Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Tonight, the conspiracy that led

to the first assassination of an American president.

- [Sami] A single gunshot rings out through the theater,

[gunshot pops] followed by screaming.

- [Michael] A man in black lands on the stage and before they

know it, he's ridden off into the night.

- [Barton] By the next morning,

John Wilkes Booth is a wanted man.

He's a national fugitive,

- [Laurence] But it's soon apparent

that this assassination is more

than just the act of a lone gunman.

- [Sami] There are some basic facts that are absolutely known.

Booth was the gunman that killed Lincoln.

There was also a conspirator who attempted

to kill the Secretary of State William Seward.

- [Vaughn] And this starts not only the largest manhunt in

American history, but it also sparks off one

of the largest conspiracies.

- Now we explore the top theories surrounding the plot

to kill Abraham Lincoln.

- [Barton] Now many people believe that someone more

powerful than Booth was giving the orders.

- [Christy] She believed that Johnson was in on it

because he had the most to gain by her husband's death.

- [Vaughn] They saw Lincoln as enemy number one.

- Was there a mastermind

or secret organization behind the plan

to kill Abraham Lincoln?

And if so, who was it?

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] It's a pleasant 70 degree spring day in

the nation's capitol.

Good Friday, the start of Easter weekend.

- Good Friday, Washington DC is a jubilant place.

First, they get news that Richmond, the capital

of the Confederacy has fallen to US troops.

Then as Lee makes his way south,

he surrenders to Grant at Appomattox on April 9th.

- Even though the war isn't technically, completely over,

everybody knows it's just a matter of time now.

The Confederacy is defeated.

There's peace ahead.

- [Sami] On April 14th, 1865, it's said

that Lincoln awakens in probably one

of the best moods he's ever been in.

That evening, he's going to be going

to a play at Ford's Theater in

Washington DC called "Our American Cousin".

- There's just a moment of national release

that's playing out in microcosm in the theater there.

This is Lincoln's highest moment in some ways in terms

of joy of celebration, it sort of peaks.

- [Laurence] But the spirit of celebration

will be short lived.

- [Marvin] Around 10:00 PM an audience member looks up

at the president's box and notices a man with dark hair

and a nicely groomed mustache making his way

towards the president's box.

- [Michael] There was a funny line on the stage, a big

swelling of laughter, and in the middle of it all,

there's this very loud popping sound.

- The first lady lets out a terrible scream.

Something bad has happened to the President.

He's clearly unconscious,

but nobody at first can tell how he has been injured.

- [Sami] According to Harry Hawk, a stage actor who's

performing that night, he hears the assailant yell

"Sic semper tyrannus",

which in Latin stands for thus always to tyrants.

The assailant then jumps from the president's box

onto the stage, but as he's jumping,

he catches his foot on a bunting

and he lands a bit awkwardly on stage.

- [Martin] He then shouts that the South shall be free

before running off the stage out a side exit

and disappearing from the theater.

A doctor rushes to the booth

and initially he believes that the president's been stabbed.

- But then the doctor is able

to find a small wound in the back of his head.

Then they know that this is a gunshot wound.

- [Heather] People notice the moment

that this assassin jumps onto the stage who he is

and they realize he's an actor.

He is a very well known actor

that is none other than John Wilkes Booth.

- [Laurence] While the stunned audience tries

to make sense of what just happened, there's more chaos,

less than a mile away.

- [Vaughn] Across town, you have a man knock at the Secretary

of State William Seward's house,

and when he gets close to Seward's room,

he pulls out a knife and he starts slashing.

He stabbed and slashes Seward multiple times

and then runs out of the house himself.

- [Sami] Remarkably Seward survives the attack

because he's wearing a metal neck brace,

which stops the assailant from outright killing him.

- [Martin] The president is carried across the street

to a boarding house

and he's brought there so that physicians can

provide care for him.

The bullet has passed through his brain

and lodged itself at the back of his right eye.

- [Laurence] Lincoln never regains consciousness

and at 7:22 AM on April 15th,

the president is declared dead.

- [Martin] Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton swings

into action very quickly

and he orders that the city is sealed off.

He also orders the arrest of any man, woman,

or child attempting to cross a bridge

to escape from the city.

- [Sami] The news of Lincoln's assassination spreads across

the country by both newspaper and telegraph

and millions in the country are reeling.

- [Christy] What is absolutely clear is

that John Wilkes Booth was the man responsible

and that there was another attack taking place at the exact

same time, and that could not be a coincidence.

- [Martin] Attention is directed toward the state of Maryland.

This is where Booth is from.

Investigators quickly run down Sam Arnold,

who was a known confidant of John Wilkes Booth

and a previous conspiracy

to strike out against the president, but he then bowed out

because he didn't wanna be associated with it.

- [Barton] In the aftermath of the attack on Lincoln, they

discovered that Booth had frequented a local boarding

house that was owned and operated by Mary Surratt

and Mary Surratt was Confederate sympathizing

woman from Maryland.

- [Vaughn] So as authorities are interviewing Mary Surratt,

she's saying she doesn't know anyone.

She doesn't know anything about this.

There's a knock on the door

and when they open the door, there's a man standing there

with a pickax in his hand, a man

by the name of Lewis Powell.

Powell also matches the physical description for the man

who violently attacked Seward a few days earlier.

- [Martin] So the big question is who's responsible

for this conspiracy and a good place to start is

with the man who fired a shot that night

and who is also still on the run.

[dramatic music]

- [Sami] Booth is a major Confederate sympathizer.

On top of that booth is a staunch advocate for slavery

and believes that all abolitionists

are treasonous individuals.

- [Christy] What makes Booth different is he uses his

platform from the stage to eventually denounce everything

that Lincoln stands for.

Basically calls for the death of abolitionists.

He does all of this from the stage.

- [Laurence] Booth comes from a famous acting family,

and over the last decade he's become a star.

He's toured extensively even during the war, almost always

to critical acclaim.

- [Vaughn] As the alleged conspirators are rounded up,

they start to talk of course.

All of them start to point the finger at Booth.

Given all of Booth's actions, his words up to this point,

he almost surely appears to be the ringleader.

- [Michael] John Wilkes Booth told people when he was trying

to enlist their help in this plot, he said,

we are just going to capture the president.

- [Vaughn] Shortly thereafter, booth attends a speech of

Lincoln's where Lincoln's really espousing these notions of the

future of free black people in America,

all the rights that they should have.

- [Michael] That sort of keyed into Booth's mind

and he said, that's the last speech he will ever make.

It is often said that that's the turning point.

From that moment on, there is no doubt in Booth's mind

that he's not gonna capture the President,

he's going to kill him.

- [Vaughn] So as Booth decides he needs to kill Lincoln,

the plot turns to not just killing Lincoln,

but also to killing Lincoln's main cabinet.

So he wants to kill Lincoln's Vice President Andrew Johnson,

his secretary of State William Seward

and one of his major generals, General Grant.

- [Martin] Vice President Johnson is spared that night

and that's simply because of the man who was assigned

to carry out his assassination,

gets cold feet at the last minute and abandons the plot.

If the effort had not been abandoned, the idea

of decapitating the US government so

that the Confederacy would have a chance

to resurrect itself, that might have

actually become a reality.

- [Laurence] Federal officials offer a $100,000 reward,

but 10 days after the assassination,

there's still no sign

of John Wilkes booth.

- [Sami] After Booth jumps from the president's box,

he's still able to escape the theater

and then ride out of DC on horseback that night.

- [Vaughn] Shortly thereafter, he rendezvous

with another co-conspirator named David Herold.

They'd met a few years earlier

after his show, he's swept into the web of Booth.

- [Michael] 12 days after the assassination,

a detachment from the 16th New York cavalry finally caught

up with Booth

and Herold at a farm just outside of Port Royal, Virginia.

- [Sami] When the soldiers and detectives arrive at the barn

and tell the men that they've got them surrounded,

Herold gives up and walks right out of the barn,

but Booth refuses and stays in the barn.

The barn is then lit on fire,

but within all of the commotion, a soldier fires his weapon

and shoots Booth in the neck.

- [Michael] He died about the same time of day

that Lincoln had died 12 days earlier,

and that was the end of John Wilkes Booth.

- [Laurence] Investigators must now piece together

the conspiracy puzzle,

without the most prominent suspect.

- [Marvin] The man who shot Lincoln is now dead,

but this hydra

of conspirators is still alive and in captivity.

- [Christy] By the end of April, 1865,

eight people had been publicly identified

and were preparing to stand trial as co-conspirators

to the Lincoln assassination.

- [Marvin] Unlike most crimes committed by civilians,

these conspirators would not be tried

in front of a civilian court.

This would be a military tribunal.

- [Sami] This includes people like Sam Arnold, Lewis Powell,

Mary Surratt, David Herold, Dr. Samuel Mudd.

You also have a man by the name of George Atzerodt.

George Atzerodt was the man who was tasked to kill

the vice, President Andrew Johnson that night.

- [Marvin] At this point in time, all of the evidence points

to John Wilkes Booth.

One of Booth's friends, Sam Arnold,

who was part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln fingered Booth

as the leader of the party.

- [Christy] The key point about this conspiracy is

that the prosecution set forth the idea

that John Wilkes Booth put all these people together.

He's the one who managed to rally their support,

but there was always speculation as to whether

or not he really was the mastermind

or was he merely the puppet?

- [Laurence] On May 12th, 1865 testimony begins in the trial

of eight defendants accused of conspiring

to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

In the coming weeks, over 300 witnesses will take the stand

and the stakes are high.

Guilty verdicts could mean the gallows.

- [Sami] Prosecutors start laying out their case

for each person one at a time.

When it comes to Lewis Powell, the argument made

by his lawyer is not that he's not guilty,

but it's that he's so passionate

and so moved by the idea of a confederacy

that it literally drove him to insanity.

- [Martin] George Atzerodt, who is assigned

to assassinate Vice President Johnson,

he eventually abandons the mission, gets drunk

and stumbles around the streets of the city,

and his argument is that he was too cowardly

to carry out the crime.

- [Sami] David Herold, the man who assisted Booth's escape,

he stands very little chance in trials considering

that he was found in the barn with John Wilkes Booth.

- [Martin] Mary Surratt is presented as being a ringleader

by providing a place for the co-conspirators to assemble.

She denies her guilt in the conspiracy throughout

all of this.

Her son, John Surratt, is one of the co-conspirators,

but the only one who manages to escape the country

after the crime is committed.

- [Laurence] David Herold, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt

and Mary Surratt are all found guilty and hanged.

Three other conspirators are sentenced

to life in prison in including Dr. Samuel Mudd

and Sam Arnold, but Arnold is pardoned in 1869.

- All told we have 10 total conspirators who are civilians.

So you have the eight who have been tried.

We have John Wilkes Booth who of course is dead,

and then you have John Surratt,

who at this point is on the lam in Canada,

soon to make his way to Europe.

- [Laurence] But federal authorities

and northern newspapers have their eye on a bigger target.

- [Martin] The conspirators who were on trial are asked about

not only just their role in the conspiracy, but whether

or not it went all the way up to the heights

of the Confederate government.

- [Barton] April 2nd, 1865, Jefferson Davis flees the city

of Richmond and the city falls the next day

to the Union Army.

He makes his way down into North Carolina with part

of the Confederate government.

- Unlike Robert E. Lee who told his soldiers just to go home

and be citizens, Jefferson Davis is

wanting to keep this fight alive.

- [Sami] After Lincoln's assassination,

the pressure on the Confederate leadership increases.

In fact, President Johnson offers a $100,000 reward

for the capture of Jefferson Davis.

So while Booth was a trigger man, you have members

of the media, members of the government

and American citizens firmly believing that the mastermind

behind the plot was none other

than the Confederate president.

- [Laurence] By the summer of 1864, nearly a year

before the Lincoln assassination,

the Confederate government is in dire straits,

both militarily and financially.

- [Vaughn] A lot of people think that in Jefferson Davis' mind

by this point, especially

after Lee surrenders as if he's gonna win this,

he's gotta make a huge swing.

He has to take out the head of the Union Government.

- [Laurence] Author and researcher, John C. Fazio argues

that if one follows Booth's movements in the months leading

up to the assassination, the trail leads directly

to Jefferson Davis.

- [Sami] John C. Fazio maintains

that Booth was actually a part

of the Confederate secret service, that he was a spy,

and Fazio talks about booth making trips to places

to drum up support for the Confederacy,

including places like Montreal,

Boston, New York,

Philadelphia, Baltimore,

and Washington DC as well.

- [Vaughn] He makes this trip to Montreal in late 1864,

which on the surface, okay,

but when he returns to Washington DC

he deposits $1,500 in

the bank, which would be $30,000 today,

and there's no really accounting for where he got this.

- [Sami] Fazio claims that the movement of money

and meetings with all

of these high ranking Confederate officials indicates

that there was an operation that was known about

and that was also approved by the heads of the Confederacy.

- [Laurence] According to Fazio's research,

Booth's co-conspirator John Surratt went to Richmond,

the Confederate capitol

and met with top leaders in March, 1865, perhaps even

with Davis himself.

- [Martin] Fazio finds evidence of John Surratt returning

to Mary Surratt's boarding house with a large quantity

of money, and he believes that what this indicates is that

Surratt had gone to Richmond, he came back to Washington DC

to the boarding house with instructions

to carry out the assassinations

and the money to get the job done.

- [Vaughn] We know that Lincoln was killed in 1865,

but what starts to come out is that the death of Lincoln,

the attack on Lincoln could have been a part

of a larger plot to take out the Union Government.

- [Laurence] In early 1865 before the trial,

President Johnson himself issues a proclamation claiming

the crimes of April 14th were incited

and procured by Jefferson Davis.

- [Vaughn] Union Force has finally captured Jefferson Davis

on May 10th, just a couple days

before they're gonna try these conspirators.

- [Martin] Although some people at trial indicate

that Jefferson Davis was the ultimate authority

for this operation,

the government's case against him fizzles when some

of the details that these witnesses provide prove

to go nowhere and they're contradicted by other evidence.

- [Laurence] None of Davis's closest associates

believe he would've ordered Lincoln's assassination.

- On the surface, it may be very easy to believe

that Jefferson Davis would've wanted Lincoln killed,

but when you look at their personalities, you see

that there's a good deal of mutual respect between them.

- [Vaughn] But there's also the hard fact that if Lincoln dies,

his vice president Andrew Johnson is gonna come in

and it's well known that Jefferson Davis

and so many other southerners cannot stand Andrew Johnson

because Andrew Johnson is a southern unionist,

they see him as a traitor.

They don't want him to be their new president,

- [Sami] But there are still those who believe that Davis

and his men are responsible, given Booth

and Surratt's suspicious activities,

a lot of people continue to speculate

and point the fingers at Jefferson Davis.

- [Laurence] 19th century newspaper editor

Horace Greeley once estimated that Abraham Lincoln

received more than 10,000 death threats

over his four years as president.

For Lincoln, the specter

of assassination was always present.

- The hate for Lincoln ran deep in the South,

you have Southerners taking out newspaper ads

where they're offering money to kill Lincoln.

You have Southerners actually sending candied

fruits to the White House, they're poisoned.

- [Laurence] Assassination attempts

begin almost immediately

after Lincoln's victory in the election of 1860.

These include a plot to kill him as he travels from Illinois

to Washington for his inauguration.

This trip requires changing trains in a city rife

with confederate sympathizers, Baltimore, Maryland.

- At that time in our nation's past,

we did not have a deep security apparatus

around the president.

- [Vaughn] His allies and his advisors are so worried

about Lincoln.

They bring in this guy named Alan Pinkerton.

They bring him in to really watch out for Lincoln

and try to root out any attempts on Lincoln's life.

- [Sami] Pinkerton finds out that there's a group

of conspirators in Baltimore who are planning

to assassinate Lincoln when he makes it to the city,

but his operatives infiltrate the group,

including a young woman by the name of Kate Warne,

who's considered to be the first female private detective

in US history.

- [Laurence] Pinkerton and Warne learned that the assassins

who are using Lincoln's published schedule,

plan to form a mob to ambush him

when he changes trains in Baltimore.

- [Martin] The ruse becomes that Lincoln is posing as a sick

and older person who's dependent on a caretaker,

and that's Kate Warne.

Kate Warne has him abandon his characteristic hat in favor

of a beaver hat and they change

to a different train station.

- [Laurence] The disguised Lincoln arrives

in Baltimore at 3:30 AM

and makes the mile long trip across town

to his connecting train.

He arrives safely in Washington at 6:00 AM.

- [Sami] The group that was supposedly gonna carry

out this assassination attempt are now foiled.

However, there are some researchers who do suggest

that this same group will try

to take Lincoln out once again.

- [Vaughn] An even deeper current

of this, is these conspirators were supposedly a part

of this much larger organization

that had deep roots throughout the south and the north,

and some people argued that Booth was actually a part

of their ranks and that when he fired

that bullet in the Lincoln's head, he was doing

so under their orders.

- [Michael] In the 1850's, the idea

of a secret society was all the rage

and there was a man

named George Washington Lafayette Bickley.

He hit upon the idea of creating an organization

that he would call the Knights of the Golden Circle.

- [Christy] These folks were absolutely dedicated to two

things, preservation of slavery

and the establishment of a perpetual slave society

that would unite Mexico, the Caribbean,

and the American South.

Their plan was to invade Mexico

and make Mexico a part of the confederate states of America

and continue to push forward

and then they would align with the Caribbean nations

that had not yet abolished slavery

and together they would create a superpower.

- [Marvin] Bickley is quite successful.

Thousands of young men sign up

and are recruited by him

to join the Knights of the Golden Circle.

- [Vaughn] It's easy to just assume groups like this

were relegated to the south.

That wasn't the case. People in the north felt this way too.

- [Laurence] In his 2013 book,

"The Knights of the Golden Circle", researcher,

David Keen describes this secret society also known

as the KGC.

In 1859, a group of actors in Richmond,

Virginia is captivated by this clandestine organization.

One of them is 20-year-old John Wilkes Booth.

- [Vaughn] It's not beyond pale to wonder whether he was one

of these conspirators who actually helped

with this 1861 attempt in Baltimore,

Maryland, his home state.

- [Sami] But once the Civil War starts,

the mission of the KGC changes,

it's no longer about invading a foreign nation.

It's now about protecting southern secession

and the right to own slaves.

- [Vaughn] At the end of the war, they imprisoned Bickley

because they had found evidence that

the KGC members knew about this plot to kill Lincoln

before it even happened.

- [Martin] Judge Henry Burnett, who presides over the trial

of the co-conspirators, he'll go on to say

that the footprints of the Knights

of the Golden Circle is all over the trial.

- [Laurence] It's believed that before 1865,

the KGC actually incorporates its intent

to assassinate the president

and his cabinet into the oath sworn by its members.

But whether or not this secret society was the driving force

behind Lincoln's assassination remains an open question.

- [Martin] If Booth is actually receiving instructions from the

Knights of the Golden Circle, it would suggest

that the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln is not

just some wanton act of revenge,

but it's part of a coherent plot to secure the interests

of the Knights of the Golden Circle

and the future of the South.

- [Sami] Given their secrecy, it's really hard to truly know

all of the KGC's activities in the spring of 1865

and their true size for that matter.

While it is tantalizing to want

to pin the assassination plot on a group like this,

without proper and true evidence to prove it,

it's all circumstantial at best.

- [Laurence] November, 1864.

A meeting allegedly takes place in New York City at the

opulent fifth Avenue mansion

of super rich financier, August Belmont.

In his 2004 book "Murdering Mr. Lincoln" biographer,

Charles Higham argues that the main agenda of the meeting is

to plot the assassination of the president,

and among those in attendance is John Wilkes Booth.

- [Sami] While the majority

of hatred towards Lincoln comes primarily from Southerners

in places like New York, you have groups of people

that are called Peace Democrats.

They're nicknamed Copperheads after the snake

because many on the union side consider them

to be treacherous snakes.

- They didn't think Lincoln was doing things right.

They thought that the war needed to end,

and if that meant that the South should be able

to secede, so be it.

- [Heather] Others argue that they're racist

because part of the secession is

to keep slavery,

and so there's dual arguments as to

who were these peace quote Democrats.

- [Sami] Another massive problem

that these northern Peace Democrats have

with Lincoln is a financial one,

and this is where we get into August Belmont.

- [Barton] August Belmont is a fascinating individual.

He was born Aaron Schonburg in what is today Germany.

He becomes the agent

of the Rothschild International Banking Operation

and then eventually immigrates to the United States

before the American Civil War

and becomes a member of the Democratic Party.

- [Sami] When Belmont moved to America, he remained aligned

with the Rothschilds

and some suggests that that's

where his anti-Lincoln sentiment begins,

because apparently when the Rothschilds offer up these high

interest loans as a way to fund the war, Lincoln said no.

There are also people that are affiliated

with the cotton industry that have it out for Lincoln

as well because they believe that he is messing

with their finances.

- [Vaughn] Historian Charles Higham has argued

that there was this meeting

that Belmont held in 1864 at his home

and at this meeting, a lot

of wealthy men in the north had a real ax to grind.

- [Sami] The meeting is described in a letter that's

sent to the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton six months

after it takes place.

The letter points to the idea that the plot

to assassinate Lincoln doesn't come from a Confederate

sympathizer or even the Confederate side,

that it comes from the union side.

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] According to this letter, the meeting is attended

by some of America's richest and most influential power players.

- [Barton] August Belmont's one

of the richest people in the United States.

He's a racehorse owner.

He is the namesake for the Belmont Stakes,

which is run at Belmont Park in New York.

- [Vaughn] Allegedly George McClellan was at the

same meeting.

Now, George McClellan definitely has an ax to grind

with Lincoln, but for different reasons.

After the Battle of Antietam in 1862,

Lincoln had stripped him

of his leadership of the Union Army.

- [Sami] Other prominent men at the meeting allegedly include

the pro-South former mayor of New York

and now US Congressman Fernando Wood.

Wood, when he was mayor of New York, believed

that New York City should have also seceded from the union.

- [Vaughn] You also have Charles Haswell,

who is a wealthy ship designer.

They're all coming together, they're meeting in this room,

but most importantly, allegedly John Wilkes Booth might have

joined their group as well.

- [Sami] Belmont actually was someone who raised large sums of

money for McClellan's presidential campaign in an

attempt to unseat Lincoln from power.

He also launched a campaign to disseminate anti-Lincoln

and anti-Emancipation Proclamation propaganda.

- [Laurence] The meeting is not the only evidence

of a plot allegedly involving Belmont and McClellan.

- [Sami] McClellan's secretary writes in his diary about a

month before the meeting

of the Copperheads about an encounter he has

with Alan Pinkerton.

- [Vaughn] Pinkerton comes and interviews McClellan's secretary

and he asks McClellan's secretary if he knows anything.

The secretary says he doesn't.

Pinkerton then tells him, well, I think it's McClellan

and his friends, so your boss is up to something

and we've got an eye on you.

- [Heather] The Democratic Convention of 1864 was very

volatile, very violent in rhetoric at least, talking about

the need to not reelect Lincoln, the need to get him out of

office, and if we cannot do it by the ballot, then it's going

to happen by the bullet.

- [Laurence] Given the level of anti-Lincoln sentiment

in the North, it's not surprising that Belmont

and others might have made menacing statements,

but for some historians,

its Booth's surprise attendance at the alleged November

meeting that signifies their talk may have turned to action.

- [Sami] George Atzerodt made a confession which was lost

and then later discovered in 1977

that while in New York he saw Booth giving a secret hand

signal to two people,

- [Marvin] George Atzerotd confesses that booth met

with a quote unquote party in New York

and that they were gonna get the President for sure.

This was a plot to blow up the White House

with Lincoln in it as well as his captain.

- [Sami] Now it isn't that much of a leap for this group of

people to turn to Booth to come up with a more direct

and less messy method.

- [Laurence] Rumors about August Belmont's supposed connection

to Lincoln's assassination run wild in 1865.

- [Vaughn] Biographer David Black has argued

that Belmont did indeed have something to do with this,

but Belmont always vehemently denied this

and there's no real hard evidence to this.

- [Barton] Booth told people

That there were far more people involved in the plot,

maybe 50 to a 100.

It's possible that Booth created this in his own mind

to make himself feel bigger.

Many of the people who eventually were tried do allude

to the fact that they felt they didn't know all the pieces

of what was going on even in the plot they were part of.

- [Laurence] The investigation of Abraham Lincoln's

assassination at Ford's Theatre doesn't

end with the trial of his conspirators.

The monumental nature of the crime

and the many questions remaining lead to decade

after decade of Lincoln conspiracy research

and speculation, including a controversial book

that 72 years after the fact makes a startling claim.

- [Sami] In 1937, a book is released called

"Why Was Lincoln Murdered"?

This book is written by Civil War

historian Otto Eisenschiml.

Now, Otto Eisenschiml is a chemist by trade,

but he's fascinated by the Civil War era

and through his research, he comes

to the conclusion in his book

that it wasn't John Wilkes Booth

that led the plot to kill Lincoln.

It was in fact Lincoln's own

Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.

[dramatic music]

- [Martin] Eisenschiml's case is entirely circumstantial.

He doesn't have a smoking gun,

but he nevertheless points to evidence like Grant's failure

to attend Ford's Theatre

the night of the assassination attempt.

- [Laurence] Grant is originally set to accompany the Lincolns

to Ford's Theatre that night,

but drops out at the last minute.

The author claims that Secretary

of War Stanton convinced Grant

to refuse Lincoln's invitation.

Stanton argued that having the victorious commander

and the president together at the same public function would

present a security risk.

- [Sami] When Grant decides to go to New Jersey,

Stanton seems a bit more lax about Lincoln's

security detail that night.

- Eisenschiml also alleges that Lincoln personally requests

to have one of his best bodyguards, Eckert,

be with him the night of the play.

- [Heather] Eckert is a very strong guy.

It's even rumored they can break fire pokers, you know,

with just his bare hands

and Stanton says, "No, he can't go to the theater".

Why can't he go to the theater?

He's got very important work to do that night

- [Laurence] With Lincoln's preferred bodyguard unavailable,

Washington police patrolman John Frederick Parker,

one of four officers assigned

to White House detail steps in.

- [Vaughn] Allegedly Parker had a checkered history, allegations

of activity unbecoming of an officer.

At one point, allegedly in 1864,

he got himself mixed up in a brothel

and fired his pistol through a window.

- [Barton] Parker is mysteriously not there

to protect Lincoln on that evening.

What had actually happened was

that John Frederick Parker had gone across the street

to the bar with Lincoln's valet, his coach driver.

- [Martin] A bar coincidentally, which is

where John Wilkes Booth is also physically present,

tying on a few drinks to give him some liquid courage to go

and carry out the assassination.

Eisenschiml believes that Stanton's denying

the President's request about Eckert

and giving him Parker instead was paving the way for

and making it easier for Booth to carry out the crime.

- [Vaughn] If you wanted to go with Eisenschiml's theory,

you could look at what Stanton does afterwards.

Parker has a slap on the wrist.

He's never even officially noted in the assassination report

and then he's still on White House detail after this.

- [Laurence] Some believe this all points

to Stanton orchestrating an assassination plot

and there's even more suspicious

behavior after the murder.

- [Barton] Booth and David Herold were both somehow able

to make an escape.

The bridges were supposed to be secured by the Union Army.

How they managed to get through

that night across the bridges was of real concern

to Eisenschiml, so he believed that somehow this pointed

to a larger conspiracy.

- [Laurence] The author also questions the handling

of the standoff between Booth

and Union soldiers in Virginia.

- [Martin] Stanton had ordered that booth be taken alive.

His death then at least to Eisenschiml,

proves that this assassination plot

inside job has been carried out perfectly

because now Booth can't possibly provide any

testimony in any trial.

- [Sami] So if you follow this theory,

this is Stanton just tying up loose ends

and he continues to do so by pushing

for the military trial of the co-conspirators

- [Laurence] When published in 1937,

"Why Was Lincoln Murdered?" causes an uproar.

Critics ask, why would Stanton do this?

- [Sami] Now when it comes to Lincoln

and Stanton's actual relationship,

this has always been a matter of debate.

For starter, Stanton was not a supporter

of Lincoln in 1860 in the election,

he was actually a supporter

of his opponent, John Breckenridge.

- [Laurence] The author suggests Stanton

was worried Lincoln would fire him once the war ended.

If he could cause chaos

and confusion with an assassination,

then perhaps he could maintain control of the army

and consolidate power.

- [Sami] But skeptics see a problem with this theory.

The two men had buried all their differences during the war

and following Lincoln's assassination, it was said

to have deeply, deeply affected Stanton for quite some time.

- [Laurence] Approximately seven hours

before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln,

John Wilkes Booth pays a visit to the Kirkwood House Hotel.

It's not just any Washington inn,

it happens to be the residence

of Vice President Andrew Johnson.

- John Wilkes Booth asks whether

or not the vice president is there.

The clerk at the desk says, I'll check.

And he says, oh, wait a minute, don't bother.

And he takes out a piece of paper

and he writes, don't wish to disturb you.

Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.

- [Laurence] This cryptic note never gets

to Johnson that day,

but it fuels two questions that remain unanswered.

Why was Booth reaching out to the vice president

and why would they appear to know each other?

- [Sami] George Atzerodt, the man who was apparently tasked

with killing vice President Andrew Johnson was also staying

at the same hotel as Johnson,

but he ends up not going through the assassination

because he ends up getting cold feet.

- Some people believe that Booth was doing this simply

because he was concerned

that Atzerodt might not carry out the crime

and he was laying a framework for him

to do the job later on if necessary.

But there's also then a belief

that it could be just Booth leaving this little piece

of evidence that would suggest a conspiracy

that also involves the US vice President.

[dramatic music]

- [Vaughn] Some historians wonder whether John Wilkes Booth

and Andrew Johnson had met.

Well, there's some circumstantial evidence there

to suggests that maybe they had,

because Johnson is from Tennessee

and we know that John Wilkes Booth performed at the newly

opened Woods Theater in 1864 there.

- [Sami] Now, at the time of the assassination, plenty

of people think that Johnson is involved,

including Abraham Lincoln's widow, Mary Todd Lincoln.

In fact, in a letter that she wrote in 1866, she writes

"That miserable inebriate Johnson had cognizance

of my husband's death."

She goes on to say, "As sure as you

and I live, Johnson had some hand in all of this."

- [Laurence] In 1867,

Missouri representative Benjamin Loan publicly accuses

Johnson of conspiring with the Confederacy

to assassinate Lincoln.

- [Martin] Benjamin Loan says that Andrew Johnson only became

president as a result of an assassination that was paid for

by Confederate Gold

and the price that Johnson paid

for his promotion was treachery.

These suspicions are so serious

that they eventually establish a body

to investigate the extent

to which Andrew Johnson may have been involved in the plot

to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

- [Barton] What they find is that there is no concrete direct

evidence that Andrew Johnson was involved with Booth

or any of the planning related to the assassination.

- [Vaughn] Even with the close investigation,

for some people, it's hard to get past it.

That night of all three people who had anything

to gain from Lincoln's assassination,

Andrew Johnson had the most

'cause he'd be the next president.

You could also argue that Booth leaves this note at

the hotel because he actually does want to talk to Johnson

because Johnson actually was the mastermind of the plan.

- [Barton] There are a number of areas where Andrew Johnson's

policy and decisions after the Lincoln assassination do make

him look more suspect.

One was his May, 1865 proclamation

where he gives amnesty

to most Confederate people involved

in the American Civil War.

That didn't do anything

to help his public reputation in terms

of Lincoln assassination.

- [Christy] Had it not occurred,

there's all kinds of speculation of what kind

of president would Lincoln have been, given his full second

term, and we'll never know.

That was stripped away from this by the conspirators.

- [Sami] Johnson's one term presidency is just filled

with all these terrible political battles.

Case in point, he tried to fire a member of his cabinet and

because of that he was brought up on impeachment charges

and he was saved from being convicted of impeachment

by one vote.

- [Marvin] Many historians today regard President Andrew Johnson

as one of the worst presidents in US history, the president

who started off reconstruction

and tried to veto any kind of reconstruction legislation

that would've had a positive effect on the Black Americans.

- [Sami] The Congressional Committee designed

to investigate Johnson as to whether he had

to hand the assassination doesn't come up

with any real, hard evidence to prove

that he had a part of it outside of the note

that Booth left in the mailbox.

But even after that, many Americans,

including Mary Todd Lincoln, still firmly believed

that Johnson was a part of the plan.

[dramatic music]

- Abraham Lincoln was the first US president

to be assassinated and the shock continues to reverberate.

More than a century

and a half later, new books are being written about

his life and death.

The turmoil of Lincoln's time in some ways is still with us,

and so is the desire to know the truth about a conspiracy

that left us forever changed as a nation.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching his 'History's Greatest Mysteries".

[dramatic music]