successors or
00:23:20
Speaker
So we thought he had they had that a little bit wrong, but we'll we'll mention that here. Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. But fun fact, Seward wasn't actually the second presidential successor. That person would have been the president pro tem of the Senate.
00:23:38
Speaker
Lafayette S. Foster, womp womp, stay in school kids. So the whole reason behind this, though, was they thought, well, we can't kidnap Lincoln to get what we want. So now we're just going to create a bunch of chaos. Well, we've got to get them all to. Yeah, because imagine, I mean, even now, I mean, imagine if the president, the vice president and, you know, the pro tem or the secretary of state, whomever, upper cabinet members,
00:24:04
Speaker
all being attempted, assassinated the same night at the same time. Listen, I, you know, I haven't lived through the tumult of, say, the 1960s. It was a little before my time. I can only imagine people were getting popped left and right in the 60s, political leaders and whatnot. Robert Kennedy. Yeah. Yeah. There's yeah. So many Malcolm X. Yeah. Mega Evers and
00:24:27
Speaker
But I did live through January 6th and I can imagine like this. It's not the same thing, but the whole idea of like this attack happening at the same time, like we're going to do this coordinated thing. This part of the goal of 9-11, right? The plane didn't hit either the White House. Absolutely. Yeah. The one in Pennsylvania. Yeah. And oh yeah. And knowing like, yeah, the two towers get hit. The Pentagon gets hit. Yeah. You really do feel like, oh my gosh, this is, this is really happening.
00:24:56
Speaker
It's a military doctrine known as decapitation, right? And we talk about it in nuclear war, that you want to decapitate the leadership of whoever your enemy is by getting them all. And it's why now when the State of the Union address happens and we have all the Supreme Court justices and congressmen,
00:25:17
Speaker
Cabot Secretary's President and Vice President of the Capitol. That's why we take one and we stick them in like Raven Rock or Mount Weather out in Virginia in a bunker because designated survivor. Yes, it's real. Starring Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer Sutherland for president. It's usually starring the Secretary of Agriculture.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Just get to know all your cabinet members, guys. There's a reason for that. We're going to start with the attempted assassination of William Seward here because I find this this whole thing kind of blew me away. It's crazy. So these other guys kind of sucked at their jobs. I'm just going to put it right out there. They're not killers.
00:26:00
Speaker
you know, these guys, they're, they're, imagine like going down to the bar and you're talking to the guy who's like pissed off at the government, you know, but he's not going to go and do anything. He just wants to sit and drink and bitch about the government. And I think that there was a little bit of that kind of going on. These guys, they weren't
00:26:17
Speaker
They were Confederate sympathizers, but they weren't trained assassins. They weren't military people. You know, these these were ordinary people. And they did terrible intelligence when it came to Seward. You know, I mean, the whole so, you know, Seward was sick at the time. He was. He had been kicked by his horse or had a carriage accident. His jaw was broken.
00:26:43
Speaker
And if he wasn't injured, I'm not sure it would have worked out as well for him. It actually helped him, which is kind of crazy. So Louis Powell was the conspirator who was sent to carry out the assassination of Seward at about 10 p.m. the night of the Lincoln assassination.
00:27:00
Speaker
Right around the same time that John Wilkes Booth was making his way up to the presidential box at Ford's Theater, Powell, who didn't know the city very well at all, by the way, he was driven to Seward's home by David Harold. He gained entry into Seward's home under the guise of delivering him medicine, but instead Powell was carrying a revolver and a bowie knife.
00:27:23
Speaker
And Seward's servant, William Bell and his adult children, Frederick, August and Fanny, as well as a soldier assigned to guard Seward, they were all at the house. So I love this whole part of the story where, you know, Powell comes to the door. Harold's got both their horses in the yard. You know, he comes up and presents the medicine for Seward. His plan is I'm going to take it up to Seward's bedroom on what planet?
00:27:53
Speaker
would anyone think that is what's going to happen? And that's the funny thing is, you know, they're going like, who the hell is this guy? But he did get into the house. I guess he insisted enough and he gets up the stairs and they're asking him more questions. They're like, who the hell are you? They're not pointing out where Seward's room was. It seemed like Powell was starting to get spooked, though, by the whole thing. And let's be clear,
00:28:19
Speaker
These conspirators, they were really into just the kidnapping plot, but I don't think they would have done very well at that either. It would have been like Fargo, where they're trying to kidnap this woman and they end up knocking her down the stairs and killing her. But Booth flipped the switch to murder, so it took a lot of the wind out of their sails.
00:28:37
Speaker
And that probably made a huge difference into how they had to pull this off. But Seward's daughter, Fanny, she'd been sitting with her father. And so she goes and opens the bedroom door, which then lets Powell know where the bedroom is.
00:28:56
Speaker
But she was way more quick witted than anyone else. So she saw the gun or might have even seen maybe beads of nervous sweat on Powell's face, whatever it was. But she immediately slammed the door shut and then Powell pulls his revolver, aims it at Frederick's head and pulls the trigger. But the pistol misfired. PSA cleaned your guns.
00:29:19
Speaker
Absolutely, especially these guns at this time. Before you go into an assassination, let me tell you, clean your weapon. The Butler, by this point, I think he had already run away to get help and Powell then pistol whipped Frederick, knocking him unconscious. So he draws out his Bowie knife and waits for Fanny to open the bedroom door.
00:29:39
Speaker
And eventually she does, just like that classic horror movie character that we know shouldn't do the thing. She does it anyway. With the after school special music playing. Yeah. So she opens the door and Powell shoves his way into the room, lunges at Seward with the knife, only the neck brace that he's wearing because it was broken jaw stops the knife from hitting any major arteries. Seward would survive this attack, although he got some scars on his face, though, and that was pretty cool.
00:30:09
Speaker
But by this point, others in the house arrived to Fanny's aid after hearing her screams and Powell rushed out into the night. He did stab a messenger in the back on his way out of the house for whatever reason, probably just in his fight to get away. I think eight people were injured in some way.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yeah. And then his ride abandoned him. So he was wandering around the city for the rest of the night. Oh, he's such a key character in this whole story. David Harald, he leaves with both of their horses. Yeah. Because he hears screaming inside the house like, man, that is not what you do when you're like riding on the assassination.
00:30:47
Speaker
Dude, you're on Getaway. You had one job. Yes. You were like that guy in Ocean's Eleven who had one job to do. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't even do that one job. And so that's failure number one. And now we move on to the failed assassination attempt of VP Johnson.
00:31:07
Speaker
Now, this other member of our gang of Nerdy Wells, we have a carriage repairman, George Atzerat. He's a German immigrant and a sympathizer of the Confederacy. And he was given the task of taking out the vice president, only unlike Powell, Atzerat didn't even really attempt it. He found out that Johnson was staying at a DC hotel, the Kirkwood House, and he booked a room and then proceeded to hang out in the hotel bar, getting himself hammered. He needed that liquid courage, but
00:31:37
Speaker
He had a little too much, I think. He ended up wandering the streets of D.C. that night and dumped his knife in a sewer. And here's the twist of fate that ruined it for him. A witness saw him doing that and reported it. So the next day, when the assassination was at the forefront of everyone's mind, the bartender at the Kirkwood remembered Atzerat asking if he knew what room Johnson was staying in.
00:32:02
Speaker
This reminds me of this great example from the prosecutor's podcast we're talking about. Like if you are going to take your garbage and you put it out in the curb, anyone can search it. Yes. If you are going to put evidence in your garbage, throw it in the backseat of your car by which it is no longer garbage. It is just your property. Keep the knife.
00:32:25
Speaker
Keep the knife, man. You haven't stabbed anyone yet. Exactly. All you did was give someone something to remember. You don't throw a knife in a sewer unless you're trying to dump evidence. It's amazing how people trying to hide things tend to give oxygen to them.
00:32:42
Speaker
But another thing that kind of sealed Atarot's fate was after this was all reported that somebody was asking about Vice President Johnson, authorities quickly descended on Atarot's rented room and found a revolver under the pillow and a bank book belonging to John Wilkes Booth.
00:33:02
Speaker
There was also a handwritten message from Booth to Azerot left at the hotel, which then linked them all together. So they weren't very smart. They weren't very good at planning and executing, but they had they had gusto. Well, except for George.
00:33:17
Speaker
George didn't have that. Oh, no. But I do think to some extent Booth was pretty clever. Yes. He was pretty clever. He was pretty creative. And I think as we walk through the assassination of Lincoln, you'll see a lot of his cleverness and his willingness to take risks and test limits come to play. That was it. He was a true believer.
00:33:38
Speaker
Booth had talents that like almost I wonder what would have happened if Booth had done the assassination without the rest of the cast of characters. I don't even know if he would have been caught because our buddy David comes back into the story again in shining glory. Although the one great way to keep a secret. What's that? Tell one other person and then kill them.
00:34:03
Speaker
That is it. That is your only way. I mean, because, I mean, if Atzerat had carried out the assassination of Seward, assuming he was successful at it and didn't leave any other incriminating evidence, then there wouldn't have been a witness to a dumped knife in a sewer that would have led to the hotel room.
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah, you know what I mean? There's a lot of there's a lot of ifs going on here. But I think that if he had just simply done what he was supposed to do, he probably would have they probably would have fared better. But it was just all very hastily planned by people that I think were so caught up in their passions and in their fear and in their anger that impeded the
00:34:43
Speaker
the parts of your frontal lobe that are supposed to help you plan and help you foresee various outcomes. That's the problem with political assassins. Ultimately, it's not like Hollywood portrays these sort of cool, calm, collected
00:34:58
Speaker
John Cusack looking motherfuckers out there assassinating the president of Paraguay with a fork. Most of the time, I think you are driven to the brink and over a cliff by the time you get to the point where you're saying, I am literally going to assassinate a president.
00:35:13
Speaker
And that, I think, precludes your success to a certain extent. It happened with Oswald. He got caught pretty much immediately, as did Booth, mostly. He got caught. And then, you know, the other presidential assassins, I think, were killed on site. I can't remember what happened with McKinley and Garfield's assassins, but I think they too were also quickly dispatched. So I don't think that
00:35:40
Speaker
There's not a good track record, but now we're to the big event here because this is the one that actually came to fruition. We have three murders planned. Only one would succeed. And of course, it had to be the most consequential one.
Impact of Lincoln's Assassination
00:35:54
Speaker
And also step back here for a second. None of this, none of any of these events.
00:35:59
Speaker
is happening if Booth doesn't happen to overhear a conversation about Lincoln and Grant being there that night. Not the Seward thing. So these guys did pull it together somewhat quickly. Yes, I completely agree. And when Booth learned that Lincoln was attending the showing of our American cousin at the theater, he knew he was in luck.
00:36:21
Speaker
He not only knew the play very well, he had performed in it at one point, but that theater was a regular hangout for him. So it wasn't going to be unusual to see him lingering around the place that night. So we should also be clear, security detail.
00:36:38
Speaker
around American presidents at that time, even despite having multiple assassination attempts under Lincoln's belt, was sparse. There was no real Secret Service at this time. While it had been established in 1865, it was only to scout out counterfeit currency. And that's still a big part of their job. It wouldn't be until, though, 40 years later in 1902 that the Secret Service would undertake the duty of protecting the POTUS full time
00:37:07
Speaker
Well, and think about right now, if you've ever been involved in a presidential visit, days before advanced teams are landing, they are changing the way windows are, they are clearing out places, they are securing whole sections and not letting people enter for days. But in this situation, John Wilkes Booth, a couple hours before Lincoln's there, is able to sneak in and manipulate the lock
00:37:35
Speaker
Yes. To the presidential booth. So we're talking like no advance, no regular security, you know, and I suspect we've learned a lot of lessons from these assassinations. That's why we see what we see today. You know, and it's amazing that we everything that we did learn. We learned slow. We should have learned after this. We kind of had to relearn it after Kennedy.
00:37:58
Speaker
And, you know, that was nearly a century later. I think by that point we're thinking, oh, well, no, because I think McKinley was assassinated, wasn't that early 1900s? So, again, we already had another assassinated president and that, again, happened at another crowded event. A man gets too close to him in a crowd and pulls a revolver.
00:38:19
Speaker
It's 1901 and I think it was at the Temple of Music in Buffalo. And the thing with that one, it's only like six months into his term and he gets shot like twice in the abdomen. You would think at that point we would be like, hmm, maybe we should give the president some regular security and check to see if people have guns. But alas, no.
00:38:44
Speaker
somebody is going to be the dead example, unfortunately. But in the time of Lincoln, properly guarding him was always going to be a challenge and it had less to do with the conventions of the time and actually more to do with the cavalier and stubborn attitude of the man himself. He hated being accompanied by too many people. He liked to go walking alone at night. He liked to go riding horses by himself.
00:39:08
Speaker
he wanted minimal intrusions on his privacy. Look, I can totally relate. This is why I'll never be president. There was military escort regularly assigned to him, but he wanted little to do with it. And this is all despite the multiple threats and attempts on his life.
00:39:24
Speaker
And this sounds eerily similar to the circumstances of the JFK death. He traveled to campaign in Dallas, Texas, despite the media down in Dallas, literally putting a target on his back. I mean, they they did not like him at all down there. And so his secretary, Lincoln, yeah, actually said she she didn't think he should go.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah, but he decided to go and he also still refused to ride in that convertible through Deli Plaza with the top up despite security begging him. Security was begging this man, please put the top up on this convertible. And it's part of the reason why the Secret Service can now say, no, we won't do that.
00:40:06
Speaker
they have to because a lot of the times these again mythical type figures that think they're meant to be in this spot at this time in this place they have to be talked down a little bit. In late 1864 the government appointed a small security detail to guard the president that consisted all of four local policemen and I want to talk about
00:40:25
Speaker
one of those policemen, because he is an interesting guy. And honestly, he's the guy that's sort of in the story of Jesus. It wasn't Pontius Pilate. He was the one that fell asleep and the Roman guards came in and took Jesus away. The one that fell asleep. That's kind of what happened here. On that night, Lincoln only had one guard on duty, one.
00:40:47
Speaker
That was a policeman named John Frederick Parker. He was a local DC police officer. Yes. In a story that's full of fascinating subplots, the ballad of the hapless John Frederick Parker is one we really don't want to pass up. You'd think being one of the four policemen selected to guard the President of the United States would be a distinct honor, reserved only for the best of the best.
00:41:11
Speaker
But you'd be wrong, my friend. Because if I'm the local police department, protecting the president isn't on the top of my priority list. Oh, hell no. Hell no. Why? I'm saving you my drunks.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah, Parker was, to put it kindly, a complete dunce. He'd been written up by his superiors multiple times for working while intoxicated, visiting sex workers, and sleeping on streetcars while on duty. Yet, rather than being fired, he was promoted to the presidential detail, whereupon he proceeded to act pretty much the same way. The night of the assassination, he was three hours late, relieving the previous guard of his duty.
00:41:49
Speaker
After accompanying the president and Mrs. Lincoln to the theater, he assumed his post at the door outside the presidential box, only he wanted to watch the play because that's what you do in your security guard.
00:42:01
Speaker
So he wanders off and finds a seat to watch the show. But then the intermission comes and he decides to join Lincoln's carriage driver in the neighboring saloon for some drinks. The same saloon, mind you, that Booth himself also spent a great deal of time in drinking during the first half of the show, trying to work up his own courage.
00:42:22
Speaker
But no one knows for sure if Parker returned to the theater after the intermission that night, but regardless, there was no one standing guard when Booth entered the presidential box during the part of the play that the audience would have been reacting most loudly because that was part of the plan. John knew the play and he knows when people are going to be cracking up.
00:42:44
Speaker
But remember, because John Wilkes Booth was both a famous actor and very familiar with the play, he knew the key moment to fire his shot. Furthermore, many theorize that even if Parker had been at his proper post that night, it probably wouldn't have made much difference because due to Booth status, it's very likely that Parker would have actually let him in to pay his respects to the president. Like, hey, you know, if Nicolas Cage just shows up and says, hey, I want to hang with Biden,
00:43:12
Speaker
You know, maybe even they would be like, yeah, sure, let him in. You know, what's Nicholas Cage going to do? Well, and at the end of the day, Booth had a gun and a knife and there was no way for Lincoln to get away. Right. It was by this point too long. If there had been a guard there, maybe if Grant had been there, I don't know. Maybe if it would have taken if there had been a real secret service or a real guard contingent there, like seven or eight of them, maybe.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah. But at that point, they're still a naivete at work. Like, this is a celebrity. He's not going to hurt anybody. That's why he's the perfect candidate. I think he's sort of like the Zoolander of, you know, assassinating the president of Malaysia. It's which is funny because they refer to John Wilkes Booth in that movie as well.
00:44:02
Speaker
That being said, Mary Todd Lincoln never forgave Parker for what happened. But you'd think following this dereliction of duty that Parker would have been fired. I mean, come on, at least, you know, at the behest of the First Lady, you would think this is what's going to get this man fired, but you'd be wrong again.
00:44:22
Speaker
He actually remained part of the security detail that protected mrs lincoln before she returned home to illinois. Then he remained on the metropolitan police force for a few more years after until 1868 when he was finally let go after falling asleep on the job again and then he went into carpentry.
00:44:41
Speaker
Which probably should have been his main line of work to begin with. He died in 1890 and is currently buried in an unmarked grave in Glenwood Cemetery which is situated on Lincoln Road. His role in the events of that day has largely been lost to history. So that's one reason I felt like I had to bring it up here because this is again another one of those players that
00:45:06
Speaker
Had they maybe been awake that night or maybe been on duty, like they were supposed to be, who knows what would have happened. So after Booth gathered up his nerve in the saloon, he began making his way to Ford's theater, entering through the front door at 10, 10 p.m. At the same moment that Lewis Powell was attempting to stab William Seward and George Atzerat had given up on his plan to murder the vice president,
00:45:29
Speaker
Because everyone knew him, Booth's passage through the theater was easy. And when he presented his calling card to the usher to be allowed upstairs to the presidential box, he was easily allowed to gain entry. He was prepared to take out a guard, embrace the door shut behind him. And that's the thing, he was carrying weaponry to take out guards that were standing in his way. We already know what happened with the guard. But once he was in Lincoln's booth, he barricaded the door behind him.
00:45:57
Speaker
pulled out his single shot Derringer. Again, this is a one shot gun. It's like that Eminem song that Obama listened to where it's got like one shot. Here's your one shot, right? You got to have one shot tonight. Oh man, I'm gonna have that song on my head. What's in my life? Lose yourself. Yes, lose yourself. Love it. But he barricaded the door, pulls out his single shot, a .44 caliber gun known as a pocket cannon.
00:46:24
Speaker
and waited for the right line. He knew the play by heart, so this was all planned down to the moment. At around 10-15, actor Harry Hawke uttered the line that would bring the house down with laughter. And I don't understand it without context, but here is said line. Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal, you sockdologizing old man trap.
00:46:50
Speaker
The crowd just burst out. Goes wild. Right. And Lincoln was reportedly laughing at this line when Booth fired. The bullet would enter the back of Lincoln's skull behind his left ear and would come to rest just behind the front of his skull after doing untold damage to his brain along the way. What was plan B? Well, I don't plan B.
00:47:13
Speaker
You missed the bullet. What was Flamby? Honestly, I think that he didn't have anything beyond that. And given what happens, I mean, I'm sure they had plans laid out because they did, you know, get away. He had the horse lined up and that whole thing. But this whole thing, this whole thing just seems like a plan A kind of thing. What if the bullet and what if the pistol had misfired? You had one shot. You only got one shot to not miss your chance to blow. Opportunity goes once in a lifetime. Right. Yeah. So.
00:47:41
Speaker
Lincoln slumped forward and he would never again gain consciousness. This was basically a kill shot, but he did linger on the edge of death for several hours and then finally succumbed to his wound around 7 a.m. the following morning. After the shot,
00:47:57
Speaker
Henry Rathbaum, the major you mentioned who was a lawyer, you know, confronts him, tries to trap him, he stabs and seriously wounds Rathbaum, another interesting coda, and then jumps
00:48:12
Speaker
out of the balcony onto the ground and maybe breaks his leg he may have broke his leg later but at some point and then escapes off to his horse and wrath bomb is another interesting coda i don't know if you know this story but uh unlike parker who didn't seem to feel any guilt uh wrath bomb had a tremendous amount of guilt oh yeah
00:48:34
Speaker
and his mental state really deteriorated. And then his wife was with him that night, Clara. And then in 1883, he fatally shot his wife in a fit of madness. And he was declared insane and spent the rest of his life until 1911 in a lunatic asylum.
00:48:58
Speaker
I had no idea. Oh, my God. There was just a lot of tragedy surrounding this story. I had no idea that that is just like you could see that that moment that shot was fired. All three of those lives right there gone. Sort of three people died in that in that booth, even though there was only one shot.
00:49:19
Speaker
Because I can imagine in that scene, in that moment, in that dark theater box, in the middle of all that, all the yelling, the laughing, the screaming, the pandemonium, the fact that the smoke, I'm sure that there was a lot of smoke from that gun. Guns were very smoky. They are still, but back then, even more so. And during that struggle, yeah, they would fight Rathbone and Booth.
00:49:45
Speaker
And as Booth jumped from the balcony onto the stage, he yelled freedom, apparently. I think that was according to Rathbone himself. There's a lot of debate. Like, some people say he yelled simper tyrannis. Some people say there's lots of debate. There's a lot of debate. I think they said the most witnesses claim to hear six simper tyrannis whenever he landed, thus always to tyrants. That's what that means in Latin and
00:50:12
Speaker
Again, the symbol like we said in the last episode, the phrase is on the Virginia flag. Right. And, you know, there's some debate as to whether those are the words, but this appears to be the consensus. Some people thought they heard the South is avenged or the South shall be free. Either way, again, imagine this is Nicolas Cage.
00:50:31
Speaker
just again to get the truly bizarre flavor of what's happening here. Booth then quickly exited the theater through a side door. On his way out, he stabbed the orchestra conductor and ran for a horse that he'd already arranged to have waiting for him, also stabbing the man who brought it here. So a bunch of people were killed or maimed that night. But now
00:50:55
Speaker
Booth is on the run and this is where things take on a whole other level.
00:51:04
Speaker
Because there is a lot of, like you said, there's a lot of farmland, right? So we're talking, you know, if you see a map of D.C., it's like at the time it's a it's a square and you're headed sort of south along the Potomac River out to Maryland. You really are talking complete farmland once you get out of the city center at that point.
00:51:28
Speaker
Okay, so he quickly fled DC into Maryland and there he rendezvoused with co-conspirator David Harold. And he is the one, remember, who drove Lewis Powell to Seward's house and then fled when he got spooked. Basically, he's a getaway driver. He just not very good at it. But he had gathered all the supplies and weapons they'd collected and stored at Mary Surratt's boarding house. Remember, she was kind of part of
00:51:57
Speaker
that Confederate sympathizing circle that they all had. And there is a lot of debate as to her involvement, how deeply involved she was. She just owned the place. She probably let them store supplies and kind of conduct their business there. And she certainly had the sympathies her, you know, her son certainly did. And he was a lot more active and a lot harder to catch when this all was said and done.
00:52:24
Speaker
I think the tough part for her was that even before it was identified, two witnesses who had been boarding there came forward and said that she had instructed them to have weapons and supplies readied for someone. One person, one of the witnesses said it was Booth, one said for someone.
00:52:44
Speaker
But it's really unclear whether she knew of the plot or didn't know the plot or whether that just had to do with other things. Yeah, it's a tough one. More or less, despite only killing one of their three intended targets, there were several successful elements of the conspiracy that allowed Booth to get out of the area.
00:53:05
Speaker
And their first stop was a little ways into Maryland at the home of Samuel Mudd, whom we mentioned in the previous episode. He was a local doctor and an apparent acquaintance of Booth's, though it's not very clear that he was involved in any of the assassination plot. Because remember again, up until the night of the assassination, this whole thing had been a kidnapping plot.
00:53:28
Speaker
And there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Mudd might have been part of that, but Booth had arranged provisions and liquor to be delivered to Mudd's house about two weeks prior to the assassination. So these guys, they're all kind of their buddies, they're chatting it up. They all have similar political ideologies, but it's not clear
00:53:51
Speaker
How deep all of these people were in this, you know. Possible that Mudd, who was a Confederate sympathizer for sure, was just a local doctor that they knew and Booth was injured. It's so hard to tell. Booth needed a doctor, whether he broke his leg, jumping the stage or falling off his horse. I think that was another theory. He needed a doctor to set his leg and they're, you know, they're traipsing through swampy forest at this point.
00:54:14
Speaker
And so after splinting Booth's leg and making him a crutch, Mudd allowed them to stay the night. And then he waited 24 hours before reporting it to the authorities. And that's kind of what sunk him a little bit because despite actually having reported it, he was still arrested and charged with conspiracy.
00:54:34
Speaker
Having escaped the death penalty by only a single vote, President Johnson would eventually pardon him in 1869, but Mudd was never able to have the charges fully expunged. There's a lot more about him, though, and I know you have a good bit, right, of Mudd? I mean, did I kind of get the gist?
00:54:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think you did a great description of mud. I mean, he's complicated. He was a Confederate sympathizer. He was a doctor. How much he was involved in the plot is absolutely unclear, but it's also one of those great examples of how people react when there's a national trauma. It doesn't really matter.
00:55:13
Speaker
how much you were involved in it. I mean, you see how quickly the trial happened. Obviously, there were certain people that were very clearly involved in the plot in general, the broader plot for kidnapping. There are people who were clearly involved in the assassination. We got four people that were sure pretty involved in the assassination, and then plenty of other people that were involved in something, but we don't know what, and we don't know what they knew.
00:55:37
Speaker
I think it is kind of sad that for his failure to report just a little bit sooner, and you can see why he didn't want to report it right away because it's obvious he was a Confederate sympathizer. Even if you didn't want to like be part of any assassination of the president, when you have these people that you're associated with, you're going to hesitate.
00:55:59
Speaker
to report it because you're wondering how you're going to get linked to it. So bad news for these guys was that the 16th New York Calvary Regiment was in town. And did you know this fun fact
Pursuit and Capture of Booth
00:56:10
Speaker
that Everton Conger, the head of the 16th, was in his civilian life a police detective? No. And he was the leader of the Calvary. And that's how Company L, see this story, you can't make it up.
00:56:26
Speaker
Company L was able to track him down. They were led by a detective, the head of the regiment. Amazing. And they were able to track him down primarily through telegrams, newspapers, I mean, telegrams, messages, little pieces of evidence that they found. They truly hunted him like they were a police force.
00:56:49
Speaker
I mean, imagine modern day FBI. Back in this period, 19th century up to the early 20th century, a lot of this kind of work was handled by the army. It wouldn't be until further into the 20th century, you start, you know, J. Edgar Hoover and all that, you know, you start to see that evolution of government law enforcement happening. And it's wild, right? Like, no surveillance, no things like that. But they tracked him using telegraph messages, newspaper,
00:57:18
Speaker
It didn't take long either. No, yes, they found accomplices and supporters that helped him escape and hide all across Maryland and Virginia, despite weather, tough terrain, like not false leads. Like it was insane how good they were. It was like getting chased by Delta Force and the Navy SEALs.
00:57:41
Speaker
The assassination happened on April 15th. By the time they end up on Richard Garrett's tobacco farm, where the final showdown happens, it was April 24th. It had only been nine days that they had gotten away. That is how vigorous this search was by the United States Army. It was April 24th. They made the cross of the river because they, from Mud's place, they ended up meeting a guide that would help them cross the Potomac into Virginia.
00:58:07
Speaker
another Confederate sympathizer and potential member of the Confederate Secret Service. Exactly. But because the search for them was so hot, they actually had to hide out in those woods for like five days, or it was like a swamp. Yeah, it was very, very swampy. It's on the edge of a part of where it's like a bay on an isthmus that goes out into the Potomac. Oh, okay.
00:58:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You know, in the middle of springtime. And so the hunt for John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of the assassination was the largest one undertaken in our history at that time. There was a reward posted for $50,000, which was equivalent to over $1 million today for Booth alone.
00:58:55
Speaker
and rewards for $25,000 each for David Harold and John Surratt, the son of Mary. A quick bit on John Surratt because this is another fascinating figure. He was a Confederate spy who would regularly report on union activities around the Potomac
00:59:12
Speaker
And he was also a friend of the aforementioned Samuel Mudd. Um, and again, I think that was part of, you know, like, uh, how much does Mudd know who introduced him to John Wilkes Booth in December of 1864. And they were going to nab the president on a planned trip to visit union soldiers in a local DC hospital. And they were going to take him to Richmond, Virginia to bargain for the release of Confederate prisoners. However, Lincoln canceled those plans and the kidnapping was thwarted.
00:59:42
Speaker
And after the assassination, Sarat fled to Quebec and hid within the Roman Catholic Church. And he remained there when his mother, Mary, was captured, tried, and hanged for her role in the conspiracy. He would continue to use the church for cover, though, and he would serve in the papal regiment, actually, the Pope's army. And as he eventually fled to England and Rome,
01:00:11
Speaker
And then finally to Egypt, and that's actually where U.S. officials caught up to him in 1866. Long arm of the law. Yeah, Egypt. So once he was back in the United States, he can no longer be tried by military tribunal due to a landmark SCOTUS decision that made it unconstitutional to use military jurisdictions to try civilians.
01:00:34
Speaker
Until, of course, we tried to do it again during the war on terror. Yes. Proving one of your other points. Yes. Jose Padilla. Oh, very, very good. Very, very good. By the time Sarat was put on trial, most of his charges had expired under the statute of limitations, and there wasn't enough to get him on murder, as no one could link him directly to the conspiracy of the assassination. So a jury found him not guilty, eight to four.
01:01:01
Speaker
He was released from jail and despite attaining some notoriety during a public tour where he spoke of his involvement in the kidnapping plot, he largely lived a quiet, successful life. He worked for a steamliner company, married a woman who was the second cousin to Francis Scott Key. That's the man who wrote our national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.
01:01:21
Speaker
He had seven kids and died of pneumonia at the age of 72. So this is of all the conspirators, he he had the happiest ending. Yes, the best ending. So, you know, like speaking of which, like if we roll back to the actual assassination. Yeah. Right. So the night of the assassination, you've got Booth escaping from Ford Theater on his horse.
01:01:47
Speaker
Harold meets him outside, some people think, it's unclear, but he may have been involved. But Booth and Harold at some point end up through a local guide making their way away. But one of the interesting things in the story is how they ultimately end up at, at least in my mind, they end up at Surat's place anyway because of where these guys are ultimately boarding, right? So that's where we're at.
01:02:16
Speaker
So in this grand plan of theirs, where they're all connected, and there's no way for them to know whether any of the others were successful, because it's not like we got walkie talkies or cell phones. Booth goes from Ford's Theater to Surratt's Tavern, right? And that's the same night, picks up some weapons. Then he goes to Mudd's house the next day, has his leg set. Then from there, they go to Samuel Cox's house, all headed further south.
01:02:46
Speaker
They wanted help from him. Cox supposedly had not heard that Lincoln had been assassinated by that point. Then they get to the point where they stay in the woods, because the newspapers hadn't made it down. But my favorite part of this dumb story is that they stay in the woods for like five days. On Pope's Creek, they're able to get the boat that had been hidden by a Confederate sympathizer.
01:03:12
Speaker
who also did not know Lincoln was assassinated supposedly. And they go into the water and they make the cross into Virginia because they want to get to Southern sympathies. But what do they do? They go upstream the Potomac and cross right back into Maryland. Oh, my God. Mistakingly traveling. So it's April 22nd and they've stayed in the woods for five days to mistakenly boat back.
01:03:40
Speaker
You know, it's amazing how much consequential history hinges on not getting the right directions to a place. It would have been so hard for them to catch him otherwise. It really, really, really, really, really, really would have been difficult if they had not made that mistake.
01:04:02
Speaker
Fate is having its way with these people. And there are no winners in this battle between at least John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln.
01:04:11
Speaker
And with thousands of like feds and civilians out, and when I say feds, I mean army, out hunting for Booth and these other people, their capture was pretty inevitable. So the cavalry is making its way down, right, from mud to cocks to the swampy area where they are. They've gone upriver in the wrong direction back to Maryland. And then this is another one of my favorite parts of the whole story. They end up at the house of the sky named
01:04:39
Speaker
It's the garage. Colonel John Hughes. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is before we get to the farm. This is when they're still, this is their second trip. So they end up in this house, you know, they've got whatever yada yada. So it's like nine miles up river in Maryland, whatever yada yada they're saying, you know, Hughes and his son give them a small unused house to stay in and Booth breaks up, brings out his diary at this point. Because during this entire trip, some of the best evidence we have
01:05:09
Speaker
is John Wilkes Booth's diary. And he writes about how he had been hunted by a dog like a dog was in despair. And he was baffled by the fact that he was being looked upon as a quote, common cutthroat for his actions. I kid you not, that is what the diary says.
01:05:28
Speaker
I really thought he was a hero, that he was going to be lauded as a hero. This kind of shows the delusion that he was under by this point. I mean, when you make that decision to go from kidnapping to murder, kidnap somebody, you've already thrown logic out the window. It's just that you're heading to these increasingly unstable energy levels.
01:05:48
Speaker
And so yeah, by the time that they make it to this farm, what's interesting about all of this is despite all the traveling, all the fleeing, all the attempts to avert and all the people hunting them, they didn't get more than 20 miles away from DC.
01:06:07
Speaker
So in all of this, they are still in town. They're still right across the river. So the interesting part of it is, so after they leave Hughes Home and they then successfully cross the Potomac where right now there's actually a naval base, they lucked out. It was just like a best place to possibly be. There was not a naval base then, it's Dahlgren.
01:06:31
Speaker
But they cross and they get to Lucas Farm, which is the farm that they visit on the 23rd, and they sleep in a cabin on Lucas Farm. So now the cavalry is like hot behind them. The reformants are starting to find out about the assassination, and so now people are actually giving them up, right? Yeah.
01:06:56
Speaker
But the folks on the Virginia side still were only 20 miles away. So I just use this to say how slow media was then compared to what it is now. But they didn't even know about it at that time. And they were looking for this Southern sympathizer that was recommended to them. It's so happens this whole thing, Elizabeth Queensbury.
01:07:22
Speaker
And Thomas Jones, the one who had given them the boat in Maryland, the guy who is suspected of being a part of the Confederate Secret Service, is the one who sent them over. So they get to Elizabeth Queensbury's house, Confederate sympathizer. She says you can have food, but I'm not helping you.
01:07:38
Speaker
So that's what throws things ultimately off that leads them to the Lucas farm where they actually end up kick, kicking the Lucas family out. You know, to your point about like, look, if you're going to try and escape, maybe you shouldn't bring attention to yourself. They kick the family out of the house. This is Harold and Booth. And, you know, all that does is bring more attention to them.
01:08:04
Speaker
The whole story of, from when they flee to when Booth is killed, could make a movie in and of itself. Just that part of the story. It would be a thrilling, crazy movie. I sure would like to see it made. But Louis Powell was arrested, by the way, at Mary Surratt's boarding house on April 17th. So while these guys are on the run, he and George Atzerat was arrested on the 20th. Do you know why he was arrested?
01:08:32
Speaker
Oh God, you know, it's not on my notes, but I think it- Okay, so he's on the street, right? And they're searching. They're headed to the Surratt house because they know about the boarding connections and they're going to search it. Right now, they don't know that Powell is involved.
01:08:50
Speaker
They don't know it's him. But the detectives going by notice, so he's like working as like a day laborer cleaning things out. And they notice that his clothes are a little too nice for somebody. They're not dirty, like a laborer should be. And they just arrest him. Oh, interesting. Forget probable cause. But they just arrest him and that's what ultimately leads to Powell getting caught.
01:09:20
Speaker
That is absolutely PSA number six. If you are going to fake being a day laborer dirty your stuff up. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there were so many mistakes that these guys made. It amazes me. They even got as far as they did.
01:09:36
Speaker
It's also interesting during this time how much intuition plays a role in law enforcement, right? They don't have DNA. They, fingerprints are not necessarily an option, but really law enforcement intuition leads to a lot of these people. And that's, you know, historically, sometimes you think of murders that happened in the past where there aren't that many witnesses. You're like, how did they possibly figure that person out? Well, intuition was the weapon.
01:10:03
Speaker
Right. But on April 24th, when they've crossed after the Lucas Farm, John Wilkes Booth grows a brain. It is not until April 24th that he starts using the name John W Boyd.
01:10:17
Speaker
Oh, of course. It's a little too little too late, of course. And it is funny that he just changes that when they arrive at that tobacco farm. I mean, they were cornered pretty quickly, if I'm not mistaken, out in the barn after a relaxing morning breakfast. Oh, yes. Roll across the lot. That's true. That is true. And David Harold
01:10:42
Speaker
surrendered pretty quickly. He didn't put up too much of a fight. Of course, Booth, he was our believer. So on brand. He was looking, these guys I think were almost relieved to be arrested. I would almost say most of them were, but Booth claimed they wouldn't take him alive because that is what true believers say. And the soldiers decided to set the barn on fire to draw him out.
01:11:05
Speaker
And that's when Sergeant Boston Corbett, what a name, decided to shoot his shot. Quite literally, he aimed for roughly the same spot where Booth shot Lincoln. Corbett hit Booth, however, about an inch below in that severed Booth's spinal cord.
01:11:23
Speaker
And they carried him out of the barn and Wilkes asked them to tell his mother he died for his country. He then asked the soldiers to hold his hands up to his face so that he could utter his final words, useless, useless.
01:11:39
Speaker
He slipped into unconsciousness and died on the Garrett farmhouse porch a couple hours later, a drama queen till the very end. Yes. And that's what I think this was his great play. Yeah. So here's here's another interesting thing about this whole piece of it. So when they went to the Garrett farm, they were followed by two former Confederate soldiers. Yeah. I think it was Mortimer Ruggles. And then I don't know, it was Absalom, maybe Bainbridge.
01:12:08
Speaker
And these two soldiers, right, they had just met them the day before, but what they served as were scouts. So they were paying attention to see if the Union Army was coming. So they see the Union Army coming, they go and tell Booth, and they tell them that they're coming. It's almost like he wanted it to happen in some dramatic ending.
01:12:33
Speaker
Oh, I think I think if anything, when you said or you asked a little bit ago if he had a plan B, I think his only plan was to be the star of his own play and to go out like a Shakespearean character in his own tragedy. You know what I also find interesting is Sergeant Corbett, who the one who fired the fatal shot.
01:12:55
Speaker
He was initially arrested for disobeying an order to capture Booth alive, believe it or not. But sanity actually prevailed in a time of insanity and those charges were eventually dropped because they, you know, the people hailed him as a hero. And it's like great. Yeah, it would have been, I guess, OK to capture Booth alive, but I don't think he would have talked. I don't I don't think he would have been of any value.
01:13:17
Speaker
Do you know what else Booth said before he did the whole raise hands thing? What's that? So dramatic. Such a drama queen. Tell my mother I die for my country. Oh, my God. I wonder what his mother thought. It's a good question. I did try to figure that out to no avail. I know that Edwin was not too happy after Booth's death. And, you know, in the aftermath of all this, scores of people were arrested, including many, you know, tangential associates.
01:13:45
Speaker
of the conspirators, anybody who had even the slightest bit of contact with Booth or Harold during their flight. There was Louis J. Weichmann. He was a border in the Surratt boarding house. Booth's brother, Junius, in Cincinnati at the time of the assassination was also questioned or arrested. The theater owner, John T. Ford, James Pumphrey, from whom Booth hired his horse, John M. Lloyd, the innkeeper who rented Mrs. Surratt's Maryland Tavern,
01:14:14
Speaker
and gave Booth and Harold weapons and supplies the night of April 14th. Samuel Cox, whom you've mentioned, Thomas A. Jones, who helps Booth and Harold cross the Potomac, all were eventually released except for Samuel Arnold, George Atsura, David Harold, Samuel Mudd. There was also a Michael O. Laughlin.
01:14:35
Speaker
Lewis Powell, Edmund Spangler, he was a theater stagehand who given Booth's horse to someone to hold. So even somebody who helped somebody, helped somebody, essentially, and Mary Surratt. And the prosecution was led by a U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt.
01:15:08
Speaker
and Lachlan was on the USS Sagus in the Anacostia River. They kept them there and they also kept Powell there. But then several others were also put on another ship that was there. I forget which I think was the Montauk.
01:15:14
Speaker
do you know
01:15:28
Speaker
And then, okay, so this is before the trial, once Booth ends up dead, they plan to secretly bury his body, I think in DC, I think at the old capital, but they bring his body and hold it
01:15:46
Speaker
with Samuel Mudd and Mary Surratt in the old capital prison. And let me tell you about the old capital prison. It is not a big place. It is not bigger than, I don't know, maybe this room, the next room in the bathroom. So it was Surratt, Mudd and Booth's body. Wow. And all of them just held together there. Yep. It's now actually the site of the current Supreme Court building, if you're if you're familiar with the area. Wow.
01:16:12
Speaker
That's another bit of fascinating American history there. I thought it was interesting that they did a military tribunal, and I know that that provoked a lot of criticism. There was like an Attorney General, Edward Bates, and the Secretary of Navy, Gideon Welles.
01:16:28
Speaker
They believe the civil court should have presided, but Attorney General James Speed pointed to the military nature of the conspiracy and the fact that the defendants acted as enemy combatants and that martial law was enforced at the time in the District of Columbia. In 1866, in the Ex parte Milligan, the United States Supreme Court banned the use of military tribunals, though
01:16:50
Speaker
in civil proceedings. Only a simple majority of the jury was required for a guilty verdict and a two-thirds for a death sentence. There was no route of appeal other than to President Johnson. But the execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and Georgia Atzerat happened by hanging on July 7th, 1865 at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. And- Fun fact, where they were hung are now some beautiful tennis courts.
01:17:22
Speaker
Not even kidding. I was just there last year. I was like, I hung there. Really nice tennis cards. They still have the courtroom. They still have the Grand Hall. It's really tiny, tiny, tiny building. And I think it was on the second or third floor. Yeah, I think it was the third floor. Yeah.
01:17:43
Speaker
You had to go up two flights of steps for your inevitable kangaroo court trial. But yeah, they were hung on rafters that are now beautiful, beautiful tennis courts. So that's something to think about any time you walk through an otherwise classic and interesting place. Yes. Yeah. The place where somebody died is now a tennis court. I mean, that's, you know, if you walk through any field, probably through Virginia, it's like, oh, this was once a battlefield.
01:18:13
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But the trial lasted seven weeks, and it included a testimony of 366 witnesses, and all the defendants were found guilty on June 30th. And interestingly, it was not a jury trial. Yeah, you're right. It was all judges, but I'm sorry, I interrupted your Mary Surratt role. Oh, no, you're fine. I mean, she was the first woman to be executed by a federal
01:18:36
Speaker
yeah i think it was in the united states yes yeah united states government yeah first to be executed by the united states government yeah there were attempts at clemency but johnson said hell no although he later claimed that he never saw any letters for clemency but i don't think he would have granted them in any in any way johnson is not to be trusted no johnson was not a good guy
01:18:58
Speaker
I mean, just to give you like the example of like how much this was so not really about justice and was about vengeance.
Conspiracy Theories and Booth's Legacy
01:19:07
Speaker
They kept their bodies up there for 30 minutes while cutting them down and dropping them in gun boxes.
01:19:14
Speaker
And so they didn't even put their names like the normal tradition of writing it on the casket. They wrote it on a piece of paper for each of them and placed it in the box in a glass vial and just buried them against the wall behind hidden behind the
01:19:35
Speaker
Arsenal now later mines prevailed and they were moved elsewhere within the Arsenal. So they have two burial sites there, but eventually the booths and the strats begged to have the bodies back and Johnson turned them over.
01:19:51
Speaker
Yeah, that took some a bit of doing on the part of Edwin, in fact, to get his brother's remains. Edwin and Booth, John Booth, they feuded for many years, of course, as as we established, you know, before the assassination.
01:20:06
Speaker
And afterward, Edwin, you know, disowned his brother publicly and did everything he could to distance himself from his brother. That said, yeah, he did actively pursue having his brother's remains returned home after his death at the Garrett farm. John was secretly buried in the old penitentiary.
01:20:26
Speaker
and at the site of the co-conspirators. And then Johnson did relent, and now those remains are in an unmarked grave. Interestingly, you know, Booth, Edwin Booth, spent a number of years after the assassination, avoiding the stage and public in general. He received a lot of death threats and even an assassination attempt during a performance. However, he did eventually return to the stage and Hamlet became his signature role.
01:20:53
Speaker
And he would remain active in the drama community until his death in 1891. And there's still a contingent of people who believe that Booth was never actually caught. And they want to exhume Edwin's body to compare to DNA samples from a piece of artifacts belonging to John, including a vertebrae said to belong to him. That's at the Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland, by the way.
01:21:18
Speaker
But the last update on this was from 2013, but descendants of the booths reported they obtained permission to exhume the Shakespearean actor's body to obtain DNA samples to compare with a sample of his brother's brother John's DNA to refute the rumor that he had escaped after the assassination.
01:21:36
Speaker
However, Bree Harvey, a spokesperson from the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Edwin Booth is buried, denied reports that the family had contacted them and requested to exhume Edwin's body. The family hopes to obtain these DNA samples from artifacts or from remains such as vertebrae. But on March 30th, 2013, the museum announced that the family's request to extract the DNA from the vertebrae had been rejected.
01:22:04
Speaker
Which is odd. I mean, why wouldn't you want to run that test? I don't know why they would reject it. Maybe they're worried about disturbing the material. I don't know. They would have to destroy a part of it, but that just adds to the conspiracy, don't you think? You mentioned John Wilkes Booth's diary, and that's another interesting thing here.
01:22:21
Speaker
A date book was recovered from John Wilkes Booth's body, which contained a selection of written entries that show him confessing to his deeds. And the diary was taken to Washington DC, placed into a file, and then largely forgotten. It wasn't presented at the conspiracy trial, in fact. There are, however, more pages missing from this book, and there is always some debate as to whether this is due to some kind of cover-up on the part of our government.
01:22:48
Speaker
In 1975, a rare books dealer named Joseph Lynch claimed to have these missing pages, but that didn't lead anywhere. Later, people believed the missing pages along with the Civil War era train were bricked up inside a closed New York City subway tunnel. Have you heard of this, by the way? No.
01:23:08
Speaker
This is crazy. This is crazy. So so this guy who believed that like these missing pages along with the Civil War era train were bricked up inside a closed New York City subway tunnel, which a few enthusiasts have obsessed over for years.
01:23:24
Speaker
The hope is to uncover evidence that the New York mayor and other city officials conspired to assassinate Lincoln. This is just so wild. That makes sense. This theory hinges on the belief that Booth got away after the assassination and fled to New York, where he apparently hid those pages on that train. And there was this guy named Bob Diamond, who was known as the Tunnel King of Brooklyn.
01:23:50
Speaker
He made this tunnel and the discovery of that train and its contents his lifelong obsession. He found this tunnel and unbricked it, like discovered it and the city maps and and stuff. Yeah, there are plenty of like abandoned tunnels and stations. Yeah. And he in this city, like.
01:24:09
Speaker
would never let him fully in it. They just threw the door down and said, no, you're not getting in there. It was crazy. There is a huge article on this in both the New York Times and Newsweek. I'll post the links in the show notes, but it is a hell of a rabbit hole, so to speak. But others believe those pages probably went missing under more mundane circumstances such as that
01:24:34
Speaker
John tore them out to use his toilet paper, actually, during his time on the run. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, to this day, there are so many rumors and theories, but the official narrative still holds pretty strong. The diary pages that we do have offer really unique insights in the booth state of mind during his flight from Washington, D.C. And, you know, I'll have all that stuff on the show notes as well.
01:25:01
Speaker
So a good coda for you is John Wilkes Booth was originally buried at Fort McNair. Then he was moved to Greenmont Cemetery in Baltimore, right, closer to his family, where he is buried near Elijah Bond, the maker of the Ouija board. That is just an amazing way to come full circle, my friend, as we come to the end of this discussion of quite
01:25:29
Speaker
a vintage villain and really, especially when you consider the consequential history of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and what that meant for the future of this country. And even if you think about the talented Booth family, just like looking at that as a microcosm,
01:25:47
Speaker
You had Asia. You were just saying Edwin stopped acting for a while. Asia Booth Clark was a well-known writer who fled to England. Like it destroyed that family, which, you know, I kind of wonder whether like.
01:26:08
Speaker
part of the whole booth thing, he probably never, in my mind, my guess, never meant to get away. Yeah. I had a ton of resentment against his country, his family. And I just see the entire thing as a giant FU, FU for the North winning FU family that never put me first, just FU for everyone.
01:26:30
Speaker
There were probably any number of small moves that could have been made to have prevented this. It's easy to look at it now 100, you know, some years later and, you know, 150 years later and go, yeah, they should have done this. They should have done this, especially given what we know now and what we've lived through. It was still like a miracle. He pulled it off even then.
01:26:50
Speaker
It is a story that I think remains consequential to this day as we feel sort of like the frayed edges of the fabric sort of holding this republic together, perhaps more than ever. To know, though,
Conclusion and Future Episodes
01:27:05
Speaker
that, and this is why I study history, is that no matter how far back I look, I find that we are often the same humans, we're the same species. People say history doesn't repeat. It rhymes now. I'm pretty sure it repeats.
01:27:20
Speaker
Oh how true that is my friend. And with that I think this is a great time to bring this whole saga to a close. I want to thank Jason Blair again for taking his time to lend his knowledge and expertise on the topic of John Wilkes Booth and the DC Maryland area.
01:27:39
Speaker
He will definitely be back for more episodes in the future. Unlike John Wilkes Booth, I happen to have smart friends. And when you have smart friends, you keep them close. And if you want to hear more from Jason, I cannot say enough about the quality of interviews he does with his guests over on his show, The Silver Linings Handbook. Do go check that out.
01:28:02
Speaker
And if you like what you heard here today, consider supporting the show over on Patreon, leaving a review over on Apple or Spotify, or even picking up some merch. It really helps grow the show and keeps the gears of this time machine turning freely.
01:28:19
Speaker
Also, stop on by The Vintage Villain Soiree. That's the Facebook discussion group where you can ask questions or make suggestions on future episodes. I'll have all those links to everything in the show notes. Meanwhile, I thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time in another century.
01:28:41
Speaker
Thanks for joining us for the Silver Linings Handbook podcast bonus episode. If you'd like to join us for more discussions with us and other listeners, we can be found on most social media platforms, including a Lister-run Facebook group called the Silver Linings Fireside Chat. For deeper conversations with our guests and live conversations with other listeners, you can join us on our Patreon at www.patreon.com forward slash the Silver Linings Handbook.
01:29:10
Speaker
This is Jason Blair and this is the Silver Linings Handbook bonus episode. We'll see you all again in a few days.