Original subtitles

Hello, John.

I am harmless except to myself.

I hear you.

You will please recollect

you are addressing my daughter, and in my presence.

Yes, I'm offering her my heart and hand

just as she wants them... with nothing in 'em.

I am aware, Mr. Trenchard,

you are not used to the manners of good society,

and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence

of which you have been guilty.

Don't know the manners of good society, eh?

I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old woman,

you sockdologizing old man-trap.

On the evening of April 13th, 1865,

John Wilkes Booth initiates his plan

not only to kill Abraham Lincoln,

but to decapitate the government of the United States.

A civil war that has lasted four years

is drawing to an end.

While Washington City celebrates the surrender

of Robert E. Lee's Confederate army,

Booth and his co-conspirators

plot a carefully coordinated triple murder.

And...

- Mr. Powell. - I ain't Powell.

It's Payne.

Reverend Payne, James Wood, or Mosby.

Mind your aliases, Mr. Powell.

Pick one, lest the others trip you up.

The Secretary of State ain't going nowhere soon.

Confined to his bed and slow to recover.

Got hisself a nurse.

A little slip of a man named Robinson who tends to him now mostly.

And there's a nigger butler.

The doctor, name of Verdi,

makes his calls mornings and evenings.

Mr. Herold, when working at the pharmacy,

do you have occasion to deliver medicines to patients

at the request of their physicians?

And with personal instructions

as to the administration of the medicine?

Um, yes. For certain, it's a common thing.

Common enough, yes.

Prepare a package for Mr. Powell,

the Reverend Payne, James Wood or Mosby here,

to deliver, tomorrow night,

to Secretary of State William Seward.

Number 17 Madison Place, Lafayette Square.

Yes, sir. I'll do it.

Mr. Atzerodt, you will check into the Kirkwood tomorrow morning.

Vice President Johnson's suite is on the first floor.

No.

- No? - No.

I do not wish... I cannot.

It is too late, George.

We have... all of us, conspired together.

To capture, yeah.

To kidnap one man, not to murder.

This is an act of war, and you are stuck to it.

It is a tar pit from which you cannot pull away.

And when tomorrow night is through and our deed is done,

we will... all of us, be known as its authors.

I have seen to it.

And we will be hailed as heroes.

We will meet back here tomorrow night at nine o'clock.

Powell and Herold will pay a visit to the Secretary of State,

Mr. Atzerodt will go to see the vice president,

and I will go to Grover's Theatre

for a performance of Aladdin! Or His Wonderful Lamp.

And there... I will kill a tyrant.

This is the true story of the killing of Abraham Lincoln,

the first assassination of an American president,

and what might be the most resonant crime

in the history of the nation.

John Wilkes Booth's plan to kill Lincoln

isn't the first black-flag operation

to target the 16th president of the United States.

From 1861 through March of 1865, at least five kidnapping

or assassination schemes are hatched,

although none are attempted.

None... save, perhaps, one.

Abraham Lincoln is riding alone, as is his custom,

from the War Department to the Soldiers' Home

where the family stays during the hot summer months.

Whoa! Whoa!

Help me, son!

Whoa, whoa! Whoa!

Steady. Steady now, steady.

I, uh, I heard a rifle shot.

Yes, down by the bottom of the hill,

that is what frightened him so.

And, uh, he bucked

and separated me from my eight-dollar plug hat.

Private Nichols, I'm much obliged to you.

Your hat, sir.

I found it at the bottom of the hill.

It is properly ventilated for these hot summer months.

Likely, some fellow returning from a day's hunt discharged his gun

in a precautionary measure of safety

before bringing it into his home.

I assure you, I am in greater danger from a rumor of snipers

than I am from your silence in this affair.

I would ask that you tell no one of this adventure.

Sir, I...

I will be doubly... obliged to you.

Yes, sir.

That is Abraham Lincoln,

a self-educated statesman who has abolished slavery

and will go on to end the war and save the Union.

Yet, during his four years and 41 days in office,

the intensity of the hatred leveled toward him,

even by members of his own party,

is extreme, even by today's standards.

But while the killing of Abraham Lincoln serves to sanctify him,

to transform a controversial president

into a dearly beloved martyr,

it also serves to pervert the truth about his killer.

John Wilkes Booth, a passionate and well-admired man,

on the path to become one of the greatest actors of his time,

is reduced by history to a two-dimensional scoundrel

and dismissed as a madman.

Harder. Faster! Come on!

Ah!

Whoa...

- Good God! - It's all right, old man.

Come on hard, for God's sake, and save the fight.

Now... let one spirit of the first-born Cain

reign in all bosoms,

that the rude scene may end,

and darkness be the burier of the dead.

Curtain! Pull the curtain.

- Mr. Booth? - Why, Mr. McCollum!

- Mr. Booth, I am so very sorry. - Come, come, old fellow.

You look as if you had lost the blood. Not another word.

Now, if you'd have gotten my eye, that would have been bad.

But you didn't, and it was...

Well... it was splendid!

Allow me to buy us all a drink!

That is John Wilkes Booth,

the third son of an acting dynasty.

He has set out not only to play the roles

that made his father and brothers famous,

but to bring to the stage a new style of acting,

an in-the-moment naturalism and realism all his own.

Born and raised in Maryland, a border state,

a slave state that did not secede from the Union,

John Wilkes Booth is also a Southern zealot,

whose hatred of Abraham Lincoln is nothing less than fanatical.

In October of 1864,

Booth makes contact with the Confederate Secret Service.

And shortly after Lincoln's re-election,

he determines to kidnap the president.

He stops in Philadelphia to visit his sister, Asia,

and there, he writes a letter.

To Whom it May Concern:

Right or wrong, God judge me, not man.

My love is for the South alone.

Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her

a prisoner of this man to whom she owes

so much misery.

Edwin, our brother, voted for him?

- Yeah. - For a false president.

A tool of the North who means to crush out slavery

by robbery, raping and slaughter!

Oh, God grant that I may see the end.

This country was formed for the white man

and not for the black.

Asia... lock this in your safe for me.

I may come back for it.

But if anything should happen to me,

open it alone,

and send the letters as directed.

For brother Junius and sister Rosalie

and one other...

To Whom it May Concern.

A Confederate doing duty upon his own responsibility.

J. Wilkes... Booth.

♪ Is this your liberty

♪ Oh sacrificial lamb?

♪ Bow down and bless the kingdom coming ♪

- ♪ In the reign of Abraham - Please!

When will your child be born?

In five months, maybe less.

God bless you, sister mine.

Take care of yourself.

Try to be happy.

I shall never be happy until I see your face again.

Hmm...

I will fix that for you, son.

We'll put a fine point on it.

On February 5th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln visits

Alexander Gardner's photographic studio.

Are we ready, Mr. Gardner?

Aye, that I am, Mr. President. Now, if you wouldn't mind

moving to the other side of the table, that angle favors you.

After four years,

and more casualties than in any conflict

in the nation's history, the Civil War is almost over.

But the image made on this day

will be the last official portrait ever taken

of the 16th president of the United States.

Abraham Lincoln has six weeks to live.

Taddie.

With malice toward none,

with charity for all,

with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,

let us strive on

to finish the work we are in,

to bind up the nation's wounds,

to do all which may achieve

and cherish a just and a lasting peace

among ourselves

and with all nations.

Booth is there, a face in the crowd,

on the steps of the east portico.

He has resolved to kidnap Lincoln,

to hold the president hostage in exchange

for Confederate prisoners of war.

But his only known attempt is an anti-climatic failure.

On March 17th, 1865,

Booth and two boyhood friends,

Michael O'Laughlen and Sam Arnold,

along with Confederate agent, Lewis Powell,

and smuggler, George Atzerodt,

lay in wait along the president's route

to visit the Campbell Military Hospital.

Pharmacist assistant, David Herold,

waits in southern Maryland at a tavern owned

by the mother of Confederate courier John Surratt.

And provisions have been sent ahead

to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd,

which lies along the escape route to Richmond.

But Lincoln cancels the hospital visit.

It is not known when Booth's plot to abduct Lincoln

became a plan to kill him,

but the very next night, Booth plays the villain Pescara

in a benefit performance of The Apostate at Ford's Theater.

And the last words spoken on stage by Booth, as an actor,

delivered within meters of the presidential box,

tempt us to imagine that Booth might have had an epiphany.

That sound has raised me to the sun.

Well, infernal villain. Well may'est thou stand amazed.

Thy hour is come.

Thou art enclosed in thy own den of blood.

This, this is left me still.

And within my grasp I clutch it like a fierce and desperate joy.

Look here.

Look here!

Despite of fate I still shall triumph over thee.

Come, John, they're mad for you.

In spite of the audience's overwhelming response, on this night,

Booth uncharacteristically refuses to respond

during the curtain call.

Booth then travels to New York,

where he learns of a Confederate plot to kill Lincoln

by planting explosives in the White House.

Who is dead in the White House?

The president.

He was killed by an assassin.

Lincoln awakens from a dream of his own death.

According to one account,

it is in the early morning hours of April 2nd,

and Lincoln is aboard the steamshipRiver Queen.

He has left Washington to visit the warfront

where General Ulysses S. Grant is poised to capture

the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

Abraham Lincoln has 13 days to live.

On April 3rd, 1865, Confederate forces set fire

to their own capital of Richmond, Virginia,

before evacuating ahead of advancing Union troops.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis escapes by train,

abandons his White House of the Confederacy.

And Abraham Lincoln lands in Richmond to view

the devastated ruins of this American city.

Form up!

Do any of you know the way to General Weitzel's headquarters?

Yes, sir, Master Lincoln. I know the way.

Fix bayonet!

Come on, come on.

Look.

Window.

Thank God I have lived to see this day.

On we go.

Papa day.

May the good Lord bless and keep you safe,

Master Lincoln.

You are a free citizen of this republic.

Kneel to God, only, and thank him...

...for the liberty that is yours.

It's one of the most unforgettable scenes

in American history:

an American president walking the streets

of a fallen rebel capital, in the midst of a civil war.

Scarcely 36 hours after Jefferson Davis has fled his capital,

Abraham Lincoln arrives at the surrendered home

of the Confederate president.

I am informed that General Weitzel is on his way, sir.

And this is Mrs. O'Melia, the housekeeper.

Ma'am.

Might you direct me to President Davis' desk?

So this... must've been President Davis' chair.

Jefferson Davis will soon be captured in Georgia.

He will die 24 years later at the age of 81.

This is whence... Mr. Jefferson Davis...

...has conducted his war, Tad.

But Abraham Lincoln has less than 11 days to live.

Might I have a glass of water?

Ironically, on this day,

Tad's 12th birthday, April 4th, 1865,

the immediate danger to the president is not in Richmond.

It's on its way to Washington.

Sergeant Thomas Harney,

an explosives expert with the Confederate Torpedo Bureau,

has already been dispatched on a secret mission

to blow up the White House and Lincoln in it.

And there was sound evidence that John Wilkes Booth

learns of the plot while in New York

at the same time that Abraham Lincoln

is walking the streets of Richmond.

Sgt. Harney is with Colonel Mosby in Virginia as we speak.

So he can infiltrate Washington at the earliest convenience.

And Jefferson Davis has sanctioned this harebrained, incendiary scheme?

I see.

And it is true that President Davis

escaped intact from Richmond?

Yes. Thank heaven, he is safely bound for Danville.

You seem troubled.

Troubled? I?

For four years I have lived not daring to express

my thoughts or sentiments, even in my own home.

Constantly hearing every principle dear to my heart denounced as treasonable.

And I have cursed my willful idleness,

begun to deem myself a coward...

...and to despise my own existence.

Richmond has fallen in a war against the Constitution,

against states' rights,

against Southern rights and institutions.

And a malignant tyrant,

a half-breed, low-mannered country buffoon

is threatening to proclaim himself king!

I should have killed him on Inauguration Day.

I could have.

I was that close.

And now if the South is to be aided at all,

it must be done quickly, and it may already be too late.

Troubled, gentlemen...

When Caesar conquered the enemies of Rome

and the power that was his menaced the liberties of the people,

Brutus arose... and slew him.

Troubled? Not at all.

I stand with Brutus.

Lincoln might have remained in Virginia

on the battlefront with General Grant.

He might even have been present to witness

Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9th.

But, as fate would have it,

Secretary of State William Seward and his son, Frederick,

are victims of a carriage accident in Washington.

- William. - Mr. President.

- Mr. Lincoln, sir. - Frederick.

Is your father able to tolerate a friend?

This way.

Seward's jaw is broken in two places,

and his right arm is fractured.

So, on April 9th, unaware of Lee's surrender,

Lincoln returns to Washington

to visit his injured Secretary of State.

I think we near the end at last.

Richmond is back in the arms of the Union.

I walked her streets.

I sat in Jeff Davis' own chair.

- Miss Fanny. - Thank you for coming, Mr. President.

How could I stay away when my Secretary of State

is rendered in such a way

as he cannot but listen?

I have worked my own hand as hard as at sawing wood,

so many others' hands have I shaken.

I've been to Libby Prison.

General Weitzel asked me point-blank

how to treat the defeated Confederate soldiers.

I told him to let them up easy.

My old friend.

It is close to 10:00 p.m.

when Secretary of War Stanton delivers to Lincoln the telegram

reporting that Robert E. Lee has surrendered.

The next day, Washington City is in full celebration.

A crowd gathers in front of the White House

to serenade Lincoln and to call for him to speak.

He politely promises a speech the next night,

and requests that the band play the Confederate anthem.

He asks them to play "Dixie."

A fine shot with a parlor pistol.

Thank you, Mr. Powell.

Payne. It's Payne.

Not Powell. I ain't going by Powell no more.

Booth is armed and headed towards the White House.

He is just two blocks away when he is stopped

by the managing director of Ford's Theater,

who invites him for a drink.

Booth replies, "Anything to drive away the blues."

On Tuesday, April 11th, faithful to his promise,

Lincoln speaks from the north portico of the White House.

Journalist Noah Brooks holds a candle to illuminate Lincoln

and to provide light by which to read.

Mary Todd Lincoln is present,

along with her friend Clara Harris,

and seamstress and confidante,

the former slave, Elizabeth Keckley.

Lincoln surprises the crowd by outlining a generous

and compassionate policy toward the South,

and then introduces the idea of black suffrage.

Booth is there.

It is also unsatisfactory to some

that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man.

I would myself prefer...

That means nigger citizenship.

...on the very intelligent and on those who serve our cause

as soldiers, some 12,000 voters.

Shoot him.

Draw your revolver and shoot him now.

- There's people. - There are always people.

I wonder, Mr. Powell, or Mr. Payne,

in spite of your reputation, if you have what it takes.

I already suspect that Mr. Herold here does not.

There's no call for that.

Oh, I got what it takes.

Now, by God, I will put him through.

That is the last speech he will ever make.

Abraham Lincoln has less than four days to live.

Washington City celebrates Robert E. Lee's surrender

with a grand illumination.

Candles burn in every window, public and private.

Fireworks and cannon volleys proclaim victory.

On April 13th, Booth visits Grover's Theatre

and learns that a production of Aladdin! Or His Wonderful Lamp

is planned for the next night, April 14th, Good Friday,

and that the president has been invited to attend.

Booth arranges for a ticket

to the box adjoining the president's,

and informs his co-conspirators that the plan has changed

from kidnapping... to murder.

That, on April 14th,

Lewis Powell will kill Secretary of State Seward.

David Herold will accompany Powell

and lead him across the Navy Yard Bridge and into Maryland.

George Atzerodt will kill Vice President Johnson

in his room at the Kirkwood House Hotel.

And Booth will kill Lincoln

during the performance of Aladdin at Grover's Theatre.

With little more than 24 hours to live,

Abraham Lincoln rises at 7:00 a.m.

and writes four brief messages, including one instructing

acting Secretary of State Frederick Seward

to call a Cabinet meeting for 11 a.m.

Then, joins his family at breakfast

to find his eldest son, Robert,

just returned from witnessing the surrender at Appomattox.

General Lee, stately, elegant.

His uniform, spotless, with a jeweled sword and shining spurs.

And General Grant, so shabby in a muddy blue uniform,

borrowed from a private.

It was great. Oh! And...

Here... is... Lee.

Papa day, let me see!

- Can I see it? Can I have it? - Wait a moment, Tad.

Now, that is the face of a noble man.

And brave.

Listen to me, Robert.

You must lay aside your uniform...

...return to college...

...read law for three years, and at the end of that time,

I hope that we will be able to tell whether you will make a lawyer or not.

Yes, sir. And I will, sir.

Lincoln sees Secretary of War Edwin Stanton at the War Department.

Mr. Stanton.

Mrs. Lincoln has invited General and Mrs. Grant

to join us at the theater this evening.

And... General Grant

already hints that they will decline in favor

of taking a train to New Jersey to visit with their children.

I trust that you have had no occasion

to encourage this desertion in the face of entertainment?

Had I the occasion, I would have seized it.

I am sorry, sir, but it is a fact

that rumors of assassination schemes are everywhere now.

It remains a constant subject of concern between myself and Mr. Seward,

even in the face of his recovery.

The doors to the White House stand open,

to one and all, day and night, Stanton.

My life is within reach of anyone, sane or mad.

By the hand of a murderer, I can die but once.

But to go continually in fear...

...why, that is to die over and over...

...and over again.

Will you be attending the theater tonight?

Aladdin is playing at Grover's.

No, sir. I'm afraid not, sir.

Pity. There will be some fine acting there tonight.

The officers could keep their sidearms.

And what terms did you make for the common soldiers?

I told them to go back to their homes and families.

With a promise to not again...

...take up arms against the United States of America.

Quite simple, and quite right.

Which brings to mind how very providential it is

that this rebellion was crushed just as Congress has adjourned.

There are men in Congress who harbor feelings of hate

and vindictiveness toward the South.

But there will be no persecution...

...when this war is over, no bloody work.

We must bend every effort to reanimate the South,

to put her state governments in order,

and to re-establish the Union before Congress reconvenes.

Still no word from General Sherman?

We are hourly expecting it.

It will be good news.

General Sherman will have secured Johnston's surrender.

I... I know this

because I have had the dream... last night.

I've had it before, it's always the same

and invariably followed by favorable news.

As Secretary of the Navy,

it has to do with your element, Mr. Welles. Water.

I am in... some kind of vessel in the dream.

And always moving with rapidity toward an indefinite shore.

Lincoln explains that he has had this dream

before the battles of Fort Sumter, Bull Run,

Antietam, Stones River, Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Wilmington.

Grant replies that Stones River was not a victory.

And then, in an aside, that his wife insists upon them leaving

on the afternoon train,

they will not be attending the theater.

Shortly before noon,

John Wilkes Booth stops at Ford's Theater,

as is his daily custom, to pick up his mail.

Well, here's the man who don't like General Lee, here for his mail.

I told you, Harry, I don't like the way he surrendered.

Given his sword by the Senate in Richmond

and swearing an oath never to give it up,

he should have died on the battlefield

before rendering his Southern manhood to the butcher Grant.

That's what I said, Harry, and it's what I meant.

Now, let's just hope he's not paraded through the streets

as the Romans did their captives, huh?

Thank you, Raybold.

Well, I'll be sure to ask the president his plan in that regard.

The president? You mean the buffoon

who walked into Jeff Davis' house in Richmond,

threw his legs over the chair,

and spit tobacco juice all over the place?

He don't chew tobacco, John.

Or I would've put a spittoon in the presidential box tonight.

A messenger from Mr. Lincoln called this morning for tickets,

for them and General and Mrs. Grant.

Maybe we'll have Robert E. Lee and old Jefferson Davis himself

in another box, both of them in chains.

I thought he was attending Grover's tonight.

Booth goes to Pumphrey's stable to reserve a horse.

Then to write a letter, a confession, an explanation.

A manifesto signed by him on behalf of himself,

Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt.

Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln take a carriage ride alone.

According to Mary Todd Lincoln, she has never seen her husband

so supremely cheerful.

They talk about the past,

about the death of their son, Willie, three years before,

about the future, traveling abroad,

and Lincoln's plan to return to his law practice.

Lincoln tells Mary that on this particular day,

he feels that the war has come to a close.

They end up at the Washington Navy Yard

where Lincoln summons a young naval officer,

William H. Flood.

Mrs. Lincoln.

Mother, the last time we saw young Flood, here,

we were in Springfield.

I was a lawyer and he was but knee-high to a grasshopper.

His mother was kin with Governor Carlin.

- I remember Priscilla Flood. - And his father served with me

in the Illinois state legislature.

A Democrat, but a friend and a good man,

despite his fervent support

of my opponent for the presidency.

Sins of the father, sir.

Never a sin to stand up for what you believe.

Now, Flood, tell me... which is the vessel with a history?

Well, Mr. Lincoln...

...they've all been mussing around under fire quite a lot.

But... I guess you mean the Montaover there.

She got the hardest hitting,

been in the tightest spots.

The very one, Flood, show her to me. Mother.

At 4:30, a group of Confederate prisoners of war

is being escorted from the Navy Yard and up Pennsylvania Avenue

when Booth encounters his friend, the actor, John Matthews.

Great God! I have no longer a country!

What's the matter, John?

Matthews, I have a favor to ask you. Will you grant it?

I may have to leave town tonight. I have a letter here

which I desire to be published in the National Intelligencer.

Please attend to it for me

unless I see you before ten o'clock tomorrow.

- Why, there goes General Grant. - Where? Come on.

The General and Mrs. Grant will later recall

the horseman who peered into their carriage twice

on its way to the train station.

The actor, John Matthews,

will be on stage that evening at Ford's Theater.

The next day, he will burn the letter,

the signed confession given to him by John Wilkes Booth.

Abraham Lincoln has less than 15 hours to live.

You see, I gave her a draught that cured the effect of the draught.

And that draught was a draught that didn't pay the doctor's bill.

Good gracious. What a number of draughts.

You have almost a game of draughts.

- What's the matter? - That was a joke, that was.

- Where's the joke? - She don't see it.

Why, anybody can see... that.

At roughly 8:30 p.m., the Lincolns arrive at Ford's Theater,

driven by coachman Francis Burke and footman Charles Forbes.

Mr. Forbes. Mr. Parker.

I hope that you both might enjoy the play.

Since November of 1864,

four officers of the Metropolitan Police

have been detailed to protect the president.

On this night, John Parker is on duty.

As last-minute replacements for General and Mrs. Grant,

Mrs. Lincoln invites her dear friend, Clara Harris,

in the company of her fiance, Major Henry Reed Rathbone.

Our American Cousin is a farce in three acts

about Asa Trenchard,

an American country bumpkin who comes to England

to claim an aristocratic inheritance.

And tonight is advertised

as Miss Laura Keene's 1000th and final performance

of the role of Florence Trenchard,

opposite the actor Harry Hawk as Asa Trenchard.

The famously self-educated Lincoln is an enthusiastic lover of theater.

But during the war, he is drawn to comedy,

telling Noah Brooks that, "A farce or comedy is best played.

A tragedy is best read at home."

A last-minute meeting

with Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt

has just concluded.

The coordinated attack that Booth outlined on April 13th

is to go into effect immediately.

At 10:15, Lewis Powell is to kill Secretary of State Seward

in his home on Lafayette Square.

David Herold will guide Powell out of the city

via the Navy Yard Bridge.

George Atzerodt is to kill Vice President Johnson

at the Kirkwood House Hotel.

The only change in the plan

is that Booth will not be attending Aladdin at Grover's.

Hello, John.

He will kill Lincoln at Ford's Theater.

I am harmless except to myself.

Speak on, sir. I hear you.

It is still early in act two.

Booth has calculated that the appointed time of 10:15

will fall at the beginning of act three

of Our American Cousin,

and there will be an intermission between the acts.

Booth retrieves his horse from Pumphrey's stable.

Mr. Spangler, hold this mare for me ten or 15 minutes.

Mind you, she's a bad little bitch.

I can't, Mr. Booth, it's almost intermission.

I gotta shift scenery.

May I cross backstage?

You're gonna have to cross under.

And I can't keep the horse.

Just go with him, Debonay,

and tell Peanuts to come here and hold his damn horse.

Mr. Asa Trenchard, our American cousin.

This young gentleman has carried off the prize

by three successive shots in the bull's-eye.

I congratulate you, sir, and am happy to see you.

Why have you left the archery, Florence?

Because, after Mr. Asa's display, I felt in no humor for shooting.

Booth heads next door

to Peter Taltavul's Star Saloon.

Whether or not Francis Burke,

the man who drove the Lincoln carriage,

and John Parker,

the man detailed to protect the president,

are drinking at the Star Saloon when Booth enters

will never be known with any certainty.

Mr. Taltavul.

But the urge, somehow,

to be a part of, or a witness to,

the killing of Abraham Lincoln will prompt many to make claims

that are impossible to substantiate.

The remark allegedly overheard during intermission

by orchestra conductor William Withers is a prime example.

You're a fine tragedian, John.

But... you'll never be as great as your father.

When I leave the stage for good,

I'll be the most talked about man in America.

In the aftermath of the assassination,

of the many witnesses who claimed to know Booth,

or to see him on the evening of April 14th, 1865,

Booth's friend and fellow actor, John Matthews, later said:

"Those who were the wisest knew the least."

And the stage is set for the most dramatic

and resonant crime in American history.

Mr. Trenchard?

Nary red, it all comes to their

barking up the wrong tree about the old man's property.

Yes, sir?

I have here medicine for Mr. Seward,

from his surgeon, Dr. Verdi.

I don't know that we are expecting any such thing,

but I'll see to it that he gets it.

No. I gotta take it to him myself, personal.

- He thought better on it. - Please, sir.

Uh, the house is mostly asleep now,

and you don't want to be waking them.

Oh, no, which he meant to leave to me,

and left it to his granddaughter, Miss Mary Meredith.

Who is this, Bell?

Mr. Frederick, this man says he's from Dr. Verdi.

I have medicine here for Mr. Seward

with instructions on how he must take it.

I'm sorry, but you cannot see him now.

My sister and his nurse are endeavoring

to compose my father to sleep now.

- But I must. Dr. Verdi's orders. - Wait. Wait.

As I thought and as I said...

...it's not worthwhile to talk about this any further.

Miss Mary Meredith!

What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you so?

...and mothers would go away from a fellow

when they found that out, but you don't valley fortune.

She won't think anything about it.

You had better go. You crave affection, you do.

Go back and tell the doctor that Mr. Seward's son

refused to let you see him

if you think I cannot be trusted with the medicine.

Very well then.

You son of a bitch!

Mr. Trenchard,

you will please recollect you are addressing my daughter...

I'm offering her my heart and hand

just as she wants them... with nothing in 'em.

...nasty beast.

I am aware, Mr. Trenchard, you are not used to the manners of good society,

and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence

of which you have been guilty.

Don't know the manners of good society, eh?

I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old woman,

you sockdologizing old man-trap.

Sic semper tyrannis!

Sic semper tyrannis!

- Stop that man! - Stop him!

Let me pass! Let me pass!

Murder! Help! Murder!

Give me that horse, boy!

Murder! Stop that man! Murderer!

John Wilkes Booth has less than 12 days to live.

- What's happening?! - The president! He's shot!

- Open it! - Back away!

- I've been stabbed! Please! Help us! Someone, please!

- You're in no immediate danger. - Please, help us!

- Please, help us! - Mrs. Lincoln?

Mrs. Lincoln, I'm Dr. Leale, a United States Army surgeon.

Doctor, Doctor, is he dead?

Help him! Help him, please!

Bring water and brandy!

On the floor. I want him recumbent. One, two, three.

Watch his head.

He might've been stabbed. We need to cut the shirt

and coat away from the neck to the elbow.

Dr. Charles Taft.

Help him!

Someone!

Help him!

God!

Checking for hemorrhage... from the subclavian artery.

Wait. I found it.

A hole, and... there's a clot.

It's a bullet wound, occipital bone, here.

Removal of the clot, it's putting pressure on the brain.

Ladies, gentlemen! The president is being attended by a physician!

Please make your way, in orderly fashion, to the street!

Opening up his larynx for free passage of air.

I need you and you to lift his arms

and manipulate them back and forth,

up and down, to expand his thorax.

He's feeble. Respiration, not that satisfactory.

Here! Here's brandy!

May I... hold his head?

Tell me!

Tell me, is he alive?!

At 10:35, 20 minutes after shooting the president,

Booth arrives at the Navy Yard Bridge,

his escape route into Maryland.

Sergeant Silas T. Cobb of the 13th Regiment,

Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, is on sentry duty.

- Halt. Who goes? - Friend.

- Name? - My name... is Booth.

- Where from? - I'm from the city.

- Where are you headed? - Down home, Charles County.

- What town? - I don't live in a town.

I live near Beantown.

I don't know where that place is, friend.

But do you know it's against the law

to cross here after nine o'clock?

What is your object to be in town so late

when you got so far to travel?

It is a dark road. I thought if I waited till now,

I should have the light of this moon to help me see my way.

Well, I will let you pass...

...but I don't know as I ought to.

Hell... there'll be no trouble about that.

Make way. Make way.

To the White House. We must take him to the White House.

No, he will die on the way.

The saloon, here, next door.

No! It should not be said that the President of the United States died in a saloon.

Not even my own.

Doctor, give me your commands,

and I will see to it that they will be carried out.

As I said, across the street to the nearest house.

Make a path! Let us pass!

Stop, stop.

The house opposite is closed.

Here! Here. Bring him here.

Go. Go, go.

Step away, please. Back away, please.

Lincoln is taken to a boarding house

directly across the street from the theater.

And due to his 193 centimeter height,

laid diagonally on the bed of absent boarder William Clark.

Shortly after 11 p.m., Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton,

sets up a headquarters in the back parlor of the house,

and establishes relays between there and the War Department telegraph operators.

He alerts General Grant and calls him back to Washington,

issues emergency directives

to police and military authorities,

orders the National Detective Police to initiate a manhunt

for the as-yet unknown assassin,

and notifies Vice President Johnson that the president is dying.

And, shortly before midnight,

Chief Justice David Kellogg Cartter

begins to hear eyewitness testimony of the crime.

But the appointed stenographer cannot write fast enough.

Is there anyone here

who knows the practice of shorthand writing?

Here! There's a boarder here who does.

Tell him that his services are required here... immediately.

Jim? It's General Augur. They want you next door.

Tell them... I'll be right there.

Minutes after John Wilkes Booth crosses

the Navy Yard Bridge, Sergeant Cobb stops David Herold,

riding a grey roan horse.

Herold asks if a rider has passed here

and Cobb tells him yes and lets him pass.

David Herold's job on April 14th

is to guide Lewis Powell out of Washington

after killing Secretary of State Seward.

But hearing the cries of "Murder!" from Seward's house...

Murder! He's killing my father!

...Herold flees the scene, not waiting for Powell.

He catches up with Booth at Soper's Hill,

and it's a little after midnight when they arrive

at a safe house for Confederate spies.

For God's sakes, Lloyd, make haste and get the things.

A tavern where weapons have been stored.

Lloyd, the things!

A tavern owned by the mother

of Confederate courier John Surratt.

I cannot carry a carbine.

This little bitch fell on me.

Stumbled while jumping. I broke my damn leg.

I need a surgeon. We'll go to Sam Mudd's.

But no. We ought to get down south across to the river,

- cross into Virginia. - I cannot go on without a doctor.

- Lloyd. Lloyd! - Huh?

I am fairly certain we have assassinated the president

and Secretary Seward.

Mind your damn horse, Davey, let's go!

Meanwhile, at the Petersen Boarding House,

Corporal James Tanner,

who has lost both legs at the second battle of Bull Run,

and is just ten days past his 21st birthday,

is about to take the first eyewitness testimony

in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

No!

Pulse: 48, rising.

Respiration: 21.

Ecchymosis is setting in.

Who are you?

I'm Corporal James Tanner, sir.

- You're in need of a phonologist. - What?

- A shorthand, sir. - Yes. In here.

Mr. Hill will be asking questions of the witnesses

before Chief Justice Cartter.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is witnessed

by more than 1500 people, yet no two accounts match.

Even now, scarcely two hours after Booth pulls the trigger,

the details fail to correspond.

Mark Twain once wrote that the very ink with which all history is written

is merely fluid prejudice.

And so it is that an objective account of any historical event

simply does not exist.

- A.M.S. Crawford. - William Henry Hawk.

James P. Ferguson.

I thought, at first, he was intoxicated.

There was a glare in his eye.

I turned to Captain McGowan,

intending to say something

in reference to this man's manner.

I was looking with an opera glass

to see which citizen it was with the president.

The next instant, the shot was fired.

I said, at once, it was the president's box

and jumped to the door.

I was on stage at the time of the firing.

And he put his hands on the cushion of the box,

and he threw his feet right over.

He pulled part of a state flag off.

And as I looked towards him,

he came in the direction in which I was standing.

Can you describe the man's form that jumped from the box?

Yes, sir. I saw him as he ran across the stage.

As he ran across, he looked right up in my face.

I pulled the lady down behind the banister.

As he went through the scene...

...threw his hand behind him...

...and the knife was up in sight.

He made some expression when he came on the stage.

The South shall be free!

But I did not understand what.

- He stopped as he said... - I have done it!

He shook the knife.

His face was towards me.

He did not say a word that I heard,

but very strongly resembled the Booths.

I believe, to the best of my knowledge,

that it was John Wilkes Booth.

Still... I'm not positive.

At 4:30 a.m., April 15th, Booth and Herold arrive

at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd.

Either during his jump from the presidential box to the stage,

or as a result of his horse falling,

Booth has sustained a clean break of his fibula,

four centimeters above the instep of his left foot.

At the same time that Dr. Samuel Mudd is tending to John Wilkes Booth,

50 kilometers away, Abraham Lincoln is dying.

I am inserting the Nelaton probe.

Pulse: 60.

Respiration: 24.

At three inches, following the track of the ball...

...there is a bone plug...

...driven in from the skull.

I can feel the ball, at five inches.

And...

...two inches further, fragments.

The orbital plate?

Undoubtedly.

Perhaps... we should summon Mrs. Lincoln.

Barely perceptible.

It's your Mary.

Mother. Your Molly.

I'm here, Little Puss.

Your Child Wife.

Oh, my love...

...live but one moment... to speak to me once.

To speak to our children, you'd speak to little Tad,

wouldn't you, Father? You love him so.

Mary Lincoln screams and faints,

and Secretary of War Stanton

orders that she is to be removed from the room.

As she is led away, Corporal Tanner,

transcribing his shorthand in the back parlor,

overhears her to say:

"Oh, my God, and I have given my husband to die."

Dr. Charles Augustus Leale, the 23-year-old surgeon

who has been by the president's side for nine hours,

has scarcely let go of Lincoln's hand,

for no other reason than to let him in his blindness know

that he was in touch with humanity and had a friend.

At 21 minutes and 55 seconds past 7:00 a.m.,

on Saturday, April 15th, 1865,

Abraham Lincoln draws his last breath.

Fifteen seconds later, his heart stops.

The Reverend Phineas Gurley would recall that those present

remained motionless and silent for several minutes

after Surgeon General Barnes says, simply, "He is gone."

Now... he belongs to the ages.

"Angels." According to Corporal Tanner, Stanton said,

"He belongs to the angels now."

But Tanner was unable to record the moment.

His pencil had broken.

His leg splinted, and with the aid of a crutch,

Booth leaves Dr. Samuel Mudd's home

late on the afternoon of Saturday, April 15th.

Already, members of the 13th New York Cavalry

have been ordered to southern Maryland

in search of Lincoln's killer.

What will soon become the largest manhunt

in American history at that time,

begins with troops searching scarcely seven kilometers

from Dr. Mudd's farmhouse.

Lost in the dark and on the edge of the Zekiah Swamp,

Booth and Herold have promised to pay

tobacco farmer Oswell Swann

$12 to lead them to the home of Samuel Cox,

a leader in the Confederate underground.

How is it that you know Captain Cox?

Oh, we all know Captain Cox, sir.

He a true man of the South.

He a hard man, beat a nigger to death hisself. Mm-hm.

- You... you a free nigger? - We alls free now, sir.

Thanks to Master Lincoln. Lord rest his soul.

But I ain't no nigger. I's a Wesort.

- What? - A Wesort.

You know, we sort of folks.

Nigger, Injun, white man, all mixed up, you know.

- You have heard about Lincoln? - Yes, sir.

He in the arms of the Lord.

Um, my friend and I, we're in need of some shelter.

Food. Not the nigger.

Name?

My friend, he's hurt his leg.

You're John Wilkes Booth.

I think I know what you have done.

They have arrived at about 1:00 a.m. on Easter Sunday.

After talking until dawn, Cox is sympathetic, but no fool.

He will put Booth and Herold in touch

with a Confederate smuggler,

who will get them across the Potomac and into Virginia,

but Cox will not allow Lincoln's assassin

to stay in his home.

So Booth and Herold are directed to wait in a pine thicket,

just across Cox's property line.

They don't know it yet, but they will wait there

for the next five days and four nights.

Davey, don't you know I can't get on?

Help him on his horse.

- Twelve dollars? - Yes, sir.

I thought you said Captain Cox was a man of Southern feeling.

You say anything about this and you won't live long.

John Wilkes Booth has ten days to live.

On April 17th, Colonel Lafayette Baker,

the head of the National Detective Police,

asks Alexander Gardner to make copies of three pictures.

It is the first time in history

that photographs have been used on a wanted poster.

Thanks in part to papers found in Booth's room at the National Hotel,

Lewis Powell and Mary Surratt are jailed in Washington.

And George Atzerodt, who simply got drunk

and wandered away from the Kirkwood Hotel,

rather than attempt to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson,

is discovered hiding out in his cousin's home in Germantown, Maryland.

Elements of the 8th Illinois Cavalry

and the U.S. 22nd Colored Troops

join the 13th New York Cavalry in southern Maryland.

And two members of the National Detective Police,

Lieutenant Luther Baker and Colonel Everton Conger,

accompany 26 members of the 16th New York Cavalry,

under the command of Lieutenant Edward Doherty.

Our cause, being almost lost,

something decisive and great must be done.

I struck boldly, and not as the papers say.

I shouted sic semper before I fired.

In jumping broke my leg.

This night before the deed,

I wrote a long article and left it for one of the editors

of the National Intelligencer,

in which I fully set forth

the reasons... for our proceedings.

He or the government...

The first of Booth's two journal entries ends there.

He is interrupted by Thomas Jones,

Samuel Cox's foster brother.

Cox has asked Jones to see to it

that Booth gets across the Potomac to Virginia.

In spite of the $100,000 bounty being offered,

Jones keeps Booth and Herold hidden and fed

while government troops occupy and sweep through the region.

Later, Jones will claim that Booth's singular desire

was for newspapers.

So, it is here, in the pine thicket,

that Booth reads the horrific accounts, the lurid details,

and bloody result of Lewis Powell's attack

on Secretary of State William Seward.

Murder! He's killing my father!

Help!

I'm mad.

I'm mad!

I'm mad!

Murder! Stop that man! Murderer!

Miraculously, Secretary of State William Seward is still alive,

as are all the victims of Lewis Powell's savage attack.

And George Atzerodt's intended victim,

Vice President Andrew Johnson,

has been sworn in as the 17th President of the United States.

But as Abraham Lincoln's body lies in state

in the East Room of the White House,

John Wilkes Booth lies on a bed of dirt and pine needles,

and reads the worst reviews of his life.

A man who was raised on Shakespeare

is brought to his knees by his own hubris.

In one fell swoop, with one grand gesture,

he has changed the course of American history

and dramatically jeopardized

the fate of the South that he loved so dearly.

Booth's tragedy is nearly complete.

On the night of April 20th,

Thomas Jones leads Booth and Herold to a boat.

The current is strong.

There are naval patrols searching the Potomac for the fugitives.

John Wilkes Booth has less than six days to live.

On April 18th, Abraham Lincoln's dream

of an assassinated president lying in state in the East Room

of the White House is fully realized.

On April 21st, Lincoln's body leaves Washington by train,

to travel 2,662 kilometers

to Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.

After one failed attempt, it's in the early morning hours

of April 23rd that John Wilkes Booth and David Herold

finally cross the Potomac and land in Virginia.

As he writes in his diary:

"With every man's hand against me

for doing what Brutus was honored for,

looked upon as a common cutthroat,

abandoned with the curse of Cain upon me."

On April 24th, Booth and Herold arrive at the farm

of Richard Garrett.

Booth presents himself as James W. Boyd,

a Confederate soldier wounded at the Battle of Petersburg,

and the family takes them in.

But the very next day,

Booth is writing in his diary when word comes

that Union cavalry are heading toward the Garrett farm.

Booth tells Herold to get his pistols.

The two men flee to hide in the woods.

When they return, Garrett's suspicions have been aroused.

Tonight, they will not be welcome to sleep in the house.

Tonight, they will sleep in the tobacco barn.

Tonight I tried to escape

these bloodhounds...

...once more.

I have too great a soul...

...to die... a criminal.

I don't want to die, Booth.

I don't want to kill no one.

I do not wish to shed a drop

of blood...

...but I must fight the course.

'Tis all that's left to me.

At 2:30 a.m. on the morning of April 26th,

the tobacco barn at Garrett's farm

is surrounded by 26 members of the 16th New York Cavalry,

under the command of Lieutenant Edward Doherty,

along with Lieutenant Luther Baker and Colonel Everton Conger

of the National Detective Police.

Booth's location has been betrayed

by an 18-year-old Confederate soldier

named William Jett.

We know who you are!

Who are you? What do you want?

We want you, and we know who you are.

Give up your arms and come out directly.

- Well, my boy... - We have no choice.

You goddamn coward! You would leave me now?

Go!

Go on, I would not have you stay with me.

This is a hard case!

It may be that I am to be taken by my friends.

Be assured, we are not your friend.

You have the sound of a brave man, an honorable man.

I am a cripple. I've got but one leg.

If you will withdraw your men in line 100 yards from the door,

I will come out and fight you!

We did not come here to fight.

We came to make you a prisoner.

You put any more kindling there, I'll put a ball through you.

I could've picked off three or four of your men by now,

if I wished to do so.

Draw off your men 50 yards.

- I will not! - Well, my brave boys,

you can prepare a stretcher for me.

Go. Go on.

Save yourself if you can.

Captain, there is a man in here

who wishes to surrender awful bad.

Let him hand out his arms!

You carry a carbine and you must hand it out!

I declare before my maker

that this man is innocent of any crime.

Upon the word and honor of a gentleman, he has no arms.

The arms are mine, and I've got them.

Show your hands! Put out your hands!

Now what?

One more stain on the old banner!

Make quick work of it, Captain.

Shoot me through the heart.

- He shot himself! - No, he did not.

Quick, get him out. Get him out of here!

Private Perry!

Pick him up.

Speak. Speak.

Tell my mother...

...that I died for my country.

For your country, is that what you say?

Yes.

Here, get him away from the fire. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's move!

- Go! - Set him against the wall, soldier.

Prop him up. Get him up.

- Where's he shot? - In the neck.

- I told you, he shot himself. - No, Corbett did.

Give me that.

I saw him through the barn planks.

He was claiming he was raising his rifle against us.

Sergeant Boston Corbett shot him.

In Washington, Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt

will soon be joined by David Herold,

and all of them will be held in custody

aboard the ironclad monitors USSSaugus and USS Montauk.

And, tomorrow, their photographs will be taken,

and the public will see, for the first time,

the faces of the men who conspired to decapitate

the government of the United States.

Now it is the morning of April 26th,

and John Wilkes Booth has only hours to live.

There's nothing in your throat. No blood.

The ball that passes through Booth's neck severs his spinal cord

between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae,

paralyzing him from the neck down.

Kill... me.

We don't want to kill you.

We want you to get well.

Hands...

Lift them... let me see...

...my hands.

He's asked to see his hands.

Useless...

...useless.

Shortly after dawn, on Wednesday, April 26th, 1865,

John Wilkes Booth draws his last breath.

His belongings are wrapped in paper.

His body is sewn into a saddle blanket and loaded onto a wagon,

then a steamer, then a tugboat bound for the Washington Navy Yard.

Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan

board the ironclad monitors USSSaugus and Montauk

to make collodion glass plate photographs of the men

who conspired first to kidnap and then to kill Abraham Lincoln.

Michael O'Laughlen, Booth's childhood friend,

will be convicted of participating in the conspiracy

and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Samuel Arnold admits to conspiring to kidnap the president,

but denies involvement in the assassination.

He is sentenced to life in prison.

All right, take him away.

Next. Have a seat, man.

George Atzerodt, who lost his nerve

and got drunk rather than attempt to kill

Vice President Johnson, is condemned to die.

Mr. Lewis Powell.

Have a seat.

After his savage but failed attempt

on the life of Secretary of State Seward,

Lewis Powell hides in Washington for three days

before wandering into Mary Surratt's boarding house

and into the arms of the police.

Don't you move now, laddie.

Powell is sentenced to death.

On April 27th,

David Herold is brought aboard the USS Montauk.

The young man who followed John Wilkes Booth to the bitter end...

...is condemned to die.

And at the request of Secretary of State Stanton,

Alexander Gardner takes one more picture on April 27th.

Dr. Frederick May...

...can you positively identify the body?

Is there a scar upon the back of its neck?

There is.

Let me describe it before it's seen by me.

It's on the left side

and has the appearance more like the cicatrix of a burn

than that of a surgical operation.

It was occasioned when I removed a fibroid tumor from his neck.

It is exactly as you have described it.

Yes.

That is he. That is John Wilkes Booth.

Gentlemen, please, stand where you are.

And perfectly still.

One... two... three.

James Wardell, one of Lafayette Baker's detectives,

takes the single glass plate

and delivers it to Lafayette Baker.

It is presumed that Baker gives it to Secretary of War Stanton.

But no one knows.

Alexander Gardner's photograph

of the autopsy of John Wilkes Booth has never been found.

The trial of the conspirators is a military tribunal.

Three hundred and sixty-six witnesses testify.

And all of the defendants are found guilty.

And in attempting to create a definitive record

of the people and events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln,

Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan

are given extraordinary and exclusive access.

On July 7th, 1865, the sentences are carried out

for the first assassination of a president

in the history of the nation.

And Mary Surratt becomes the first woman ever to be executed

by the United States federal government

when she joins Powell, Atzerodt, and Herold

on a scaffold at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary.

In an interview ten years later,

the former president of the Confederacy,

Jefferson Davis, states simply,

"Next to the destruction of the Confederacy,

the death of Abraham Lincoln

was the darkest day the South has ever known."

Tad Lincoln learned of his father's assassination

while attending Aladdin at Grover's Theatre.

He died of heart failure six years later.

Briefly committed to an asylum

by her only surviving son, Robert,

Mary Todd Lincoln died in Springfield

17 years after the assassination of her husband.

John Wilkes Booth's body was buried in a storage room

at the Old Arsenal Penitentiary,

then, in a warehouse,

and, finally, interred in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland,

four years after the killing of Abraham Lincoln.

Ten weeks after the president's death, the Civil War was over,

and Lincoln's Gettysburg declaration was realized:

that government of the people, by the people, for the people

shall not perish from the earth.

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