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- [Voiceover] I have come a long way.

I was born in the Wild West

and worked my way to the top.

I am the new President of the United States of America.

I have sworn to stop the spread of slavery.

All men shall be free;

whether rich or poor, white or black.

- To do do all which may achieve and cherish.

A just and a lasting peace.

- [Voiceover] It is a cause worth dying for.

I am determined to see this battle through.

(gun shot)

Even if I get caught in the line of fire myself.

I am prepared to put my own life at stake,

for I know the dream of freedom for every man

will outlive me.

(gun shot)

("Oh Captain" by George Kochbeck)

(theme music)

(gun shots) (people shouting)

- [Voiceover] 1861.

A great divide threatens America.

Tensions between the North and the South erupt

into a bloody civil war.

Seceding from the Union,

Southerners take up arms to defend their independence

and their right to own slaves.

(gun shots)

- There was a real difference

in those two parts of the country.

And the issue of slavery

had been festering since the Constitution.

- [Voiceover] America is a ticking bomb.

- [Voiceover] Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery,

I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

(rocking chair creaking)

- [Voiceover] As a young man, Abraham Lincoln

saw people shackled and beaten

because of the color of their skin.

(whip cracking) (man groaning)

- [Voiceover] America, the land of the free,

is the only civilized, Christian country

where slavery still exists.

But beating the body of a human destroys his soul.

I could hardly bear to watch it.

- [Voiceover] Their ancestors were carried off

into slavery from Africa.

Now, four million blacks suffer

at the hands of Southern slave owners.

They are treated no better than the animals

which they use to work the cotton plantations.

Even their children are sold at slave markets.

- He said later on

that there was never a time in his life

when slavery did not have the power to make him miserable.

- [Voiceover] Those who deny freedom to others

deserve it not for themselves,

and under a just God can no longer retain it.

I was born on February 12th, 1809 in Kentucky,

a dangerous place to live with bears

and other wild animals in the woods.

My mother died when I was nine years old.

Soon afterwards my father married a widow

with three children.

She was a caring woman and gave me books to read.

It was my task to cut down trees

with a heavy ax from morning until evening.

I went to school for just 300 days.

- [Voiceover] 40 years later,

while campaigning for the Presidency,

Abraham Lincoln tells his life story to a newspaper.

He is a young boy from the country,

poorly educated but full of ambition.

He is compassionate and determined

to fight against injustice.

He wants to make a difference.

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

At age 22, Abe works in a general store

but his mind is elsewhere.

- [Voiceover] I enjoyed selling salt and tools

to the settlers and delivering newspapers.

But I wanted to do more in life.

(people chattering)

I stayed up late reading.

Legal texts and books on American History were my favorites.

I even learnt some by heart.

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

- [Voiceover] He's fascinated with the steam train,

a new technology that is driving America's expansion

to the west.

(train horn)

He sees the railroad as a uniting force

that can bind together a vast nation

of immigrants in far flung regions.

- He looked upon the United States

as a single nation committed to a single idea.

- [Voiceover] Workers lay thousands of miles of track.

But it's mostly in the North.

The tracks don't extend as far into the rural South.

- [Voiceover] The country was going

in two different directions.

You had an industrialized North

and you had a very agrarian South

that relied heavily on slavery.

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

(train horn)

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

- [Voiceover] At age 28, Lincoln moves to Springfield,

Illinois' capital, to pursue a law career.

All his belongings fit into two saddlebags.

He has taught himself all he knows about the law

and earned a law license.

With barely a penny to his name

he shares a bed with a friend,

as was common in those days.

He gets a job in a law office

and will later represent the railroad companies.

- Abraham Lincoln is all about upward mobility.

- [Voiceover] And just being a lawyer isn't enough for him.

- Lincoln loved politics.

He loved politics probably more than anything.

- [Voiceover] He runs for Congress and wins a seat,

driven by fierce ambition.

- "I am humble Abraham Lincoln," he said

in his first political campaign.

That's the first lie that Honest Abe ever told on the stump.

There was nothing humble about him.

He was not a modest person.

- [Voiceover] I feel I've already achieved a lot.

But I really want to make a difference

and make my mark in the world.

At the same time, I also dream of having a family.

I want to have children and set up a home for them.

- [Voiceover] At a ball, he meets Mary Todd,

the daughter of a rich, Kentucky slave owner.

The poor attorney from the prairie

is not welcomed as a suitor by her distinguished family.

But Mary follows her heart.

She admires his ambition and shares his love of politics.

- She was a political soul mate.

She was the Hillary Clinton of her day.

- [Voiceover] One of Lincoln's gifts to Mary Todd

were political statistics wrapped in a ribbon

instead of flowers.

But this seemed to work for her.

- [Voiceover] They marry in 1842

and will eventually have four children.

She is well educated and speaks fluent French.

Through her, Lincoln is introduced to higher social circles.

They are a loyal couple.

Yet, surprisingly, there isn't a single photo

of them together.

In 1852, a novel is published that stirs up the country

like no other book of its time.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" tells the story of a Kentucky slave

who is sold from a kind owner to a cruel owner.

The slave is brutally beaten to death.

The novel is a shocking expose of the evil of slavery

and of the fugitive slave laws

that sent runaway slaves back to their masters.

- [Voiceover] And it brought

into every Northern family's parlor

the story, the horror, of the fugitive slave law.

- [Voiceover] It ignites a firestorm of opinions

on both sides of the slavery issue

and unifies slave owners in indignation.

As slavery threatens to expand,

Lincoln resolves to use all his powers to fight it.

He joins a new party, called the Republicans,

committed to stopping the spread of slavery.

But then some abolitionists take matters

into their own hands in the Virginia railway town

of Harper's Ferry.

(train horn)

Led by John Brown,

they raid the armory intending to use the weapons

in an insurrection to liberate the slaves.

But Brown's men are caught by the Army

and hanged soon afterwards.

The North wants peace, not provocation.

But the South sees the attack

as a Northern conspiracy against it's freedom.

- Lincoln's reaction to Harper's Ferry

was horror, embarrassment,

and a little element of I told you so.

Because John Brown became a stick

that every apologist for slavery used

to beat anti-slavery people in the North.

And Lincoln had to go to extraordinary lengths

to dissociate himself from John Brown.

- [Voiceover] Personally, Lincoln strongly opposes slavery.

But the Constitution itself allows slavery in the South.

As a firm believer in the rule of law,

Lincoln knows he can't fight the Constitution.

At least not yet.

If he wants to change things,

he'll need to be in a better position.

He decides to run for Senate.

("Lincoln Theme #1" by George Kochbeck)

In 1854, he makes a bid and fails.

Four years later he makes a second attempt.

He loses once again.

But this time, making impassioned speeches

in front of giant crowds, he leaves an impression.

- Politics was a form of popular entertainment.

Lincoln understood that.

Lincoln was a performer.

He would invest enormous amounts of effort

in preparing his speeches.

- [Voiceover] A speech he gives in Springfield

against the division of the Union

suddenly makes him a political star.

(people chattering)

"A house divided against itself cannot stand,"

he proclaims to his fellow Republicans

on June 16th, 1858.

(people chattering)

- [Voiceover] I took these words from the New Testament.

The Bible is a great source of inspiration to me.

I'm convinced that slavery and democracy

cannot co-exist indefinitely.

We must make a choice.

- [Voiceover] Lincoln's House Divided speech

paves his way to the White House.

Two years later he runs for President.

1860.

During his election campaign,

Lincoln is attacked by the South as a friend of the slaves.

- Slavery becomes the big issue for Lincoln.

The issue that overshadowed all others.

The issue on which he conducts his political life.

And the issue on which he is elected President in 1860.

- [Voiceover] Let us have faith.

And in that faith, let us dare to--

- [Voiceover] Lincoln barely wins any votes in the South.

And he wins the North in part

because the opposing party is split.

Lincoln is elected President,

but it only pushes the country closer to the brink of war.

- Reaction was visceral.

Particularly in the South

when many people believed if it wasn't the end of the world,

it was certainly the end of the Union.

- [Voiceover] No matter how difficult the decision might be,

we must not lose sight of our common goal.

- [Voiceover] President-elect Lincoln travels to Washington

through a divided country.

A plot to assassinate him is thwarted at the last minute.

Lincoln moves into the White House

but has no time to settle in.

- Lincoln was the divider.

He came into power and the country fell apart.

- [Voiceover] The map of America shows

the battle lines being drawn.

The Northern states have elected a President

who opposes slavery.

In response, seven Southern states

declare their independence.

- They created an alternative country.

They elected their own President.

They staged their own inauguration.

- [Voiceover] Lincoln chooses not to recognize

this new Confederacy.

He knows he may have to respond with military action.

In his first act as President,

he reaches out to the South.

- [Voiceover] In your hands,

my dissatisfied, fellow countrymen,

and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war.

- "In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen,

"and not in mine, rests the momentous issue of civil war."

What Lincoln did, brilliantly, was to turn the tables.

And to put the onus on the South

for initiating civil war.

(people chattering)

- [Voiceover] It's a cold, winter's day

in March 1861 as 30,000 people

come to hear Lincoln's inaugural address.

- There were sharpshooters on many roofs.

And the artillery drawn up at the Capitol were there,

not to give a 21-gun salute,

but to mow down anyone who tried to prevent

the President from being sworn in.

- [Voiceover] The new President chooses his words carefully.

A pragmatist, he agrees to accept slavery

where it already exists,

if that's what it takes to hold the nation together.

- [Voiceover] It was a message of peace.

But it was not received that way.

What the Southern states wanted by that point

was not reconciliation or peace.

What they wanted was surrender.

What they wanted was agreement to their demands.

- [Voiceover] The Southern states ignore his appeals.

Five weeks later on April 12th, 1861,

Confederate soldiers fire on Fort Sumter,

a military garrison in South Carolina.

This severs the ties between the North and the South.

Now the two sides will let their weapons make their case.

- Not exactly the way to enjoy

your Presidential honeymoon period.

- [Voiceover] The Civil War has begun.

From the beginning, the Civil War is a catastrophe.

- [Voiceover] The first thing you have to understand

about the Civil War is how totally, utterly,

how miserably unprepared the United States was

for any kind of conflict.

This was a war of amateurs.

One German observer said that the American Civil War

was like watching two armed mobs

chase each other around the countryside.

- [Voiceover] The Southern troops

are inspired to fight for their freedom.

The Northern battalions are poorly trained and disorganized.

Lincoln's generals soon find it difficult

just recruiting enough soldiers.

(men shouting)

- What made it worse, from Lincoln's point of view,

was that Lincoln himself knew comparatively little

about military affairs.

He was a lawyer.

- [Voiceover] He looks for leadership

from his military commanders

but is sorely disappointed.

- He went through a series of generals

and each one promised him a victory

and each one failed him.

- [Voiceover] In forests and fields

across the country battles raged,

only to end in death and stalemate.

There are victims in almost every family.

Even Lincoln's own family is deeply divided.

Two of Mary's brothers die fighting for the South.

Lincoln has aged rapidly.

He has lost many friends.

- [Voiceover] The hammer blows that landed on him

emotionally and politically,

were simply terrific.

And yet, he displayed this incredible capacity

to absorb that kind of punishment.

- [Voiceover] He urgently needs a break.

Three miles from the White House

on a hill overlooking Washington,

next to the old Soldiers' Home Cemetary

lies his summer residence.

This is the house where he can feel at home.

It is full of personal memories,

much different from his official residence, the White House,

which he calls the Iron Cage.

Lincoln suffers from bouts of melancholy.

The longer the war goes on,

the more heavily it weighs.

- There wasn't a day of Lincoln's presidency

that he was not consumed

by the prospect of war, the reality of war,

or the after effects of war.

- [Voiceover] It's not just the many victims of the war

that caused the President such distress.

The previous summer, his son Willie

died of typhoid fever at the age of 12.

- Willie was Mary's favorite.

And when Willie died,

she just got increasingly more eccentric.

And there was a real wedge driven between the Lincolns.

- [Voiceover] Willie is the second child

that Abraham and Mary have lost.

Two sons remain, Robert and Tad.

("Winter's Eve" by Susan Cantey)

Robert is now 20 years old.

He's a student at Harvard and rarely comes home.

Only Tad still lives with his parents in the White House.

His presence is a light in dark times for his mother.

Mary's grief over the death of their two children

has estranged her from her husband.

She seems to occupy her own world

and her spending habits become more and more of an issue.

("Winter's Eve" by Susan Cantey)

To the distress of the President,

she spends more money than her husband earns.

She insists on keeping up with the latest fashion

and spends lavishly on dresses, hats, and fabric.

("Winter's Eve" by Susan Cantey)

- [Voiceover] This is where I made

my most important political decision in the summer of 1862.

It's like my old writing desk from Springfield.

Here I boldly declared the liberation of slaves

as the new means for ending the war.

- [Voiceover] Emancipation for slaves

is something Lincoln has intended to declare

since the first year of his presidency.

But he must wait until the time is right.

- But the big reason for delay

was that so many border states

were teetering between Union and secession.

Kentucky.

He said, "I must have God on my side,

"but even more important, I must have Kentucky."

- By the spring and summer of 1862,

the war was going so badly

that he threw caution overboard.

And to some degree decided he had to roll the dice.

- [Voiceover] If my name ever goes down in history,

it will be for this act.

And my whole soul is in it.

- [Voiceover] The Emancipation Proclamation,

in which he delivers a death blow to slavery,

becomes the most important document of the Civil War.

Lincoln has learned to be firm,

but now compromise with the South is impossible.

The document fans the flames of the Civil War.

- [Voiceover] By declaring the slaves free,

Lincoln was, in effect, inviting them all to run away.

But attach to that, those slaves who did run away,

who were now legally free,

could now be enrolled as soldiers in the Federal Army.

- [Voiceover] 180,000 black men fight

in their own segregated regiments

for the cause of the Union and for their own fate.

(train horn)

The North has an important technological weapon,

the railroad.

On Union trains, soldiers and cannon

mobilize quickly throughout the country.

New railway lines are built across America.

Battlefields are often located close to the tracks,

near the newly built towns springing up

along these highly trafficked routes.

The railroad is critical in determining

the outcome of the war.

(train horn)

Gradually, the North gains the upper hand.

The Southern states are forced on the defensive.

Their troops lose more and more ground.

In a risky military strategy,

the South attempts to overwhelm the armies of the North

by using enormous deployments.

But they discover a more effective tactic,

sabotaging the trains.

Horrific battles take place.

In the summer of 1863,

the two sides square off near the small town

of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

(men shouting)

Nearly 8,000 men die in three days.

About 30,000 are wounded.

- Gettysburg is the biggest battle

that's ever fought in this hemisphere.

- [Voiceover] The Battle of Gettysburg

is the turning point of the war.

Never before has so much blood been shed

in the war to save the Union and end slavery.

- A few days after the Battle of Gettysburg,

he gives an impromptu speech

to a crowd of well-wishers who come to the White House

to serenade him.

And he begins this speech by saying,

"How long ago was it?

"80-odd years that our fathers founded this country?"

- Do you hear that?

It's the beginnings of the Gettysburg Address.

He just made it Biblical, four score.

- [Voiceover] Four months later,

the President visits Gettysburg

to dedicate a military cemetery.

He travels in a special train to the hallowed site.

He describes his vision of a new America

and pays his respects to the victims of the battle.

He uses only 10 sentences.

- [Voiceover] And Lincoln stands up and gives this address

that lasts two minutes and sits down.

People didn't even understand at first that he was done.

- And here in Lincoln already trying to explain

to his countrymen why this war is necessary.

- [Voiceover] That we highly resolve that these dead

shall not have died in vain.

That this nation shall have a new birth of freedom.

And that this government of the people,

by the people, for the people

shall not perish from the Earth.

- It is, I think, deservedly regarded

as the greatest speech in American history.

- Lincoln proved that you could pack

an emotional, political, and historical wallop in 270 words.

in 270 words.

- [Voiceover] Lincoln has come to understand

the deeper meaning about this conflict.

That it is about removing the stain

that the founders had left at the time of the founding

by compromising

on the issue of human slavery.

- [Voiceover] On the outside, Lincoln is calm and composed.

Yet inside he is in turmoil.

Consumed by the unceasing carnage of the war.

- [Voiceover] Four score and seven years ago,

our fathers brought forth,

upon this continent, a new nation.

Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition

that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged

in a great civil war, testing whether that--

- [Voiceover] With the Gettysburg Address,

Lincoln has finally found his footing

as a Commander in Chief.

- Lincoln's vision, his oratory,

his public letters kept the North fighting.

- [Voiceover] But there is also a new factor

influencing the war.

For the first time, it's brutal consequences

are documented on film and seen by the public.

Added to the weaponry of the war is the camera.

The new technology of the camera

now shows the ravages of battle.

The man behind many of these images

is Alexander Gardner, who takes more portraits

of the President than any other photographer.

- [Voiceover] He saw photography as a way of capturing

and then publicizing his image.

Because Lincoln had a real keen appreciation

of what we might today call public relations.

- Lincoln once said, "Public sentiment is everything.

"He who controls public sentiment influcences

"more people than he who makes statues."

- [Voiceover] But not everyone

views the President favorably.

- [Voiceover] This man's appearance,

his pedigree, his coarse jokes and anecdotes,

his vulgar similes, and his policy are a disgrace

to the seat he holds.

- Booth hated Lincoln.

- [Voiceover] He is the tool of the North

to crush out, or try to crush out, slavery

by robbery, slaughter, and bought armies.

A false President yearning for a kingly succession.

- [Voiceover] John Wilkes Booth is a famous actor.

- He was the Leonardo DiCaprio of his day.

- Famous for his acrobatic, kind of moves on stage.

Very graceful, very able to do

the elegant moves on stage.

- John Wilkes Booth?

Young and up and coming man in his 20's.

This was a man who was going to be a star

and everybody knew it.

- [Voiceover] He has performed

in the country's best theatres,

in both the North and South.

Yet for many months now,

he has been struggling to find work.

He is often drunk.

An actor desperately searching for a starring role.

- How abhorred in my imagination it is.

My gorge rises at it.

- [Voiceover] And now with the South facing imminent defeat,

Booth focuses his anger on one man,

Abraham Lincoln.

(gun shot)

- Booth was an out and out virulent racist.

The notion that Abraham Lincoln

should liberate African Americans,

should end this, the noble system of slavery

and cavalier white life in the South,

where he, by the way, was very popular

and had toured, was to him a horror.

- [Voiceover] Booth grew up in Maryland.

The son of a famous Shakespearean actor

who had emigrated from England.

The father was often drunk.

- Hey!

Put those down!

Get inside!

- [Voiceover] Against his will,

all three sons become Shakespearean actors.

For John, the death of his domineering father is liberating.

No longer in the shadow of his famous father,

he intends to make a name for himself

and become a hero to his fellow Southerners.

- And it had grown on him over time

that the way to permanent stardom

was to get rid of this man who had destroyed the South.

- [Voiceover] On the ride from the White House

to his summer residence,

President Lincoln often travels without bodyguards,

and more than once he comes close to grave danger.

- Well the prospect of assassination

haunted Lincoln from the day of his election.

- [Voiceover] Nothing will prevent me

from living as long as it takes to complete my work.

God will protect me.

He keeps watch over me.

(gun shot)

Probably the stray bullet of a hunter.

Not worth mentioning.

It would only worry Mary.

- [Voiceover] The bullet has made a hole in his top hat,

the trademark of the People's President, Abe Lincoln.

- [Voiceover] When the war is over,

I will finally get around to reading once again.

And we'll go over to the theatre with Mary.

Something by Shakespeare, my favorite playwright.

He's always been good for my speeches.

- Shakespeare was his emotional resource.

He knew the plays backwards and forwards,

particularly the tragedies.

- [Voiceover] Cowards die many times before their deaths.

The valiant never taste a death but once.

Such powerful words, and so true.

- [Voiceover] The people in the North

are tired of the unexpectedly long and bloody war.

There will soon be elections again.

- [Voiceover] We must win this war.

Otherwise the people will vote in a different president

and all this work and bloodshed will be in vain.

- [Voiceover] Little does Lincoln know

that he is faced with a far greater concern.

(gun shot)

- [Voiceover] By God, I'll show him.

(people chattering)

- [Voiceover] Skulking about saloons,

John Wilkes Booth boasts of a performance

he is planning to stage.

- Joe. I'm the new guy.

- [John] You know, Caesar, Brutus, all that.

- Ah. Sure.

- My performance will be Shakespeare, but bigger.

- Booth, like Lincoln...

It's one thing they had in common.

They were both determined to be very famous

and to be remembered by history.

- How about another drink, John?

- You must have one with me, yeah?

- [Voiceover] He goes on about the tyrant Caesar.

His heroic murderer, Brutus,

and a show America will not soon forget.

(men chattering)

- [John] To my performance, boys.

- [Voiceover] He can hardly bear

the Yankee soldiers marching around the South.

- You're a credit to this country.

- [Bar Patron] Thank you. - Don't you.

- [Voiceover] During the election year of 1864,

prospects do not look good for Lincoln.

His generals fail to deal the fatal blow to the South.

- He almost believed that he wasn't

going to be re-elected because of the war.

- [Voiceover] But at the last minute,

the Union Army rallies,

winning several decisive battles.

From a stumbling start,

a lawyer with almost no military experience,

Abraham Lincoln has now become a commanding leader.

- [Voiceover] How did he do it?

He did it the way he did everything else.

He read about it.

He learned from experience.

He learned tactics, he learned strategy.

He borrowed books from the Library of Congress.

The idea was to destroy armies, not to capture cities.

That was a sea change in American military policy.

Lincoln advocated that.

- [Voiceover] In November, Abraham Lincoln

is elected to a second term in the White House.

It is sweet vindication for him.

Finally, there's hope that the war may soon end.

He pays a visit to Alexander Gardner's studio.

- [Alexander] Mr. President, if you could please.

Over here toward my hand just a little bit.

Wonderful, wonderful.

- [Voiceover] Through the lens,

the image of the President appears upside down.

Photography is a relatively new invention.

It works by exposing light to a delicate, glass plate

which is attached to the back of the camera.

- [Alexander] Mr. President, if you could please

hold still for just one minute.

- [Voiceover] Lincoln must sit still for several seconds

so the photo doesn't blur.

- Well the great thing about this camera is

it doesn't take very long--

- Ah, here we are Mr. President.

- Thank you, Charles.

- [Voiceover] After the photo is taken,

the plate must lie in a developing bath

before the picture appears.

- [Alexander] We should have something ready for you

by the end of the day.

- [Voiceover] While drying the plate,

Gardner slips and the glass plate breaks.

A crack across an exhausted face.

This is one of the last photos of Abraham Lincoln.

And in it can be seen the signs of the epic battle.

- There is clearly, along with great weariness,

there is great relief.

And there you get

this very sweet smile.

- [Voiceover] And yet, the President

is tormented by nightmares.

He describes one in a diary entry from March 1865.

- [Voiceover] I heard muffled sobbing,

as if several people were crying.

I went downstairs, but the mourners were invisible.

In front of me there was a coffin

in which there lay a body wrapped in shrouds.

It was surrounded by guards.

Who died at the White House, I asked one of the soldiers.

The President, was his reply.

He was assassinated.

- [Voiceover] Abraham Lincoln starts

his second term as President.

In his inaugural address, he uses words of unity.

- [Voiceover] He wanted reconciliation.

He wanted truth.

He wanted healing,

and he wanted the nation to have its wounds bound up

and to go forward as a united people again.

- [Voiceover] Photographer Alexander Gardner

documents the occasion.

- [Voiceover] To bind up the nation's wounds.

To care for him who shall have borne the battle

and for his widow and his orphan.

To do all which may achieve and cherish

a just and a lasting peace

among ourselves and with all nations.

(applause)

- Lincoln, in the midst of the most uncivil of wars,

practiced a civility that I think

would do modern Presidents well to emulate.

- [Voiceover] Yet among the crowd assembled before him

are some who want revenge, not reconciliation.

There, captured by chance,

in a photograph by Alexander Gardner

are John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices.

They have been meeting secretly

at a house in Washington belonging to Mary Surratt.

Booth's gang includes David Herold,

who knows the South like the back of his hand,

Ford's Theatre employee Edmund Spangler,

Lewis Powell, a hulk of a man feared for his brutality,

and George Atzerodt, who rounded out the group.

The men devise a plan to kidnap the President

and save the South from certain defeat.

What Booth does not tell his comrades

is that he intends to assassinate,

not kidnap, the President.

Now Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy lies in ruins.

On April 9th, 1865 the South surrenders.

The war is over.

But victory has come at a horrific price.

More than 600,000 soldiers and over 50,000 civilians

have paid for it with their lives.

Lincoln is eager to announce that black soldiers

will soon be granted civil rights.

Surrounded by the dead,

he hopes for the day when all Americans

will live in freedom.

- [Voiceover] There are a number of factors

contributing to Northern victory;

you can look at economic factors,

you can look at the generals, ultimately,

but I think probably the single biggest factor

in the Northern victory

was the leadership of Abraham Lincoln.

- [Voiceover] Two days after the war ends,

Lincoln gives a speech from the balcony of the White House.

- In the crowd was John Wilkes Booth

and his co-conspirator Lewis Payne.

- And Lincoln talks about black suffrage.

He talks about giving African Americans,

particularly those who had fought for the Union the vote.

It's the first time he ever said that in public.

- Booth said to the man he was with,

"That's the last speech Abraham Lincoln

"will ever give."

(fireworks booming)

- [Voiceover] On April 13th, 1865,

Washington celebrates the end of the war.

It seems like a new beginning.

(fireworks booming)

The following day, Lincoln and his wife Mary

have been invited to Ford's Theatre.

He calls a Cabinet meeting to start planning

the reconstruction of the South.

("Oh Captain" by George Kochbeck)

It is good to have something to celebrate.

Although he doesn't show it publicly,

Lincoln is still consumed with grief

over the death of his son Willie.

He often looks fondly over his son's toys.

It was just over four years ago

that he left Springfield with his suitcases

to take office in Washington.

That morning a messenger from the White House

arrives at Ford's Theatre to spread the news

that the Lincolns will attend the evening's performance.

A box is decorated for the illustrious guests

with flags, a portrait of George Washington,

and a comfortable rocking chair for the President.

The theatre's manager hopes for a full house.

As a frequent actor at Ford's Theatre,

Booth knows the theatre well

and has kept a pigeon hole there,

a mailbox that he checks regularly.

- [Voiceover] Oh! The President will be here tonight!

- [Voiceover] When he learned that Lincoln would be

at Ford's Theatre that evening

for a special benefit performance

of "Our American Cousin," featuring Laura Keene,

Booth resolved at once to put his plan into action.

- [Voiceover] Booth knows the theatre inside and out.

The rear stage entrance leads to the lower stalls.

For the moment, the stage is empty.

One of America's most famous actresses,

Laura Keene, will be performing tonight.

(slow, dramatic violin music)

Booth knows that the Presidental box is in the dress circle.

He had acted in a comedy in front

of President Lincoln a few years before.

With a knife, he prepares the door to suit his plans.

Today, Lincoln hopes to leave work early.

But first, he personally answers a few letters.

He wants to ride down to the port with Mary

to welcome the warships returning

to the Navy Yard on the Potomac River.

They have a few hours to spare

before the theatre performance begins.

During the past few years,

they have had little time for each other.

Lincoln knows things have to change.

Not far from the White House,

John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices meet again.

He tells them the plan has changed

from kidnapping to assassination.

And he wants to target not just Lincoln,

but other top officials, too.

His aim?

To decapitate the top layer of the government

and inspire the South to rise again.

- [Voiceover] Many will condemn me

for what I am about to do.

But future generations will thank me for it.

- [Voiceover] That afternoon, they hire horses

for their escape from Washington.

- [Livery Owner] You said 10 days?

- [John] 10 days. 10, 15.

- [Voiceover] The new plan.

While Booth guns down Lincoln,

Lewis Powell will assassinate the Secretary of State,

and George Atzerodt will kill the Vice President.

Booth does not tell them he has sent a letter

to the newspaper naming them as accomplices.

Mary and Abe are late.

When they arrive at Ford's Theatre,

the performance has already started.

(people chattering)

- [Voiceover] Sir, your vulgarity renders you intolerable--

- [Voiceover] The comedy is about

a rich, but rather foolish American,

who is visiting his aristocratic relatives in England.

The play is a crowd pleaser

and the Lincolns settle in to enjoy the show.

- But surely a villain of Coyle's stability

would have destroyed the note.

(audience laughter) (clock ticking)

- [Voiceover] Just before 10pm,

Booth arrives at the rear stage entrance.

An accomplice takes care of his horse.

The bodyguard leaves his post,

heading down to the stage

to catch a glimpse of Laura Keene.

(audience cheers)

Just as booth had hoped, a full house.

- Oh, that accounts for what I've heard

so many young ladies say.

Florence, dear, don't you find Mr. Dundreary?

I never knew what they meant before!

- [Voiceover] Booth uses his knowledge

of the theatre to make his way to the box.

He knows the play well,

including the exact moments

when the audience will laugh and applaud.

Only five scenes left until the end.

His play is about to begin.

- [Voiceover] I know enough

to turn you inside out, old gal.

You sockdologizing old man-trap!

(gun shot) (gasping)

- [Voiceover] Oh my god!

Mr. Lincoln! Mr. Lincoln!

Mr. Lincoln, please!

- Help! Help!

- Sic semper tyrannis!

(screaming)

- [Voiceover] Shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis,"

thus always to tyrants,

Booth races through the theatre,

fending off with a knife anyone who stands in his way.

- Get back!

- [Voiceover] And then, ran off the stage,

out the back door, onto a horse

that he had had waiting there

and galloped off into the Washington night.

All of this had taken no more than

20 to 30 seconds to happen.

- Bring him in here!

(people chattering)

- [Voiceover] Severely wounded,

he is carried to a house across the street.

Abraham Lincoln, who fought to save the Union

now has to fight for his own life.

- [Doctor] He's bleeding.

OK, hold that light right down there.

- Excuse me, gentlemen. Excuse me.

- [Voiceover] Doctors struggle to save the President's life.

- [Doctor] Big wound behind the ear.

I don't see a...

I don't see the bullet lodged there at all.

- [Voiceover] They do what they can

to stabilize his pulse and breathing.

- [Doctor] This is not looking good at all.

Keep that light right there.

- [Voiceover] With each passing moment,

their battle grows more and more desperate.

- [Doctor] Right behind the...

Right behind the lobe.

(groaning)

- I feel something, Doctor, but it's so deep I don't know--

- [Voiceover] Then the plot thickens.

Lincoln's Secretary of State has also been targeted.

- It seems there's also been an attempt on Mr. Seward.

(people chattering)

- [Voiceover] Booth's evil plan seems to have succeeded.

Now he is on the run,

and his conspirators have also vanished into the night.

- That's not good, not good at all.

- If we can't stop that bleeding,

I don't know know that there's anything we can do for him.

- [Voiceover] As the night wears on,

the President's doctors begin to lose hope.

- Continues to grow weaker, Doctor.

- [Doctor] Very shallow breathing.

I'm worried about him.

- [Voiceover] Though Lincoln's doctors

know that he is dying,

they say nothing to Mary

for fear that she will break down.

- Mr. Lincoln!

Mr. Lincoln you must live!

- She became so hysterical and dramatic

that they actually tried to keep her

out of the room with Lincoln.

(crying)

- [Voiceover] John Wilkes Booth, meanwhile,

galloped off into the night,

rendezvoused with one of the other conspirators,

David Herold, crossed out of Washington DC

and into southern Maryland where he hoped to pick up

the posting trail used by Confederate Secret Service agents.

- [Voiceover] They are able to pass unnoticed

through the military blockades.

Now they hope to go into hiding in the South.

Booth has planned his escape down to the last detail.

Just a few weeks earlier,

he had rifles put in a secret hiding place.

- Hand them out. - Hurry!

- [Voiceover] The one thing he didn't plan for

was that he would break his leg

while jumping from Lincoln's box to the stage below.

Now riding across the Maryland countryside

he is in agonizing pain.

- That broken leg slowed him down.

- [Voiceover] It's a 10-mile journey

to the home of a Southern sympathizer

by the name of Dr. Samuel Mudd.

Lincoln's Secretary of War

has dispatched troops to pursue the assassin.

Witnesses recognized the actor immediately

and authorities assume he will hide out in Virginia.

Booth was introduced to Dr. Mudd during the war.

The doctor is a Southern sympathizer.

He fixes Booth's leg.

- All right, I know it's not gonna be easy.

- Hold! Watch it, there's a hole!

- [Voiceover] Early morning, April 15th, 1865.

The President who changed history,

who reunited the nation,

never regains consciousness.

At 7:22am the President draws his last breath.

- [Voiceover] Lincoln's pulse finally gave

its last irregular flutters.

And the Surgeon General, Joseph Barnes,

pronounced him dead.

With tears streaming down his face,

Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton,

a man not much given to crying,

said, "Now he belongs to the ages."

And indeed he did.

- [Voiceover] And now,

the manhunt is on for the assassin.

Just days after the Civil War ends,

a single bullet from a pistol has taken the life

of Abraham Lincoln at the age of 56.

In keeping with custom, coins are placed on his eyes

so that he can pay the ferryman

who will bring him into the next world.

News of Lincoln's death spreads like wildfire.

Thousands come to the Capitol in Washington

where flags fly at half mast.

- [Voiceover] This was the first time

that an American President had been murdered.

And stop and think, this was in some ways,

the last...

The ultimate war casualty.

- [Voiceover] Newspapers publish special editions.

Victory celebrations in Washington are called off.

Shock and disbelief are everywhere.

The captain brought the ship

into the port safely, it is said,

and now he himself is lying dead on deck.

Wall Street closes to mourn the President's death.

- He becomes glorified.

He becomes more than a man.

Europe is in mourning,

South America is in mourning,

the country is in mourning.

- [Voiceover] Five months before,

he had been re-elected as President.

With the war over, he had hoped to reunite the country.

But his moment of triumph was all too brief.

The White House has become a dark house.

(sobbing)

- After Lincoln's death,

Mary really lost

some of her reason,

I guess is the kindest way to say it.

- [Voiceover] Mary Lincoln has faced much grief.

First the loss of two sons, and now her beloved husband.

12-year-old Tad Lincoln is largely left

to deal with his grief alone.

(people shouting)

The public craves the latest news about the assassination.

The papers are all too happy to oblige.

Reporters interview eye witnesses

and describe the ordeal in all its detail.

Shakespeare himself could hardly have written

a more tragic drama.

A detachment of soldiers from the 13th New York Cavalry

arrives in the small town of Bryantown

in search of the assassin

and begins to question the locals.

While out buying groceries, Dr. Mudd hears Union soldiers

say the President is dead

and they are looking for his assassin.

- Listen, if I knew where he was,

believe me, y'all would be the first people I would tell.

- John Wilkes Booth. You better tell us if you see him.

- I have not.

- [Voiceover] Only one man in town

knows about the fugitives.

No sooner does he return home than they leave.

Booth had told him little about their destination.

Only that they were bound for Virginia.

- [Voiceover] I walked with a firm step

through a thousand of his friends.

I shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis,"

the same to all tyrants after I fired.

I can never repent it, though we hated to kill.

- [Voiceover] For Booth, freedom lies to the South.

- [Voiceover] Trying to get across the Potomac

and into Virginia where Booth thinks

he's going to be greeted as a hero.

- [Voiceover] He is certain that Southerners

will understand his act and admire him for it.

- [Voiceover] He was hoping that chaos

would re-inspire the South,

but there was no more will in the South.

There was absolutely no more will.

Lincoln's death was a moment of huge catharsis

and any thought that a war would continue was over.

- [Voiceover] After his death,

Lincoln's body is brought back to the White House.

The bullet was lodged deep inside his head,

behind his left eye socket.

(melancholy music)

On April 19th, his body is laid out

for an elaborate funeral.

- In the East Room of the White House,

where Lincoln had once dreamt of a funeral taking place.

- [Voiceover] Afterwards, 30,000 people

escort the coffin to the Capitol.

Many in the North blame Southern conspirators

for the assassination

and demand swift and severe punishment.

Their Abe has become a martyr,

giving his life for his great dream.

(sobbing)

Mary Lincoln does not attend the funeral service.

She shuts herself away for days in the private quarters.

- She was beside herself with grief.

She wouldn't vacate the White House.

So weeks went by and Johnson

was trying to move into the White House.

He was then President and Mary wouldn't leave.

- [Voiceover] Ford's Theatre is adorned

with black ribbons as a sign of mourning.

It remains closed after the assassination.

The President's walking stick is found by his chair.

Relics such as this are sold at a high price.

Outside Washington, the assassins' pursuers

are hot on his trail,

though they don't yet realize it.

For several days, Booth and his accomplice, David Herold,

have been hiding on the edge of the Potomac River.

- Think they're coming?

- Just tend to the horses.

Our chance will be in Virginia.

- [Voiceover] The searchers suspect Booth is heading south

and try to intercept him in Virginia.

- [Voiceover] What idiots!

They write that Lincoln's assassination

was the toughest blow the South ever had to bear.

How can they write that?

Lincoln was our enemy.

I only did it for the sake of our country.

- [Voiceover] Booth had not expected the South

to mourn for Lincoln or to condemn him for his act.

- He was appalled to discover that the act he thought

was the assassination of a tyrant

was being talked about across the country,

not just in the North, but in the South

as a base and vile act of political murder.

- [Voiceover] Booth lost a fortune

in the bankruptcy of a Pennsylvania oil company.

It only adds to his resentment of the North

and his hatred of its leader.

- [Voiceover] He truly believed that Lincoln was wrong

and that what Lincoln had done to the South

was immoral wrong.

By this time the whole country is after him.

There's a bounty on his head.

- [Voiceover] The reward for the capture

of John Wilkes Booth, $100,000.

The largest sum ever at that time

for the apprehension of a murderer.

- [Voiceover] I do not care what becomes of me.

I have no desire to outlive my country.

I have started writing a diary

to gather my thoughts or I'll go insane.

- [Voiceover] John Wilkes Booth kept a diary

because, I think, he believed he would die

on that escape route.

Part of him said, if I don't make it,

I want my act consecrated and explained

in my own terms.

- [Voiceover] Why do they chase me

like a runaway slave?

I am not a common criminal.

All I want is justice for this country.

- Go, go.

- Quietly, quietly.

- [Voiceover] But the biggest manhunt

ever launched to date is closing in on the fugitives.

John Wilkes Booth is on the run,

but several of his co-conspirators

have not managed to evade the long arm of the law.

They have been found in and around Washington,

arrested and imprisoned.

Mary Surratt, who opened her home to the conspirators.

- In the words of President Andrew Johnson,

"She was the mistress of the nest

"where the vipers planned their ugly deed."

- [Voiceover] Lewis Powell,

who had brutally attacked Secretary of State Seward,

leaving him severely wounded.

Edmund Spangler.

During the assassination, he had held Booth's horse

in back of the theatre.

And George Atzerodt.

He was supposed to kill the Vice President

but backed out at the last minute.

("Oh Captain" by George Kochbeck)

Six days after the assassination,

a train is decorated in Washington.

As many people as possible

will be given the opportunity

to pay their last respects to Abraham Lincoln.

From Washington to New York,

to Chicago to Springfield,

on the 13-day, 1,700 mile journey

the funeral train will stop in cities along the way

before reaching Lincoln's hometown.

The coffin is made out of walnut wood

with heavy silver plating.

The cost, $1,500.

An ordinary coffin costs a mere $10.

Lincoln's body has been embalmed with zinc chloride

to preserve it on the long journey.

- [Voiceover] And then there was a lengthy,

almost macabre funeral procession

through the states, through the cities

that he had traveled on his inaugural trip to Washington.

(train bell)

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

- [Voiceover] At every stop,

the coffin is laid out in state.

Along the way hundreds of thousands

tearfully bid farewell to their Abe.

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

After another narrow escape,

Booth and his accomplice

are hiding deep in the woods

by the Potomac River.

- Aww, it's all I have.

- [Voiceover] Harold has turned to the bottle.

- [John] You're a drunken pig.

- [Voiceover] Booth fills his time writing in his diary.

- Hand me my diary book. - What?

- Hand me my diary book.

- [Voiceover] But his leg is causing him terrible pain.

Along the banks of the Potomac,

the assassins' pursuers search for signs of a boat.

The river is wide.

Too wide for the fugitives to cross by swimming.

It appears that the assassin

is still on the Maryland side of the river.

("Lincoln Theme #1" by George Kochbeck)

At the White House,

Tad Lincoln dearly misses his father.

He has no one to share his pain with.

- Mommy.

Mommy.

- [Voiceover] Mary has retreated

into her own spiritual world

and lays tarot cards all day.

("Lincoln Theme #1" by George Kochbeck)

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

Wherever the funeral train passes,

onlookers pause to pay their respects.

Many are moved to tears.

Many different engines take turns

pulling the train.

People line the route to watch it pass.

In the cities, tens of thousands come out.

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

The train is preceded by a so-called pilot engine

which announces the funeral train's arrival.

People gather to see the train called The Lincoln Special.

On April 20th, Booth and his accomplice,

David Herold, finally secure a boat.

- [David] It's on the other side.

- [John] Are you sure you can row?

- [David] Oh yeah.

- [Voiceover] They will use it to cross the Potomac.

Herold has never rowed a boat before in his life.

Swept along by the current,

they encounter an unpleasant surprise

in the early morning mist,

nearly hitting a navy cannon boat.

They row on unnoticed,

but lose their bearings

and end up on the same side of the river

as where they started.

They make a second attempt.

- Finally he managed to slip across the Potomac,

moving into Virginia,

hoping to find Southern sympathizers.

- [Voiceover] They are now among friends,

or so they think.

("Booth Theme #1" by George Kochbeck)

Herold heads off to round up a horse and cart.

- Wilkes, wait here.

I'll go get a wagon.

- [John] Yeah, hurry.

- [Voiceover] As they make their way

deeper into Virginia,

they discover that their accomplices

have been arrested in Washington.

The Lincoln Special approaches New York City.

In the largest city in America,

the financial metropolis of the new world,

the funeral train has stirred up controversy.

The city's mayor has forbidden the participation

of blacks in the procession through the city.

It's a slap in the face for the thousands

of black soldiers who fought for Lincoln during the war,

and stark proof that racism is rife,

even in the North.

Though the 400,000 blacks living in the Northern states

may not be slaves,

they still do not have the same civil rights as whites.

A telegram from the War Secretary in Washington

reprimands the New Yorkers.

Blacks are allowed to join the procession after all,

but only 300 are brave enough to do so.

They fear being attacked by whites.

600,000 people gather in the wide avenues of New York.

(applause)

A window seat costs up to $100.

Lincoln's body is laid out in state.

For two days, a steady stream of people

moves past the President's coffin in New York.

Photography is strictly forbidden.

There is only one real picture

of the dead President in the open coffin.

But photos of Lincoln look-alikes circulate.

They are sold by the hundreds.

Booth and Herold have now been on the run for 10 days.

Booth cannot understand why his fellow Southerners

have so suddenly changed their tune.

More than anything else,

Lincoln's death appears to have brought the nation together.

- It was a time of unity.

Maybe the modern counterpart would be 9/11.

- Is this Garrett's farm?

- This is it. This is Garrett's farm. We're here.

- [Voiceover] They reach a remote tobacco farm,

Garrett's farm.

("Booth Theme #1" by George Kochbeck)

The owners do not realize the identity

of the men they have taken in.

Booth's leg is now so badly inflamed

that he can hardly stand on it.

- Garrett said we could sleep here.

(grunting)

Here. Lay down.

(grunting)

- [Voiceover] Herold intends to go out

and find him a doctor.

- Have a little bit of this.

- The train's coming.

- [Voiceover] Day and night

the funeral train rolls through America.

Buffalo, Cleveland, and now Chicago.

("Lincoln Trainsong" by George Kochbeck)

The Chicago reception rivals the spectacle in New York.

Hundreds of thousands gather.

Never before in American History

has a man been honored with so much glory,

even if only after his death.

In Chicago, the coffin is opened again.

The funeral director applies another thick layer

of chalk and rouge to Lincoln's face.

And back in Virginia,

investigators finally get a break.

Witnesses have spotted the fugitives.

The soldiers close in on their prey.

John Wilkes Booth has been on the run for 11 days.

- Finally Booth was cornered

in a tobacco barn near Port Royal, Virginia.

- [Voiceover] My soul, my life,

everything I own belongs to the South!

For so long I have invested all my energy

in fulfilling my goal.

Now I have been so bitterly disappointed.

I know that I don't have much time left,

but I'm not going to make it easy for them.

I can only walk on one leg,

but I have the brain of 20 men.

- [Voiceover] He has changed his appearance

to avoid being recognized.

- [Voiceover] I, John Wilkes Booth,

have earned my ticket to immortality.

- [Voiceover] But local townspeople

have already figured out

that John Wilkes Booth is in their midst.

A military tribunal is assembled.

They regard Lincoln's assassination as an act of war.

A hostile attack by rebels

on the Commander in Chief of the United States.

Hundreds of witnesses are interrogated.

During the trial, the press have a field day.

Battling for readers with the latest stories

and portraying the conspirators as monsters.

Four of them are sentenced to death by hanging.

At Washington's Old Arsenal,

carpenters prepare the gallows for a multiple execution.

It will be a historic event

carried out in front of a camera.

David Herold has returned

to Booth's hideaway at Garrett's farm.

But the soldiers have found them and converged.

The dramatic chase has reached its grand finale.

- Herold, wake up! They're here!

Someone's here.

- Come out! We know you're in there Booth!

Come out!

- It's over.

- Who do you take me for?

- It doesn't matter anymore. It's over.

- No, you stay! You stay!

- It's over! - Fine!

Leave the rifle!

- Take the damn rifle. - You're a coward.

- [David] I'm coming out!

I'm unarmed!

- [Voiceover] Tonight, I will direct my own performance.

Caesar is gone once and for all.

- [Soldier] Come out!

We'll give you 10 seconds more!

- [Voiceover] Brutus, your hour has come.

New tyrants will make your greatness

shine in a new splendor!

- [Soldier] Torches! Fire the barn! Fire the barn!

Come out!

- I will not come out this evening!

(gun shot) (groaning)

- Come on, get his legs!

(grunting)

- [Voiceover] He was instantly paralyzed

and carried out of the barn.

- Use my hands.

- [Voiceover] He was in agonizing pain.

- Useless, useless.

- [Voiceover] John Wilkes Booth died a very painful death.

And, you know, it calls to mind the Latin words

that he used when she shot Lincoln,

"Sic semper tyrannis,"

thus ever be it to tyrants.

- [Voiceover] Booth's body

is carried by boat to Washington.

It is brought to an armored naval vessel

where an autopsy is performed.

The body is buried on the grounds

of the Washington Penitentiary.

Booth's accomplice, David Herold,

is jailed with the other conspirators

at the military prison.

He, too, is put on trial.

His sentence is soon declared,

death by hanging.

On May 3rd, 1865, the Lincoln Special

arrives in Springfield.

A staggering 7 million people

have viewed the martyred President

as he passed through the country on his final journey.

- There had never been a funeral like it.

There has never been anything like it since.

- [Voiceover] At the State Capitol in Springfield,

where Lincoln gave his first great speeches,

he is laid out one last time.

He has come home.

(melancholy piano music)

Under a portrait of George Washington

the coffin now rests, closed forever.

One by one, his friends and colleagues

say their last goodbyes.

The long journey has taken its toll on Lincoln's remains.

They are no longer presentable.

Lincoln is buried next to his son Willie

in the family tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetary.

(somber music)

The only relatives present at the ceremony

are his son, Robert, and his cousin, John Hanks.

After the heavy doors of the tomb are closed

guards are stationed to keep out the curious

and to prevent vandalism by angry Southerners.

In Washington, Mary Surratt's appeals

to the new President for clemency have fallen on deaf ears.

She knows that she will die today.

- Madam, it's time to go now.

- She was the first woman to be hanged under federal law.

- [Voiceover] At the old prison, everything is ready.

Next to the gallows, graves have already been dug

for the conspirators' bodies.

The military tribunal reads out the sentences one last time.

Photographer Alexander Gardner readies his camera

to photograph the execution.

- [Voiceover] Soldier, do your duty.

- [Voiceover] Yes, sir.

- [Voiceover] Four conspirators

in the death of a president

meet their agonizing deaths.

Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell,

George Atzerodt, and David Herold.

An image captured as a warning to all.

- [Voiceover] Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War,

who authorized this thought circulating

a photograph of four conspirators

dangling from the end of a rope was proper.

Because, I suspect, he wanted the lesson out there.

- [Voiceover] At the cemetery in Springfield,

an obelisk is erected in memory of Abraham Lincoln.

- All right now, Sergeant Corbett,

you need to look the hero, okay?

Stand just a little bit more like that.

There you go, okay?

- [Voiceover] In Washington,

Alexander Gardner is again at work in his studio.

- Tad bit more. - Mmm-hmm.

- And here we go.

- [Voiceover] He is photographing a new hero,

Boston Corbett, the soldier who shot John Wilkes Booth

in the burning barn.

Newspapers continue to print stories

about Booth at the tobacco farm

and descriptions of the conspirators' hanging.

("Lincoln Finale" by George Kochbeck)

In the end, the actor achieves the immortality he sought.

His final performance will never be forgotten.

The first assassination of a president in American History.

Booth's diary disappears for a long time.

When it is later found at the Department of War,

18 pages are missing.

It leaves some to question,

were some high ranking figures involved in the murder?

Was Booth the spearhead of a much larger conspiracy?

Mary Lincoln never overcomes the death of her husband.

- [Voiceover] Mary continued her wild spending.

She and Tad lived in Europe for a while.

She found it much more amiable there

for her than the US was.

And then sadly and tragically, Tad died as well.

- [Voiceover] Tad dies of tuberculosis at the age of 18.

His mother who has lost three of four sons

is shut away in a mental hospital.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States.

To his admirers, he becomes known as the Liberator.

His legacy is immediate and everlasting.

- If there was ever a president

who answered positively the question,

does character count, it's Abraham Lincoln.

- [Voiceover] He saved the Union and democracy.

He ended slavery and he created

a new way of speaking to Americans.

- [Voiceover] What we do know

is Lincoln had really strong ideas

about how to reconstruct the South.

And probably, if he had lived,

things would have gone so much more smoothly.

- We might say that Abraham Lincoln

was the first victim, the first casualty,

the first martyr of the Civil Rights Movement.

- [Voiceover] In 1869, four years after his death,

blacks are allowed to vote for the first time.

In 1922, a memorial is erected

in his honor in Washington DC.

And ever since then, pioneers of each new generation

climb these steps to demand, declare, and celebrate

the dream of freedom in America.

Marian Anderson,

♫ My country tis of thee

Martin Luther King, Jr,

Barack Obama.

("Oh Captain" by George Kochbeck)

They are the spiritual sons and daughters

of the original champion of American freedom,

Abraham Lincoln.