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Historical based episode takes on the controversy surrounding the tragic assassination of U.S President Abraham Lincoln, who was shot down by John Wilkes Booth
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00:00This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.
00:11The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.
00:23America's 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
00:30Nine people were brought to trial. Five were imprisoned. Four were hanged.
00:39Only circumstantial evidence convicted for conspirators. Was justice done?
00:52Lincoln assassination historian, Professor William Hanchett.
00:56Lincoln has been our most beloved president, and that means that we don't fully appreciate that at the time, during the Civil War, he was also our most hated president.
01:08And he was hated for two things. He was hated, first of all, for one of the things that he's most honored now, for freeing the slaves.
01:18But pro-slavery people, and Booth was certainly pro-slavery, thought that this was a terrible thing for the United States.
01:24The second thing for which Lincoln was hated by many people was his suppressions of civil liberty.
01:32So, when Booth called Semper Tyrannus, after he shot Lincoln and jumped to the stage at Ford's Theater, he really believed that he was killing a tyrant.
01:41And, you know, killing a tyrant is no crime or no sin. During World War II, we would have respected somebody who killed Adolf Hitler.
01:51And many people, Booth among them, thought of Lincoln as we thought of Hitler.
01:59John Wilkes Booth, a renowned actor in the South, sought worldwide fame that would last throughout history.
02:05An opportunity arose during the Civil War to serve both his ego and his beloved confederacy with one dramatic act.
02:12September 1864, the plot was born.
02:16It wasn't a conspiracy to assassinate from the beginning.
02:20Sometime late in the summer of 1864, Booth got the idea of kidnapping Lincoln and holding him ransom for the Confederate prisoners in the United States Prisoners of War Camp.
02:35And he approached two of his boyhood friends, Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Loughlin, about it.
02:41They thought it was a feasible thing to do.
02:43Lincoln frequently drove around Washington without an escort.
02:49Lincoln historian and author of Murder at Ford's Theater, Mr. James O. Hall.
02:55Now, I rather think that Booth was handed the kidnap plot in Boston about the end of July 1864,
03:05because he met there with three Confederate agents.
03:10Now, what they talked about, no one knows.
03:12But immediately after that, he started gathering together the people who would help him kidnap the president.
03:20And they had a meeting on the night of the 15th of March, in which they were going to discuss this.
03:27They had this meeting at Gaudier's restaurant, Pennsylvania Avenue.
03:31Booth, who was being in the theater, concluded that the kidnapping of Lincoln just had to be sensational.
03:40So he was going to kidnap him in the Ford's Theater.
03:43They all gathered together, got a little drunk, and got into an argument about how they were going to kidnap Lincoln.
03:54Arnold said he'd have no part of kidnapping a man in Ford's Theater, and O'Loughlin said it was suicide.
04:01But Booth insisted.
04:02The thing never came off, of course, in Ford's Theater.
04:09March 17th, 1865.
04:12A kidnap attempt was made.
04:15Booth learned that Lincoln was going to attend a matinee performance of Still Waters Run Deep
04:19at the soldiers' home on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
04:24Historical reports are mixed on what really happened.
04:28This version is based on lectures given by John Surratt, one of the conspirators.
04:33Booth led two of his men out of the city toward the hospital.
04:37They were armed and prepared to confront Lincoln's carriage during its return to Washington.
04:49Booth led two of his men out of the city, D.C.
05:19As he prepared to give the signal, Booth discovered that the occupant of the carriage was not Lincoln,
05:33but Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase.
05:38Booth rode off and raged at his failure.
05:40Later, he was to learn that Lincoln had stayed in Washington
05:47and delivered a battle flag to the governor of Indiana from a balcony of the National Hotel.
05:54It was the hotel where Booth lived.
05:56Then there was a change in Booth's plans, and I think it's probably fair to date it on April 11th,
06:05when Booth, in company with David Harreld, who was one of the members of his group,
06:10and Louis Payne, another member, attended a lecture at the White House.
06:15During this speech, Lincoln said that he was going to urge that some black men be given the vote.
06:22And Booth was outraged at this suggestion, and he turned to Payne right then and said,
06:28shoot him.
06:29And, of course, Payne refused to do that.
06:31But then he turned to David Harreld, the other companion, and said,
06:37that's the last speech he'll ever make.
06:39So it's possible that then Booth did decide, if opportunity arose, that he would kill Lincoln.
06:47So, you see, whether the kidnapping plot just came over into a plot to murder,
06:56whether it was one conspiracy or two, you have to remember this,
07:00that any time anyone plans to kidnap a president of the United States,
07:05they must be prepared to kill.
07:07And they had armaments in the kidnapping plot.
07:11So it could be that this plan to kidnap Lincoln just drifted naturally
07:19in Booth's fanatical mind into a plot to murder.
07:24April 14th, Booth knew that Lincoln would attend Ford's Theater that evening.
07:30He met with members of his group still in Washington.
07:32It was only at this meeting that he told them that he was going to assassinate the president.
07:37And he gave Payne the assignment of killing Seward.
07:43He told Atserrat to get Andrew Johnson.
07:46You see, Booth's plan was a massive conspiracy
07:49against the leadership of the government of the United States.
07:51The president, the vice president, the secretary of state,
07:55the secretary of war, and the general-in-chief.
07:58He may have believed that by killing the leaders of the United States,
08:02the Confederacy could still win its independence.
08:04On April 13th, 1865, Booth wrote in his journal,
08:09For six months we had worked to capture,
08:11but our cause being almost lost,
08:13something decisive and great must be done.
08:16Though only a few of Booth's co-conspirators
08:19would now be involved in this plot to murder,
08:21everyone he had touched in the previous months
08:23would be tainted with guilt.
08:24John Wilkes Booth, self-appointed leader.
08:29Louis Payne Powell, held prisoner by the Union.
08:33George Atserrat, ferrying contraband across the Potomac.
08:37David Herold, a rather dull youth who followed Booth blindly.
08:42Michael O'Loughlin, Confederate deserter and boyhood friend of Booth.
08:46Edmund Spangler, stagehand at Ford Theater.
08:49Samuel Arnold, Booth's schoolmate, former Confederate soldier.
08:548.30 p.m., April 14th,
08:56Lincoln is seated in his box at Ford's Theater.
08:599.30, Booth rides up Baptist Alley behind Ford's Theater,
09:04dismounts and calls for Spangler to hold his horse.
09:07Instead, a boy, Peanut John Burrow, responds.
09:12Booth enters backstage and crosses to the adjoining Star Saloon.
09:15There, he orders whiskey and waits
09:22as the rest of the plot unfolds throughout the city.
09:3310.03.
09:36Payne gains access to Secretary of State Seward's home.
09:40Seward was severely wounded but would live.
09:43Payne had failed.
09:46Booth was determined to succeed.
09:54Booth enters the theater from the front,
09:57climbs to the balcony,
09:59crosses to the president's box.
10:02Being familiar with the play,
10:04he knows at exactly what point
10:05there will be sustained laughter and applause.
10:08Dr. John Latimer, historian, physician, and ballistics expert.
10:21The actual pistol that Booth used to shoot President Lincoln
10:27was one like this, called a Derringer.
10:31A Derringer is a short barrel gun firing a very large ball,
10:35and the velocity and the energy are very fatal
10:38if fired directly into the head.
10:40Being a single-shot pistol, of course,
10:43was useless after this fired its shot,
10:45and Booth then threw it down
10:46and pulled out his hunting knife,
10:49and when the Major Rathbone that was in the box with him
10:52grappled with him,
10:53he stabbed him badly in the arm.
10:56The Major staggered back,
10:58and Booth went over to the edge of the box
11:00and vaulted over onto the stage 12 feet below,
11:03a flamboyant, dangerous type of action
11:06that did indeed result in breaking one of the small bones
11:09in his leg just above the ankle.
11:12Booth ran from the theater
11:13and began his desperate ride towards freedom.
11:20He exited the alley with members of the audience in pursuit,
11:24rode down F Street,
11:26and across the Navy Yard Bridge
11:28into the Maryland countryside.
11:30Booth went to Sopper's Hill
11:35to await David Harreld.
11:41Harreld was to lead Payne out of the city,
11:43but for reasons never explained,
11:46he arrived alone.
11:48From Sopper's Hill, they went to Surrattville,
11:51arriving at the Surratt Tavern around midnight.
11:53Here, they were to pick up carbines,
11:55whiskey, and a pair of spy glasses.
11:58Mary Surratt,
11:59one of the accused conspirators,
12:01allegedly delivered these glasses for Booth
12:04on the morning of the assassination.
12:074 a.m., April 15th.
12:10Booth and Harreld arrive at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd.
12:13It is known that Mudd was acquainted with Booth.
12:18Whether he knew of Booth's deed remains a question.
12:20The broken leg was set and the boot was left behind.
12:24It was to become a damning piece of evidence.
12:28April 26th, federal troops captured Harreld
12:31and cornered Booth at Garrett's farm.
12:33They set fire to the barn to smoke him out.
12:36The barn was brilliantly illuminated.
12:39They could all see Booth very clearly.
12:42And Booth came back first towards the corner of the barn.
12:45And Booth then decided that he couldn't fight the blaze
12:48and started towards the front door with his crutch
12:51and a very heavy Spencer carbine fully loaded in one hand.
12:57And as he went towards the front of the barn,
12:59he pulled out one of his revolvers from his belt.
13:02And almost immediately, a pistol shot rang out.
13:06And down went Booth, a shot through the neck.
13:10Then they dragged him out and up to the back porch of the farmhouse.
13:14And he died within about two hours.
13:17The cry then went up, who shot him?
13:20Because, you know, they certainly wanted to capture him
13:23and have him for testimony.
13:25And here he was, dead.
13:28And the man that stepped forward was Boston Corbett.
13:31One of the great questions is whether Boston Corbett
13:35actually shot John Wilkes Booth
13:37or whether Booth committed suicide.
13:39We know that the bullet hole through John Wilkes Booth's neck
13:43went slightly downhill.
13:45And we knew the bullet came in from his right,
13:47went downhill, going to the left.
13:48Now, this enormous pistol,
13:51if you try to shoot yourself that way in the neck,
13:54you find that your arm isn't long enough
13:57to make it easy to do in this manner.
14:01And they surely would have seen him do it.
14:04You have to switch it around,
14:05and you have to use your thumb if you're going to do this,
14:08in order to press the trigger,
14:10in order to make it create the kind of wound that Booth had.
14:15So it seems very unlikely just on that basis alone that he shot himself.
14:19And if you're going to shoot yourself,
14:21you're going to shoot yourself in the side of the neck
14:23would be the last place you would want to do it
14:25because you might miss.
14:26The question was asked,
14:28was it really Booth who had been shot?
14:30At the autopsy, Dr. Woodward took some pains
14:34to be sure who he was autopsying.
14:36He had witnesses in who identified Booth.
14:40And he then described on Booth's hand
14:44his initials, which Booth himself had tattooed on them
14:47as a child in a scraggly, childish scrawl,
14:51but which were undoubtedly his.
14:54Booth was buried in the old penitentiary.
14:56Another Booth was publicly dumped in the Potomac.
15:00Why?
15:01Secretary of War Edwin Stanton may have ordered this charade
15:04to dissuade grave robbers.
15:06He was to be questioned for many of his policies
15:09following the assassination.
15:11He had taken the reins of a crippled government,
15:13ordered hasty arrests of seemingly innocent people,
15:17rapidly convened a military trial,
15:19and ordered the prisoners to be held under tortuous conditions.
15:22Nobody ever accused Stanton of involvement
15:25in the assassination until Otto Eisenschimmel
15:28published that preposterous book,
15:30Why Was Lincoln Murdered?, in 1937.
15:35It's almost a criminal case of loading the dice against Stanton,
15:41taking every circumstance, the most innocent ones,
15:46and giving them sinister implications.
15:48For example, it's frequently said that because Stanton ordered the men prisoners
15:54to be hooded so that they couldn't talk,
15:57that he was afraid that they would implicate him in the assassination.
16:02And this has been repeated time after time
16:04as one of the best indications that Stanton had something to hide.
16:09But it's ridiculous.
16:10The Stantons and the Lincolns were close to each other.
16:14Lincoln and Stanton respected each other.
16:17And you see, the misfortune is that in recent years, since 1937,
16:22it's just the exact opposite which has become known.
16:25The trial was hampered by very serious legal questions,
16:45the principle of which was due process.
16:48Military tribunals and commissions, unfortunately,
16:51didn't really represent defendants' peers.
16:56And the rules of evidence were markedly changed
16:59during a military tribunal and commission.
17:02That's not to say that the outcome
17:03would have been any different than it was
17:06had they been tried in a civil court in the District of Columbia.
17:09But needless to say,
17:12it caused a great deal of difficulty.
17:15Mary Surratt may have been convicted
17:17only to serve as bait for her son, John, a primary suspect.
17:22The Surratt Society was formed to preserve her memory.
17:25Society President, Joan Chaconis.
17:27There were actually three things that convicted Mrs. Surratt,
17:31I suppose, in the trial.
17:33One was the fact that she knew Booth.
17:35Her son introduced his mother to the actor, John Wilkes Booth.
17:39He would come to the house to visit the son.
17:41If the son wasn't there, then he'd stop and chat with the ladies.
17:44And, of course, this was all brought out during the trial that Booth was there.
17:48And if he didn't talk with the son, John,
17:50then he was talking to Mrs. Surratt.
17:52And what did they talk about?
17:54Whether she knew exactly what he was doing is questionable.
17:58However, if you're a mother today with a teenage son,
18:02you might have a suspicion that he's doing something
18:05that possibly he shouldn't be doing.
18:08But you probably don't think it's going to come to any evil or any harm.
18:12The second thing was Lewis Thornton Powell,
18:15the fellow who was told by Booth to go and kill the Secretary of State Seward.
18:20Well, unfortunately for Mrs. Surratt,
18:22just as the soldiers are at her house downtown
18:24questioning her about the whereabouts of her son, John Jr.,
18:27and John Wilkes Booth,
18:30who should come knocking at the door but Lewis Thornton Powell
18:32and the soldier in the house, detectives,
18:35they enter the door and wonder,
18:37who is he? What's he doing here?
18:39And he says, well, he came here because Mrs. Surratt
18:41wanted him to dig a ditch for him,
18:43for her the next morning.
18:45This seemed very strange.
18:47And Mrs. Surratt was called to come out here
18:49and identify this man,
18:50and she said she didn't know who he was.
18:52The most damning evidence came from John Lloyd,
18:55keeper of the Surratt Tavern.
18:56The evidence that John Lloyd gave
19:00was that Mrs. Surratt gave him a message
19:03to have some shooting irons ready.
19:04Some people were coming by later to pick them up.
19:07And she gave him a package
19:08to deliver to those same people.
19:12Whether she knew what was in the package,
19:15this supposedly contained Booth's spy glasses,
19:17she didn't know what was in that package.
19:20These are all things that are based on circumstances,
19:23and there's nothing really,
19:24no concrete evidence to show
19:26that she really had anything to do
19:27or any knowledge
19:28that Booth was planning to kill the president.
19:31Five members of the commission
19:32met and signed a clemency plea
19:35on behalf of Mary Surratt
19:37asking Johnson to commute her sentence
19:38to life imprisonment.
19:40Holt maintains that on July 5th,
19:42when he presented the findings to Johnson,
19:44he also showed him the clemency plea
19:46and that Johnson ignored it or turned it down.
19:51Johnson maintains that he never saw the clemency plea
19:54and was totally unaware of it,
19:55and upheld the final sentences
19:57as recommended by the commission.
20:00July 7th, 1865.
20:02The hangman was getting tired
20:04of taking this very stiff rope
20:05and making eight turns
20:07on every one of the men's knots,
20:08and by the time he got to Mrs. Surratt,
20:10since he didn't think it would be used,
20:12he only put five turns on her knot.
20:14And then to his horror,
20:17the knot was indeed used to hang her.
20:19Mary Surratt became the first woman
20:21to be hanged by the federal government.
20:25Did Booth go to Dr. Mudd's
20:27only for medical assistance?
20:29Some say Mudd also gave provisions.
20:31This could not be proven.
20:33Mudd was sentenced to life in prison
20:35on evidence that Booth's knee-high boot
20:37was found at his home.
20:39How many others were convicted
20:41on circumstantial evidence?
20:43It was the government's position
20:44that all of these individuals
20:46participated in the conspiracy
20:48to varying degrees,
20:49but all of them shared equally
20:51in the guilt
20:51of the murder of President Lincoln.
20:53Stanton, when he issued his order
20:55on May 6th,
20:57charging the formation
20:59of the military commission,
21:00had used the phrase
21:02that the commission was
21:03to remove the stain
21:04of innocent blood from the land.
21:06And I think, in fact,
21:08that's what the final sentencing
21:10was doing.
21:12Were the right people
21:13brought to trial?
21:16Could others have conspired
21:17to kill Abraham Lincoln?
21:19John Wilkes Booth
21:23pulled the trigger
21:24in the assassination of Lincoln.
21:26There was a conspiracy involved.
21:29Some of the details
21:30of that conspiracy
21:31may for all time
21:33remain cloaked in mystery.
21:43Coming up next,
21:44In Search Of continues
21:45with a probe into evidence
21:46that there may have been
21:47two Lee Harvey Oswalds.
21:49Then 20th Century
21:50with Mike Wallace
21:51reports on great rescues,
21:53including the dramatic
21:54daylight rescue
21:55of a U.S. Air Force pilot
21:56shot down in Bosnia.
21:58And later tonight,
21:59History's Mysteries
22:00looks for 21 tons
22:01of gold bullion
22:02with high-tech treasure hunters.
22:04At 8,
22:05here on the History Channel,
22:06where the past comes alive.
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