In the final act of this grim tale, Allison and Jayson unravel the missteps and ultimate outcomes of John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater and the attempted assassinations of Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, to the Booth's final stand at a tobacco farm only 20 miles from the scene of the crime.
Or did Booth get away in the end? Of course there's a conspiracy theory. Isn't there always?
Join the Vintage Village Patreon, find social links, merch, etc:
https://linktr.ee/warpedcortexmedia
The Silver Linings Handbook:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-silver-linings-handbook/id1665733166
RESOURCE LINKS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes_Booth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Booth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Abraham_Lincoln
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lincolns-missing-bodyguard-12932069/
https://www.nationalparks.org/connect/blog/gun-shot-lincoln
https://www.newsweek.com/2014/06/20/tunnel-vision-254202.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/28/nyregion/bob-diamond-dead.html
Credits:
Main Theme Music -- Ken Dickson
Main Graphics -- Nathaniel Dickson
In the final act of this grim tale, Allison and Jayson unravel the missteps and ultimate outcomes of John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater and the attempted assassinations of Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, to the Booth's final stand at a tobacco farm only 20 miles from the scene of the crime.
Or did Booth get away in the end? Of course there's a conspiracy theory. Isn't there always?
Join the Vintage Village Patreon, find social links, merch, etc:
https://linktr.ee/warpedcortexmedia
The Silver Linings Handbook:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-silver-linings-handbook/id1665733166
RESOURCE LINKS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes_Booth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Booth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Abraham_Lincoln
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lincolns-missing-bodyguard-12932069/
https://www.nationalparks.org/connect/blog/gun-shot-lincoln
https://www.newsweek.com/2014/06/20/tunnel-vision-254202.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/28/nyregion/bob-diamond-dead.html
Credits:
Main Theme Music -- Ken Dickson
Main Graphics -- Nathaniel Dickson
This week we're traveling back to the year 1865, because we were only just getting started on last week's bad guy, john Wilkes Booth. If you missed that episode, you'll definitely want to go back and listen before continuing on, because now my friend Jason Blair and I are dressed for a night at the theater and we've also packed some extra gear because after Booth's final stage appearance we're going to be tromping through some swamps and farmland on our escape from the Cowboys, and now it's time for some cavalry. I tell you, it's never a dull moment here on Vintage Villains, I want to welcome back my amazing guests from last week Mr Jason Blair, marylander man of Virginia.
Jayson Blair:By birth, but Southern by the grace of God. There you go, there you go.
Allison Dickson:Absolutely, and you know, I always feel like I have a foot in the north and a foot in the south as well.
Jayson Blair:Well, you're from Ohio, so it is really unclear.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, oh, it's very clear, especially in southwest Ohio.
Jayson Blair:Well, and it's an interesting thing about Ohio, If you think of, like the Western states, what were then the Western states? That's what the whole fight was over. Right, Like what? The Kansas-Nebraska Act was the Western expansion going to be pro-slavery or was it going to be pro-abolitionist? And what that was really about was not about spreading slavery, it was about, like, which way are these people going to vote? Bleeding Kansas? Kansas got torn apart.
Allison Dickson:And in this country people really need to appreciate how massive this country is, how big it is. And I always tell people when you have an opportunity to drive across the United States on either like the I-70 corridor, any of those major interstates, just do it, because I don't think you truly appreciate why this country has the politics that it has, the culture that it has, that sort of rugged individualism feeling that it has. It's because so much of this country is still so rural, it's still so spread out and so empty and until you can really appreciate that and the isolation that is still very possible here in this country, then you're never going to really understand the things that say. I feel the sentiments of the Civil War that still exist.
Jayson Blair:Well, I feel blessed. Actually I don't joke about being Southern, by the grace of God, but I am glad that I was born in Maryland, like middle state very split. I grew up in the Empire and I say this on purpose of Texas, georgia and then back to Virginia, lived in New York, lived in Boston and the reason why I think if I had not grown up in Southern states, I think I would have had a harder time understanding the perspective.
Allison Dickson:Yes.
Jayson Blair:The devastation. Like you know, being in school in Georgia and being able to like sit in Marietta, georgia, and know the story of how, from Tennessee to the Atlantic Ocean, it was completely burned down.
Allison Dickson:Yes, the destruction is just it's. It's hard to even imagine all the death and all the bodies across the battlefield. They didn't know, they didn't even know what to do with all these people. Imagining that kind of just filtering into a country's collective unconscious. We're coming up on another presidential election and every single time we have one, I tell myself I'm not going to become obsessed with it, and then ultimately I do, because I think it's the time that I think our history as this country is at its most alive.
Allison Dickson:It's sort of like the full moon phase of our collective history, because all those things kind of come into play, even if you don't know, say, about Nixon, southern strategy, or you don't know about, you know the reconstruction and you don't know about all these other various tiny things that affect why populists is vote, the way that they vote. It all ties into things like this. And I just say, if you want to understand why people behave the way you do, because you hear it constantly during an election year why are we like this? Why are we voting this way? Why are we, you know, having this debate? It should be obvious to everybody. Well, drive across, say, montana, drive across Kansas, drive across Oklahoma. Maybe you'll understand it's because people or drive down south.
Jayson Blair:I think like one way to think about it, like go back to Thomas do, who was at William and Mary, and he made this argument back in the 1830s that slavery was not just a sin, it was an original sin, in other words, a sin that could not easily be abolished or atoned for Right.
Jayson Blair:And I think we live with the consequences and even do believe that slavery was a necessary sin for the prosperity and stability of the South, but he believed it was an original sin. That think of those two things cannot easily be abolished and in many ways it was not abolished with the Emancipation Proclamation, as the aftermath of reconstruction tells us right, and that it can't be easily atoned for. And you think about the debates that we have around affirmative action or other things. What level of affirmative action exactly would make up for that, for slavery Right?
Jayson Blair:So like do was dead right in my mind when he said that it was a original son.
Allison Dickson:I completely agree and I find a fascination that so much of our culture I should say the generalized white culture here, especially in this country, thinks that once we abolished slavery, that was it. They don't think about the ways that slavery still continues to exist in current society. That sin doesn't go anywhere, just like any other original sin. It transmogrifies, it changes itself, it changes its appearance, but it's still there. It's still something that we're always going to have to fight and of course, we're trying to deny it. It was even a factor in the Civil War now, which is just absurd to me. But you know, we're talking now about the assassination day, the day that would live in infamy.
Jayson Blair:Dun, dun, dun dun dun. Here's where we play the scary music, right.
Allison Dickson:Absolutely, and our, in some cases, the Twilight Zone.
Jayson Blair:Yes.
Allison Dickson:Because some of this is straight out of the Twilight Zone. We have all this cosmic coincidence happening around us. A lot of this has become the stuff of urban legend, especially as it relates to President John F Kennedy, who would be assassinated himself nearly a century later. And I don't know. You've probably heard some of these coincidences between Kennedy and Lincoln. I know I heard a bunch growing up and I have a small list here. Listen to some of this.
Allison Dickson:Both Kennedy and Lincoln were elected to Congress in 46. They were elected in 1846 from Illinois and Kennedy was an elect was elected in 1946 for Massachusetts. Both were elected to the presidency in 60. Lincoln in 1860 and Kennedy in 1960. Both were concerned with civil rights, with Lincoln feeling strongly about freed slaves and the Emancipation Proclamation, kennedy being concerned with racial equality and the first to propose what would become the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Both were shot in their 30s to women who were in their 20s. Both were shot on a Friday. Lincoln was shot on a Good Friday, april 14, 1865. And Kennedy was shot on Friday, november 22, 1963. Both were shot in the head.
Allison Dickson:Both of the president's successors were named Johnson. Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and Kennedy by Lyndon B Johnson. Both were succeeded by Southerners Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, lyndon Johnson from Texas. Both were born in an 08 year Johnson born in 1808 and Lyndon in 1908. Both assassins John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. This isn't much of a distinction here. I should have taken this one off the list. They're both known by their three names. All assassins are.
Allison Dickson:Most infamous murders are because you have to make it as unique as possible.
Jayson Blair:Distinction.
Allison Dickson:And each assassin's full name is composed of 15 letters.
Jayson Blair:for you numerologists out there, oh, you're missing the best one. Oh, what's that? Kennedy's secretary? Her last name was Lincoln and Lincoln's secretary's last name was Kennedy, because it's Evelyn. Lincoln was, I believe, kennedy's secretary, and then I can't remember.
Allison Dickson:I actually looked this up and it is true that Kennedy's secretary had a Lincoln, but I can't remember if it was true for Lincoln like for the other way around. But again, that is another coincidence.
Jayson Blair:Oh, yes, that's right. That's right, that's right. That was an urban legend. Oh, not urban legend, that was a myth, because I realized his secretaries, because we know from this part of the story he had two secretaries and they were both men.
Allison Dickson:What's really interesting, too, in both of these cases is that both assassins were killed before they could be tried. And it's true. They were both, of course, wartime presidents facing a lot of challenges and ire from both major parties. And there are also reports we're done with the coincidences here because and we're going to move on to something a little more supernatural feeling, but this is pretty well documented there were reports that Lincoln had premonitions about his own death in the days leading up to it. He told people about a dream he had walking into a funeral happening in the White House and the attendees telling him that the president had been assassinated. And, according to even Wikipedia, lincoln told his cabinet that he dreamed of being on a singular and indescribable vessel that was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore. And then he had the same dream before nearly every great and important event of the war.
Allison Dickson:And so, when you consider that his assassination would pretty much be a capstone on this war but was it though? Have we been to the Civil War? No, you're right. You're right. I will say, though it's like okay.
Jayson Blair:I would say it was a chapter change A chapter change. Thank you very much.
Allison Dickson:That's a good one.
Jayson Blair:Part two.
Allison Dickson:But somebody say this is supernatural. But I would also say that, logically, Lincoln had a lot of reasons to believe he was in danger of being killed. There had already been two previous attempts on his life, One that we had mentioned before that was foiled by the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I will have the link actually to the episode I did about the Pinkerton Agency in my show notes. But you know he was shot at all the time.
Jayson Blair:So was Grant. Have you ever heard the story about Grant being shot at where he was given a speech and literally someone was shot right beside him and he just kept on giving a speech.
Allison Dickson:Oh my God, I can't think of a bigger badass. Interesting times.
Jayson Blair:Apparently, people say he didn't even turn to look.
Allison Dickson:I could believe it. I honestly could believe it, I think, if you're going to be the general of either side of this war, whether you're I don't know a lot about Robert E Lee's personality, to be honest, but I also imagine he probably.
Jayson Blair:There's a lot of debates about that. Oh really. There's a lot of historical debate. It's kind of interesting. It's an interesting historical debate about his personality.
Allison Dickson:I mean when.
Jayson Blair:I was going to school it was very much Southern gentleman, the belief that he wasn't too hard for slavery.
Allison Dickson:Or that he also wanted to surrender and not be memorialized. I think that was thrown in there too.
Jayson Blair:And then there's another side of him where there was some acts of brutality that were really way out there in the sense that we normally would associate with Custer or other people like that.
Jayson Blair:Or who's the guy? Nathaniel Bedford, forrest Calvary, raid, right, yeah, so people are complicated, and that's true of all of us, but it's really hard to when you look into history. And this is one of the neat things about history as opposed to modern times, and part of what I love about this podcast idea is that the idea behind this podcast is essentially History, allows you to sort the first drafts and you begin to realize that everybody's a little bit more complicated than you thought.
Allison Dickson:And I will say in my own, doing research on things like this, I have noticed a distinct difference between If you read a book about a big historical event. If you read the books that happen closer to that event in terms of time, the lens is so much more distorted than, say, if you read one a little bit after. You find this distinction a lot in the study of, say, Jim Jones, the cult leader.
Jayson Blair:David Koresh is another example.
Allison Dickson:The original book. Yeah, the Road to Jonestown, I think it was, was the first one, Raven, I think, was. I'm probably reversing those two, but the one that was written much later, about 10 or 15 years later, way better when you're too close to it. Yeah, you're not gonna see. You need to zoom out.
Jayson Blair:When a traumatic event happens, we want simplified narratives and then, over time, you know there are upsides and downsides to it, because sometimes the wrong idea wins over time, or the incorrect thing. But the great thing about history is, eventually it tends to ferret out the truth. It may go through many different revisions, but it tends to ferret out the truth.
Allison Dickson:It's a lot like science in its own way.
Jayson Blair:Views of Columbus are another great example, right yes? Now and I know this isn't everyone, but many people view Columbus as like a hero for finding the Americas, and others view him as a genocidal maniac. Yeah, and perhaps he was both.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, I don't know hero, but Booth Less complicated, Much less so, and you know, we've already talked about a lot of these crazy coincidences and, of course, like all the times, booth had been in close proximity to Lincoln, both at other stage plays as well as at Lincoln's second inauguration. There are actually photographs of Booth very close to Lincoln and he actually thought about taking a shot at him at that inauguration apparently, and there are people that have found the actual photographs very blurry, but you can clearly see Booth, probably about 30 feet away from Abraham Lincoln at that inauguration.
Jayson Blair:Lincoln was a lot like Kennedy when it came to security, like in reality, sort of disregarding what people thought was the best approach because of his belief that he needed to connect with people on some level.
Allison Dickson:I think there is an overlap between the personality traits and quirks that make you rise to the status of a mythical figure, like, I would say, lincoln and Kennedy.
Jayson Blair:both were even, even for their assassinations.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, their assassinations didn't even have to happen to make that a thing. But I think there's an overlap between that and sort of the cavalier attitude of maybe not taking your own safety seriously, because if you don't take yourself your safety seriously it means you're putting yourself out there as a figure.
Jayson Blair:I also think there's another, kennedy Lincoln, you know element. So Lincoln is the one and I also put this on King too, you know ends the end slavery. Yes that's a target on you. Kennedy, civil rights again puts a target on you. Yes, king, civil rights puts a target on you. I think there was probably an element of fatalism if you look into the writings and things that they said. Kennedy less than the other two.
Allison Dickson:Yeah.
Jayson Blair:But an amount that like there's no amount of anything I'm going to do that's going to prevent people from trying to take my life, like I think if somebody wasn't fatalistic, I'm not sure if Martin Luther King would ever walked on any balcony.
Allison Dickson:It is an unfortunate paradox, and I think of the people that rise to those kinds of occasions they just you kind of already just have to have. I don't want to say a death wish, because I don't think they wanted to die. I just think that they were probably prepared for the eventuality, more so than people that choose not to enter those battles.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, and you know, me included, I don't. I don't think I'm going to go out in that blaze of glory myself, because I haven't put myself on that type of ledge Like, say, a Martin Luther King or an Abraham Lincoln or anybody who say elevates themselves to that kind of status, and that takes a certain amount of courage and maybe a certain bit of crazy. Yeah, lincoln had opportunity to get more security around him and he refused. And even the fact that Booth's brother, edwin, unwittingly saved the life of Lincoln's son, you know, as we talked about his son Robert months before the assassination, it sort of adds to this notion that the stars of Lincoln and Booth were destined to cross At least with.
Allison Dickson:When Kennedy was assassinated, we had no clue who this Oswald guy was, but when Lincoln was assassinated it was Nicholas freaking Cage or the equivalent of it doing it. And so just, I'm trying to put people back in that surreal spot. At the end of the last episode we talked about how General Grant Ulysses S Grant and his wife were supposed to be at that play, and so that was certainly on John Wilkes Booth's mind as a juicy target. He was going to take down the main general of the Union Army alongside the president of the United States. But the grants got cold feet and nobody knows why. I almost wonder if they were tipped off Like maybe a message got to Grant, maybe there was a spy for the Union.
Jayson Blair:And it's not like today where, you know, the president's movements at least, are somewhat guarded. But even today, like the theater would know, he's coming and Booth was associated with the US Army and so with the theater. I think more likely or sort of simpler solution to what Julia Grant was concerned about was you know, they were in Washington DC, on the border of Virginia and Maryland, surrounded by Confederate sympathizers on every side.
Allison Dickson:And Lincoln had just announced he was going to let slaves vote. And people were pissed. Yes, exactly that week. That week, yeah.
Jayson Blair:And so and Johnson still doing his thing in North Carolina.
Allison Dickson:Yeah.
Jayson Blair:But remember, they changed their plans and what did they do? They went and visited New York. They got out of town and I don't know that. You know they're people. There's no real evidence of support that they knew anything about it, but I think it would be natural if you put yourself in the shoes of the wife of General Grant or even Mary Todd Lincoln or any of these people. It makes complete sense. There's another theory that it was actually the reason why Julia Grant didn't want to go was she had had a falling out with Mary Todd Lincoln and didn't want to spend time with them. There are lots of different theories, but I think the most likely and logical one, at least from my perspective, is she just did not want to be out in public. Right?
Allison Dickson:And in that makes sense.
Jayson Blair:Surrounded by Southern sympathizers.
Allison Dickson:And so, when they decided not to go, major Henry Rathbone decided to come along. He was a union officer, but, again like we said before, booth had a lot more in mind than killing the president he and his Mary band of miscreants. There would be David Harold, george Atzerot and Lewis Powell, and, to a lesser extent, mary Surrott, but we'll get to her in a little bit. He wanted to go after Lincoln's two immediate successors, or so he thought he had. They had that a little bit wrong, but we'll mention that here Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H Seward. But, fun fact, seward wasn't actually the second presidential successor. That person would have been the president pro tem of the Senate, lafayette S Foster Womp womp stay in school kids. So the whole reason behind this, though, was they thought, well, we can't kidnap Lincoln to get what we want, so now we're just going to create a bunch of chaos.
Jayson Blair:We've got to get them all too.
Allison Dickson:We work yeah because imagine, I mean even now. I mean imagine if the president, the vice president and, you know, the pro tem or the secretary of state, whomever upper cabinet members, all being attempted assassinated the same night, at the same time. Listen, I haven't lived through the tumult of, say, the 1960s. It was a little before my time. I can only imagine people were getting popped left and right in the 60s political leaders and whatnot.
Jayson Blair:Robert Kennedy Cleen. Yeah, yeah, there's Malcolm X. Yeah, so many.
Allison Dickson:Malcolm X yeah, a mega Evers. But I did live through January 6th and I can imagine like this it's not the same thing, but the whole idea of like this attack happening at the same time, like we're going to do this coordinated thing.
Jayson Blair:It was part of the goal of 9-11,.
Allison Dickson:Right the plane that didn't hit either the White House or the Capitol, Absolutely yeah, the one in Pennsylvania, yeah and oh yeah, and knowing like, yeah, the two towers get hit, the Pentagon gets hit, yeah, you really do feel like, oh my gosh, this is, this is really happening.
Jayson Blair:It's a military doctrine known as decapitation right, and we talk about it in Nuclear War that you want to decapitate the leadership of whoever your enemy is by getting them all. And it's why now, when the State of the Union address happens and we have all the Supreme Court justices and congressmen, Cabinet Secretaries, President and Vice President of the Capitol, that's why we take one and we stick them in, like Raven Rock or Mount Weather out in Virginia in a bunker, because we don't want the government to decapitate. Yes, it's real.
Allison Dickson:Starring Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer Sutherland for president.
Jayson Blair:It's usually starring the Secretary of Agriculture. Yeah, yeah just get to know all your Cabinet members, guys. There is a reason for that.
Allison Dickson:We're going to start with the attempted assassination of William Seward here, because I find this whole thing kind of blew me away.
Jayson Blair:It's crazy.
Allison Dickson:So these other guys kind of sucked at their jobs. I'm just going to put it right out there they're not killers, these guys. They're. Imagine going down to the bar and you're talking to the guy who's pissed off at the government, but he's not going to go and do anything, he just wants to sit and drink and bitch about the government. And I think that there was a little bit of that kind of going on. These guys they weren't. They were confederate sympathizers, but they weren't trained assassins. They weren't military people, these were ordinary people.
Jayson Blair:And they did terrible intelligence when it came to Seward, you know. I mean the whole. So you know Seward was sick at the time.
Allison Dickson:He was. He had been kicked by his horse or had a carriage accident and his jaw was broken.
Jayson Blair:And if he wasn't injured, I'm not sure it would have worked out as well for him.
Allison Dickson:It actually helped him, which is kind of crazy. So Louis Powell was the conspirator who was sent to carry out the assassination of Seward, and about 10 pm, the night of the Lincoln assassination, right around the same time that John Wilkes Booth was making his way up to the presidential box at Ford's Theatre, powell, who didn't know the city very well at all, by the way he was driven to Seward's home by David Harald. He gained entry into Seward's home under the guise of delivering him medicine, but instead Powell was carrying a revolver and a bowie knife and Seward's servant, william Bell, and his adult children, frederick, august and Fanny, as well as a soldier assigned to guard Seward. They were all at the house.
Jayson Blair:So I love this whole part of the story where you know Powell comes to the door. Harald's got both their horses in the yard. You know, he comes up and presents the medicine for Seward. His plan is I'm going to take it up to Seward's bedroom. On what planet would anyone think that is what's going to happen?
Allison Dickson:And that's the funny thing is, you know they're going like who the hell is this guy. But he did get into the house, I guess he insisted enough. And he gets up the stairs and they're asking him more questions. They're like who the hell are you? They're not pointing out where Seward's room was.
Allison Dickson:It seemed like Powell was starting to get spooked, though, by the whole thing. And let's be clear, these conspirators they're just. They were really into just the kidnapping plot. But I don't think they would have done very well at that either. It would have been like Fargo, you know, where they're trying to kidnap this woman and they end up knocking her down the stairs and killing her. But Booth flipped the switch to murder, so it took a lot of the wind out of their sails and that probably made a huge difference into how they had to pull this off. But Seward's daughter, fanny she'd been sitting with her father and so she was. She goes and opens the bedroom door, which then lets Powell know where the bedroom is. But she was way more quick-witted than anyone else. So she saw the gun, or might have even seen maybe beads of nervous sweat on Powell's face, whatever it was. But she immediately slammed the door shut and then Powell pulls his revolver, aims it at Frederick's head and pulls the trigger, but the pistol misfired.
Jayson Blair:PSA clean your guns Absolutely, especially these guns at this time. Before you go into an assassination, let me tell you clean your weapon.
Allison Dickson:The butler. By this point I think he had already run away to get help and Powell then pistol whipped Frederick, knocking him unconscious. So he draws out his Bowie knife and waits for Fanny to open the bedroom door and eventually she does, just like that classic horror movie character that we know shouldn't do the thing she doesn't anyway With the afterschool special music playing yeah.
Allison Dickson:So she opens the door and Powell shoves his way into the room, lunges at Seward with the knife. Only the neck brace that he's wearing, because it was broken jaw, stops the knife from hitting any major arteries. Seward would survive this attack, although he got some scars on his face though, and that was pretty cool. But by this point others in the house arrived to Fanny's aid after hearing her screams, and Powell rushed out into the night. He did stab a messenger in the back on his way out of the house for whatever reason, probably just in his fight to get away.
Jayson Blair:I think eight people were injured in some way, yeah, and then his ride abandoned him.
Allison Dickson:So he was wandering around the city for the rest of his life. Oh, he's such a key character in this whole story.
Jayson Blair:David Harald yeah, he leaves with both of their horses.
Allison Dickson:Yeah.
Jayson Blair:Because he hears screaming inside the house like man. That is not what you do when you're like riding on the assassination Dude. Maybe you hide, you're on getaway.
Allison Dickson:Maybe you just leave him in his horse. Yes, you were like that guy in.
Jayson Blair:Ocean's Eleven, who had one job to do. Yeah, yeah, and you can't even do that one job.
Allison Dickson:And so that's failure number one. And now we move on to the failed assassination attempt of VP Johnson. Now this other member of our gang of Nerdy Wells. We have a carriage repairman, george Azzarat. He's a German immigrant and a sympathizer of the Confederacy, and he was given the task of taking out the vice president. Only, unlike Powell, azzarat didn't even really attempt it. He found out that Johnson was staying at a DC hotel, the Kirkwood House, and he booked a room and then proceeded to hang out in the hotel bar getting himself hammered. He needed that liquid courage, but he had a little too much, I think. He ended up wandering the streets of DC that night and dumped his knife in a sewer, and here's the twist of fate that ruined it for him. A witness saw him doing that and reported it. So the next day, when the assassination was at the forefront of everyone's mind, the bartender at the Kirkwood remembered Azzarat, asking if he knew what room Johnson was staying in. This reminds me of this great example from the Prosecutors' Podcast where Brett was talking about.
Jayson Blair:If you were going to take your garbage and you put it out in the curb, anyone can search it. If you are going to put evidence in your garbage, throw it in the backseat of your car, by which it is no longer garbage, it is just your property. Keep the knife. Keep the knife, man, do not.
Allison Dickson:You haven't stabbed anyone yet. Do that Exactly Now. All you did was give someone something to remember. You don't throw a knife in a sewer unless you're trying to dump evidence. It's amazing how people trying to hide things tend to give oxygen to them.
Allison Dickson:But another thing, that kind of sealed Azzarat's fate was after the assassination. Azzarat's fate was after this was all reported. Somebody was asking about Vice President Johnson. Authorities quickly descended on Azzarat's rented room and found a revolver under the pillow and a bank book belonging to John Wilkes Booth. There was also a handwritten message from Booth to Azzarat left at the hotel, which then linked them all together. So they weren't very smart, they weren't very good at planning and executing, but they had gusto Well except for George George didn't have that, oh no.
Jayson Blair:But I do think to some extent Booth was pretty clever right.
Allison Dickson:Yes, he was pretty clever.
Jayson Blair:He was pretty creative and I think as we walk through the assassination of Lincoln, you'll see a lot of his cleverness and his willingness to take risks and test limits come to play.
Allison Dickson:That was it. He was a true believer.
Jayson Blair:Booth had talents that like almost. I wonder what would have happened if Booth had done the assassination without the rest of the cast of characters. I don't even know if he would have been caught, because our buddy David comes back into the story again and shining glory. Although the one great way to keep a secret, what's that? Tell one other person and then kill them, that is your only way.
Allison Dickson:Because I mean, if Atzerot had carried out the assassination of Seward, assuming he was successful at it and didn't leave any other incriminating evidence, then there wouldn't have been a witness to a dumped knife in a sewer that would have led to the hotel room. You know what I mean. There's a lot of ifs going on here, but I think that if he had just simply done what he was supposed to do, they probably would have fared better. But it was just all very hastily planned by people that I think were so caught up in their passions and in their fear and in their anger that impeded the parts of your frontal lobe that are supposed to help you plan and help you foresee various outcomes. That's the problem with political assassins. Ultimately, it's not like Hollywood portrays these sort of cool, calm, collected John Cusack looking motherfuckers out there assassinating the president of Paraguay with a fork. Most of the time, I think you are driven to the brink and over a cliff by the time you get to the point where you're saying I am literally going to assassinate a president.
Allison Dickson:And that, I think, precludes your success. To a certain extent it happened with Oswald. He got caught pretty much immediately, as did Booth. Mostly he got caught, and then you know the other presidential assassins I think were killed on site.
Allison Dickson:I don't can't remember what happened with McKinley and Garfield's assassins, but I think they they too were also quickly dispatched. So I don't think that there's not a good track record. But now we're to the big event here, because this is the one that actually came to fruition. We have three murders planned. Only one would succeed, and of course it had to be the most consequential one.
Jayson Blair:And also step back here for a second. None of this, none of any of these events is happening if Booth doesn't happen to overhear a conversation about Lincoln and Grant being there that night, exactly Not the sewer thing, not any of this. So these guys did pull it together somewhat quickly.
Allison Dickson:Yes, I completely agree. And when Booth learned that Lincoln was attending the showing of our American cousin at the theater, he knew he was in luck. He not only knew the play very well, he had performed in it at one point, but that theater was a regular hangout for him, so it wasn't going to be unusual to see him lingering around the place that night. So we should also be clear. Security detail around American presidents at that time, even despite having multiple assassination attempts under Lincoln's belt, was sparse. There was no real secret service at this time, while it had been established in 1865, it was only to scout out counterfeit currency, and that's still a big part of their job. Good job.
Allison Dickson:It wouldn't be until, though, 40 years later, in 1902, that the Secret Service would undertake the duty of protecting the potus full time.
Jayson Blair:Well, and think about right now if you've ever been involved in a presidential visit days before advanced teams are landing. Yes they are like changing the way windows are. They are like clearing out places. They are securing whole sections and not letting people enter for days.
Jayson Blair:Yeah, but in this situation, john Wilkes Booth, a couple hours before Lincoln's there, is able to sneak in and manipulate the lock. Yes To the presidential booth. So we're talking like no advance, no regular security, and I suspect we've learned a lot of lessons from these assassinations. That's why we see what we see today.
Allison Dickson:And it's amazing that we everything that we did learn.
Jayson Blair:We learned slow.
Allison Dickson:We should have learned after this. We kind of had to relearn it after Kennedy, and you know that was nearly a century later. I think by that point we're thinking oh well, no, because I think McKinley was assassinated, wasn't that early 1900s? So again, we already had another assassinated president, and that again happened at another crowded event. A man gets too close to him at a crowd and pulls a revolver.
Jayson Blair:It's 1901. And I think it was at the Temple of Music in Buffalo. And the thing with that one, it's only like six months into his term. Yeah, and he gets shot like twice in the abdomen, you would think at that point we would be like, hmm, maybe we should give the president some regular security and maybe like check to see if people have guns, but alas, no.
Allison Dickson:Somebody is going to be the dead example, unfortunately, but in the time of Lincoln, properly guarding him was always going to be a challenge, and it had less to do with the conventions of the time and actually more to do with the cavalier and stubborn attitude of the man himself. He hated being accompanied by too many people, he liked to go walking alone at night. He liked to go riding horses by himself. He wanted minimal intrusions on his privacy. Look, I have. I can totally relate. This is why I'll never be president. There was military escort regularly assigned to him, but he wanted little to do with it. And this is all despite the multiple threats and attempts on his life, and this sounds eerily similar to the circumstances of the JFK death. He traveled to campaign in Dallas, texas, despite the media down in Dallas literally putting a target on his back. I mean, they, they did not like him at all down there, and so he goes.
Jayson Blair:Secretary Lincoln, yeah, actually said she didn't think he should go.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, but he decided to go in. He also still refused to ride in that convertible through Dealey Plaza with the top up, despite security begging him. Security was begging this man.
Jayson Blair:please put the top up on this convertible and it's part of the reason why the Secret Service can now say, no, we won't do that.
Allison Dickson:They have to because a lot of the times these again mythical type figures that think they're meant to be in this spot at this time in this place. They have to be talked down a little bit. In late 1864, the government appointed a small security detail to guard the president. That consisted of all of four local policemen, and I want to talk about one of those policemen because he is an interesting guy and honestly he's the guy that sort of in the story of Jesus, was it? It wasn't Pontius Pilate who was the one that fell asleep in the guard. Roman guards came in and took Jesus away, the one that fell asleep. That's kind of what happened here On that night. Lincoln only had one guard on duty one, and that was a policeman named John Frederick Parker.
Jayson Blair:And he was a local DC police officer.
Allison Dickson:Yes, yes, and you know, in a story that's full of fascinating subplots, the ballad of the hapless John Frederick Parker is one we really don't want to pass up. And you'd think being one of the four policemen selected to guard the president of the United States would be a distinct honor, reserved only for the best of the best. But you'd be wrong, my friend.
Jayson Blair:Because if I'm the local police department, protecting the president isn't on the top of my priority list. Oh, hell, no, hell, no, why I am my drunks.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, parker was, to put it kindly, a complete dunce.
Allison Dickson:He'd been written up by his superiors multiple times for working while intoxicated, visiting sex workers and sleeping on street cars while on duty.
Allison Dickson:Yet rather than being fired, he was promoted to the presidential detail, whereupon he proceeded to act pretty much the same way.
Allison Dickson:The night of the assassination he was three hours late relieving the previous guard of his duty. After accompanying the president and Mrs Lincoln to the theater, he assumed his post at the door, outside the presidential box. Only he wanted to watch the play, because that's what you do in your security guard. So he wanders off and finds a seat to watch the show. But then the intermission comes and he decides to join Lincoln's carriage driver in the neighboring saloon for some drinks the same saloon, mind you that Booth himself also spent a great deal of time in drinking during the first half of the show, trying to work up his own courage. But no one knows for sure if Parker returned to the theater after the intermission that night. But regardless, there was no one standing guard when Booth entered the presidential box during the part of the play that the audience would have been reacting most loudly, because that was part of the plan, john he knew the play was the play and he knows when people are going to be cracking up.
Allison Dickson:But remember, because John Wilkes Booth was both a famous actor and very familiar with the play, he knew the key moment to fire his shot. Furthermore, many theorize that even if Parker had been at his proper post that night, it probably wouldn't have made much difference Because, due to Booth's status, it's very likely that Parker would have actually let him in to pay his respects to the president, like, hey, you know, if Nicholas Cage just shows up and says, hey, I want to hang with Biden, you know, maybe even they would be like, yeah, sure, let him in. You know what's Nicholas Cage going to do.
Jayson Blair:Well, and at the end of the day, booth had a gun and a knife and there was no way for Lincoln to get away.
Allison Dickson:Right, it was by this point to work on if there had been a guard there, maybe if Grant had been there, I don't know. Maybe if it would have taken if there had been a real Secret Service or a real guard contingent they're like seven or eight of them, maybe, yeah, but at that point they're still a naivete at work. Like this is a celebrity. He's not going to hurt anybody. That's why he's the perfect candidate.
Allison Dickson:I think he's sort of like the Zoolander of you know, assassinating the president of Malaysia, which is funny because they refer to John Wilkes Booth in that movie as well. That being said, mary Todd Lincoln never forgave Parker for what happened, but you'd think, following this dereliction of duty, that Parker would have been fired. I mean, come on, at least you know, at the behest of the first lady, you would think this is what's going to get this man fired, but you'd be wrong again. He actually remained part of the security detail that protected Mrs Lincoln before she returned home to Illinois. Then he remained on the Metropolitan Police Force for a few more years after, until 1868, when he was finally let go after falling asleep on the job again, and then he went into carpentry, which probably should have been his main line of work to begin with.
Allison Dickson:You know he died in 1890 and is currently buried in an unmarked grave in Glenwood Cemetery, which is situated on Lincoln Road.
Allison Dickson:His role in the events of that day has largely been lost to history. So that's one reason I felt like I had to bring it up here, because this is again another one of those players that, had they maybe been awake that night, or maybe been on duty like they were supposed to be, who knows what would have happened. So after Booth gathered up his nerve in the saloon, he began making his way to Ford's Theater, entering through the front door at 10.10 pm, at the same moment that Lewis Powell was attempting to stab William Seward and George Azzarotti given up on his plan to murder the vice president because everyone knew him. Booth's passage through the theater was easy and when he presented his calling card to the usher to be allowed upstairs to the presidential box, he was easily allowed to gain entry. He was prepared to take out a guard embrace. The door shut behind him and that's the thing he was carrying weaponry to take out guards that were standing in his way.
Allison Dickson:We already know what happened with the guard, but once he was in Lincoln's booth, he barricaded the door behind him, pulled out his single shot derringer Again, this is a one shot gun, it's like that Eminem song that Obama listened to where it's got like one shot.
Jayson Blair:Here's your one shot right.
Allison Dickson:Yep, you gotta have one shot tonight. At least we can't. Oh man, I'm gonna have that song in my head. What's in my life?
Jayson Blair:Lose yourself, yes, lose yourself, love it.
Allison Dickson:But he barricaded the door, pulled out his single shot a.44 caliber gun, known as a pocket cannon, and waited for the right line. He knew the play by heart, so this was all planned down to the moment. At around 10.15, actor Harry Hawke uttered the line that would bring the house down with laughter, and I don't understand it without context. But here is said line. Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal, you sock-dologizing old man trap. The crowd just burst out Goes wild.
Allison Dickson:And Lincoln was reportedly laughing at this line when Booth fired. The bullet would enter the back of Lincoln's skull, behind his left ear, and would come to rest just behind the front of his skull, after doing untold damage to his brain along the way. What?
Jayson Blair:was plan B.
Allison Dickson:What was?
Jayson Blair:plan B you missed the bullet.
Allison Dickson:What was plan B? Honestly, I think that he didn't have anything beyond that and, given what happens, I mean I'm sure they had plans laid out because they did, you know, get away. He had the horse lined up and that whole thing.
Jayson Blair:But this whole thing, this whole thing just seems like a plan, a kind of thing.
Allison Dickson:What if the bullet in? What if the pistol had misfired?
Jayson Blair:Yeah, he had one shot.
Allison Dickson:You only got one shot to not miss your chance to blow. To miss, yeah, to blow. Opportunity goes once in a lifetime, right yeah. So Lincoln slumped forward and he would never again gain consciousness. This was basically a kill shot, but he did linger on the edge of death for several hours and then finally succumbed to his wound around 7 am the following morning after the shot, henry Rathbaum the major you mentioned, who was a lawyer, you know confronts him, tries to trap him.
Jayson Blair:He stabs and seriously wounds Rathbaum Another interesting coda and then jumps out of the balcony onto the ground and maybe breaks his leg, like he may have broke his leg later but, at some point and then escapes off to his horse. And Rathbaum is another interesting coda. I don't know if you know this story, but unlike Parker, who didn't seem to feel any guilt, Rathbaum had a tremendous amount of guilt.
Allison Dickson:Oh yeah.
Jayson Blair:And his mental state really deteriorated and then in his wife was with him that night, Clara.
Allison Dickson:Right.
Jayson Blair:And then, in 1883, he fatally shot his wife in a fit of madness. Oh no, and he was declared insane and spent the rest of his life, until 1911, in a lunatic asylum.
Allison Dickson:I had no idea. Oh my God.
Jayson Blair:There was just a lot of tragedy surrounding this story.
Allison Dickson:I had no idea that. That is just like you could see that that moment that shot was fired, all three of those lives right there gone sort of three people died in that, in that booth, even though there was only one shot.
Allison Dickson:I, because I can imagine in that scene, in that moment, in that dark theater box, in the middle of all that, all the yelling, the laughing, the screaming, the pandemonium, the fact that the smoke I'm sure that there was a lot of smoke from that gun. Guns were very smoky, you know, they are still, but back then even more so and during that struggle, yeah, they would fight Rathbone and Booth and as Booth jumped from the balcony onto the stage, he yelled freedom. Apparently I think that was according to Rathbone himself- there's a lot of debate.
Jayson Blair:Like some people say, he yelled Simper Tyrannus, yeah, six Simper Tyrannus. There's a lot of debate. There's a lot of debate.
Allison Dickson:I think they said the most. Witnesses claim to hear Six Simper Tyrannus whenever he landed. Thus, always to tyrants. That's what that means in Latin and again the symbol.
Jayson Blair:Like we said in the last episode, the phrase is on the Virginia flag.
Allison Dickson:Right, and you know there's some debate as to whether those are the words, but this appears to be the consensus. Some people thought they heard the South as avenged or the South shall be free. Either way again, imagine this is Nicholas Cage, just again to get the truly bizarre, very dramatic of what's happening here.
Allison Dickson:Booth then quickly exited the theater through a side door. On his way out he stabbed the orchestra conductor and ran for a horse that he'd already arranged to have waiting for him, also stabbing the man who brought it here. So a bunch of people were killed or maimed that night. But now Booth is on the run, and this is where things take on a whole other level, because there is a lot of like you said, there's a lot of farmland, right?
Jayson Blair:So we're talking. You know, if you see a map of DC, it's like at the time it's a, it's a square, and you're headed sort of south along the Potomac River out to Maryland. You really are talking complete farmland. Yeah, get out of the city center at that point.
Allison Dickson:Okay. So he quickly fled DC into Maryland and there he rendezvoused with co-conspirator David Harold, and he's the one, remember, who drove Lewis Powell to Seward's house and then fled when he got spooked. Basically he's a getaway driver, he's just not very good at it but he had gathered all the supplies and weapons they'd collected and stored at Mary Serrat's boarding house, remember she was kind of part of that Confederate sympathizing circle that they all had, and there is a lot of debate as to her involvement, how deeply involved she was. She just owned the place. She probably let them store supplies and kind of conduct their business there, and she certainly had the sympathies her you know. Her son certainly did, and he was a lot more active and a lot harder to catch when this all was said and done.
Jayson Blair:I think the tough part for her was that, even before it was identified, two witnesses who had been boarding there came forward and said that she had instructed them to have weapons and supplies readyed for someone. One person one of the witnesses said it was Booth One said for someone, but it's really unclear whether she knew of the plot or didn't know the plot, or whether that just had to do with other things. It's yeah, it's a tough one.
Allison Dickson:More or less, despite only killing one of their three intended targets, there were several successful elements of the conspiracy that allowed Booth to get out of the area, and their first stop was a little ways into Maryland at the home of Samuel Mudd, whom we mentioned in the previous episode. He was a local doctor and an apparent acquaintance of Booth's, though it's not very clear that he was involved in any of the assassination plot because, remember again, up until the night of the assassination this whole thing had been a kidnapping plot and there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Mudd might have been part of that. But Booth had arranged provisions and liquor to be delivered to Mudd's house about two weeks prior to the assassination. So these guys are all kind of their buddies, they're chatting it up, they all have similar political ideologies, but it's not clear how deep all of these people were in.
Jayson Blair:It's impossible that Mudd, who was a Confederate sympathizer, was just a local doctor that they knew and Booth was injured. It's so hard to tell.
Allison Dickson:Booth needed a doctor, whether he broke his leg jumping the stage or falling off his horse I think that was another theory he needed a doctor to set his leg, and they're traipsing through swampy forest at this point, and so, after splinting Booth's leg and making him a crutch, mudd allowed them to stay the night, and then he waited 24 hours before reporting it to the authorities, and that's kind of what sunk him a little bit, because, despite actually having reported it, he was still arrested in charge with conspiracy. Having escaped the death penalty by only a single vote, president Johnson would eventually pardon him in 1869, but Mudd was never able to have the charges fully expunged. There's a lot more about him, though, and I know you have a good bit right of Mudd, and did I kind of get the gist?
Jayson Blair:Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think you did a great description of Mudd. I mean, he's complicated. He was a Confederate sympathizer, he was a doctor. How much he was involved in the plot is absolutely unclear, but it's also one of those great examples of how people react. When there's a national trauma, it doesn't really matter how much you are involved in it. I mean, you see how quickly the trial happened. Obviously, there are certain people that were very clearly involved in the plot in general, the broader plot for kidnapping. There are people who were clearly involved in the assassination. We got four people that were sure pretty involved in the assassination and then plenty of other people that were involved in something but we don't know what and we don't know what they knew.
Allison Dickson:I think it is kind of sad that for his failure to report just a little bit sooner and you could see why he didn't want to report it right away because it's obvious he was a Confederate sympathizer, even if you didn't want to be part of any assassination of the president. When you have these people that you're associated with, you're going to hesitate to report it because you're wondering how you're going to get linked to it.
Jayson Blair:So bad news for these guys was that the 16th New York Calvary Regiment was in town. And did you know this fun fact that Everton Conger, the head of the 16th, was, in his civilian life, a police detective?
Jayson Blair:No, and he was the leader of the Calvary and that's how Company L see this story. You can't make it up. Company L was able to track him down. They were led by a detective, the head of the regiment, and they were able to track him down primarily through telegrams. News, I mean telegrams messages little pieces of evidence that they found. They truly hunted him like they were a police force.
Allison Dickson:I mean imagine modern day FBI. Back in this period, 19th century, up to the early 20th century, a lot of this kind of work was handled by the army. It wouldn't be until further into the 20th century you start. You know J Edgar Hoover and all that you know. You start to see that that evolution of government law enforcement happening and it's wild, right Like no surveillance, no things like that, but they, they, they tracked him using telegraph messages.
Jayson Blair:newspaper.
Allison Dickson:It didn't take long either.
Jayson Blair:Informants? No, yes, they found accomplices and supporters that helped him escape and hide all across Maryland and Virginia, despite weather, tough terrain. Like not false leads, Like it was insane how good they were. It was like getting chased by Delta Force and the Navy SEALs.
Allison Dickson:The assassination happened on April 15. By the time they end up on Richard Garrett's tobacco farm, where the final showdown happened, it was April 24. It had only been nine days that they had gotten away. That is how vigorous the search was. Why the United States Army? It was April 24. They made the cross of the river because they from Mudd's place. They ended up meeting a guide that would help them cross the Potomac into Virginia.
Jayson Blair:Another Confederate sympathizer and potential member of the Confederate Secret Service.
Allison Dickson:Exactly, but because the search for them was so hot, they actually had to hide out in those woods for like five days, or was like a swamp.
Jayson Blair:Yeah, it was very, very swampy. It's on the edge of a part of where it's like a bay on an isthmus that goes out into the Potomac. Oh, okay. Yeah, imagine the bugs. Yeah.
Allison Dickson:Oh my gosh.
Allison Dickson:You know, in the middle of springtime, and so the hunt for John Wilkes Booth and the aftermath of the assassination was the largest one undertaken in our history.
Allison Dickson:At that time there was a reward posted for $50,000, which was equivalent to over $1 million today for Booth alone, and rewards for $25,000 each for David Harold and John Surratt, the son of Mary. A quick bit on John Surratt, because this is another fascinating figure. He was a Confederate spy who would regularly report on union activities around the Potomac, and he was also a friend of the aforementioned Samuel Mudd, and again, I think that was part of you know, like, oh how much does Mudd know who introduced him to John Wilkes Booth in December of 1864. And they were going to nab the president on a planned trip to visit Union soldiers in a local DC hospital, and they were going to take him to Richmond, virginia, to bargain for the release of Confederate prisoners. However, lincoln canceled those plans and the kidnapping was thwarted, and after the assassination, surratt fled to Quebec and hid within the Roman Catholic Church, and he remained there when his mother Mary was captured, tried and hanged for her role in the conspiracy.
Allison Dickson:He would continue to use the church for cover, though, and he would serve in the papal regiment actually though the Pope's army and as he eventually fled to England and Rome and then finally to Egypt and that's actually where US officials caught up to him in 1866.
Jayson Blair:Long arm of the law.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, Egypt. So once he was back in the United States, he could no longer be tried by military tribunal due to a landmark SCOTUS decision that made it unconstitutional to use military jurisdictions to try civilians.
Jayson Blair:Until, of course, we tried to do it again during the war in terror. Yes, proving one of your other points. Yes, jose Padilla, oh very, very good.
Allison Dickson:By the time Serrat was put on trial, most of his charges had expired under the statute of limitations and there wasn't enough to get him on murder as no one could link him directly to the conspiracy of the assassination. So a jury found him not guilty. Eight to four he was released from jail and, despite attaining some notoriety during a public tour where he spoke of his involvement in the kidnapping plot, he largely lived a quiet, successful life. So for a steamliner company, married a woman who was the second cousin to Francis Scott Key. That's the man who wrote Arnash Latham, the Star-Spangled Banner. He had seven kids and died of pneumonia at the age of 72. So this is of all the conspirators he had the happy ascending.
Jayson Blair:Yes, the best ascending. So, speaking of which, if we roll back to the actual assassination, the night of the assassination, you've got Booth escaping from Ford Theatre on his horse. Harold meets him outside some people think it's unclear, but he may have been involved but Booth and Harold at some point end up through a local guide making their way away. But one of the interesting things in the story is how they ultimately end up at at least in my mind. They end up at Surat's place anyway, because of where these guys are ultimately boarding. Yeah, so that's where we're at. So, in this grand plan of theirs, where they're all connected and there's no way for them to know whether any of the others were successful because it's not like we got walkie-talkies or cell phones Booth goes from Ford Theatre to Surat's Tavern right.
Jayson Blair:And that's the same night picks up some weapons. When he goes to Mud's house the next day has his legs set. Then from there they go to Samuel Cox's house, all headed further south. They wanted help from him. Cox supposedly had not heard that Lincoln had been assassinated by that point. Then they get to the point where they stay in the woods because the newspapers hadn't made it down. But my favorite part of this dumb story is that they stay in the woods for like five days. Yeah.
Jayson Blair:And in the Phillips Creek they're able to get the boat that had been hidden right by a Confederate sympathizer who also did not know Lincoln was assassinated supposedly. And they go into the water and they make the cross into Virginia because they want to get to Southern sympathies. But what do they do? They go upstream the Potomac and cross right back into Maryland, oh my God, mistakingly traveling. So it's April 22nd and they've stayed in the woods for five days to mistakenly boat back to Maryland.
Allison Dickson:You know, it's amazing how much consequential history hinges on not getting the right directions to a place it would have been so hard for them to catch him.
Jayson Blair:Otherwise, right, it really, really, really, really, really really would have been difficult if they had not made that mistake.
Allison Dickson:Fate is having its way with these people and there are no winners in this battle between at least John Wilkes Booth and Abraham Lincoln. And with thousands of like feds and civilians out and I say feds I mean army out hunting for Booth and these other people, they're capture was pretty inevitable so the Calvary is making its way down right from mud to Cox you the swampy area where they are.
Jayson Blair:They've gone up river in the wrong direction back to Maryland. And then this is another one of my favorite parts of the whole story they end up at the house of this guy name it's the John Hughes oh yeah, yeah, yeah, this before we get to the farm. This is still. This is their second trip, so they end up in this house. You know they've got whatever yada yada.
Jayson Blair:So it's like nine miles up river in Maryland, whatever yada yada they're saying you know, Hughes and his son give him a small unused house to stay in and booth breaks up, brings out his diary at this point because during this entire trip some of the best evidence we have Is John Wilkes booths diary and he writes about how he had been hunted by a dog like a dog was in despair, and he was baffled by the fact that he was being looked upon as a quote common cutthroat for his actions.
Allison Dickson:I kid you not, that is what the diary you really thought he could, he was a hero, that he was going to be lauded as a hero. This kind of shows the delusion that he was under. By this point, I mean, when you make that decision to go from kidnapping a murder Kidnap somebody, you've already thrown logic out. The window is just that you're heading to these increasingly unstable energy levels and you know so, yeah, by the time that they make it to this farm. What's interesting about all of this is, despite all the traveling, all the fleeing, all the attempts to avert, and you know, all the people hunting them, they didn't get more than 20 miles away from DC. So and all this.
Allison Dickson:They are still in town.
Jayson Blair:I mean they're still right across the river. So, yeah, the interesting part of it is so after they leave huge home and they then successfully cross the Potomac where right now there's actually a naval base. They lucked out, it was just like a best place to possibly be. There was not a naval base then Wow. But they cross and they get to Lucas farm, which is the farm that they visit on the twenty third and they sleep in a cabin on Luke Lucas farm, so that now the Calvary is like hot behind them. Their informants are starting to find out about the assassination and they're, so now people are actually giving them up right, yeah.
Jayson Blair:But the folks on the Virginia side still were only 20 miles away. So I just use this to say how slow media was then compared to what it is now. But they didn't even know about it at that time and they were looking for the southern sympathizer that was recommended to them. It's so hapless, this whole thing. Elizabeth Queensbury and Thomas Jones, the one who had given them the boat in Maryland, the guy who is suspected of being a part of the confederate service, is the one who sent them over. So they get to Elizabeth Queensbury's house confederate sympathizer. She says you can have food, but I'm not helping you. So that's what throws things ultimately off. That leads them to the Lucas farm, where they actually end up kick, kicking the Lucas family out. You know to your point about like look, if you're gonna try and escape, maybe you shouldn't bring attention to yourself, right? They kicked the family out of the house. Yeah, this is Harold and Booth, and you know all that does is bring more attention to them.
Allison Dickson:The whole story of from when they flee to when Booth is killed could make a movie in and of itself just that part of the story. It would be a thrilling, crazy movie. I sure would like to see it made. But Lewis Powell was arrested by the way it married Sirat's boarding house on April 17th. So all these guys are on the run. He and George at Sirat was arrested on the 20th.
Jayson Blair:Do you know why he was arrested?
Allison Dickson:Oh God, you know it's not on my notes, but I think it.
Jayson Blair:Okay, so he's on the street right and they're searching. They're. They're headed to the Sirat house because they know about the boarding connections and they're going to search it. Right now they don't know that Powell is involved. They don't know, it's him. So, but the detectives going by Notice. So he's like working as like a day laborer, cleaning things out.
Allison Dickson:Yeah.
Jayson Blair:And then he noticed that his clothes are a little too nice for somebody. They're not dirty like a laborer should be, and they just arrest him.
Allison Dickson:Interesting.
Jayson Blair:Forget probable cause, but they just arrest him and that's what ultimately leads to Powell getting caught. That is absolutely so. Psa number six If you are going to fake being a day laborer, dirty your stuff up.
Allison Dickson:Oh, absolutely. There are so many mistakes that these guys made. It amazes me they even got as far as they did.
Jayson Blair:It's also interesting during this time how much intuition plays a role in law enforcement.
Allison Dickson:Right, they don't have.
Jayson Blair:DNA they. Fingerprints are not necessarily an option, but really law enforcement intuition leads to a lot of these people and that's you know historically. Sometimes you think of murders that happened in the past where there aren't that many witnesses. You're like how did they possibly figure that person? Well, intuition was the weapon.
Allison Dickson:Right.
Jayson Blair:But on April 24th, when they've crossed after the Lucas farm, john Wilkes with grows a brain. It is not until April 24th that he starts using the name John W Boyd.
Allison Dickson:Oh, of course it's a little too little too late. Of course. It is funny that he just changes that when they arrive at that tobacco farm. I mean they were cornered pretty quickly, if I'm not mistaken, out in the barn.
Jayson Blair:After a relaxing morning breakfast. Oh yes. Stroll across the lot. That's true, that is true, and David.
Allison Dickson:Harold surrendered pretty quickly. He didn't put up too much of a fight, of course, booth on brand, on brand.
Allison Dickson:So on brand he was looking these guys, I think, were almost relieved to be arrested I would almost say most of them were. But Booth claim they wouldn't take him alive, because that is what true believers say, and the soldiers decided to set the barn on fire to draw him out. And that's when Sergeant Boston Corbett what a name Decided to shoot his shot. Quite literally, he aimed for roughly the same spot where Booth shot Lincoln. Corbett hit Booth, however, about an inch below in that severed Booth's spinal cord, and they carried him out of the barn and Wilkes asked them to tell his mother he died for his country. He then asked the soldiers to hold his hands up to his face so that he could utter his final words Useless, useless. He slipped into unconsciousness and died on the Garrett farmhouse porch a couple hours later. A drama queen till the very end, yes, and that's what I think this was his great play. So, here's.
Jayson Blair:Here's another interesting thing about this whole piece of it. So when they went to the Garrett farm, they were followed by two former Confederate soldiers. Yeah, I think it was Mortimer Ruggles and then, I don't know, it was Absalom, maybe Bainbridge. Yeah. And these two soldiers? Right, they had just met them the day before, but what they served as were scouts, so they were paying attention to see if the Union Army was coming.
Allison Dickson:Yeah.
Jayson Blair:And when they see the Union Army coming they go and tell Booth and tell them that they're coming. It's almost like he wanted it to happen in some dramatic ending.
Allison Dickson:Oh, I think. I think, if anything, when you said, or you asked a little bit ago if you had a plan B, I think his only plan was to be the star of his own play and to go out like a Shakespearean character in his own tragedy.
Allison Dickson:You know, what I also find interesting is Sergeant Corbett, who the one who fired the fatal shot. He was initially arrested for disobeying an order to capture Booth alive, believe it or not. But Sanity actually prevailed in a time of insanity and those charges were eventually dropped because they you know, the people hailed him as a hero and it's like great. Yeah, it would have been, I guess, okay to capture Booth alive, but I don't think he would have talked, I don't.
Jayson Blair:I don't think he would have been of any value, do you know what else Booth said before he did the whole raise hands thing? What's that so dramatic, such a drama? Queen Tell my mother I die for my country.
Allison Dickson:Oh my God, I wonder what his mother thought.
Jayson Blair:It's a good question. I did try to figure that out to no avail.
Allison Dickson:I know that Edwin was not too happy after Booth's death and, you know, in the aftermath of all this scores of people were arrested, including many, you know, tangential associates of the conspirators, anybody who had even the slightest bit of contact with Booth or Harold during their flight. There was Louis J Weichmann. He was a border in the Surat boarding house. Booth's brother, junius, in Cincinnati at the time of the assassination, was also questioned or arrested. The theater, the theater owner, john T Ford, james Pumphrey, from whom Booth hired his horse. John M Lloyd, the innkeeper, who rented Mrs Surat's Marilyn Tavern and gave Booth and Harold Weichmann. They gave Booth and Harold weapons and supplies the night of April 14.
Allison Dickson:Samuel Cox, whom you've mentioned, Thomas A Jones, who helps Booth and Harold cross the Potomac. All were eventually released except for Samuel Arnold, george Azzarat, david Harold, samuel Mudd. There was also a Michael O Laughlin, lewis Powell, edmund Spangler and there was a later stagehand who given Booth's horse to someone to hold. So even somebody who helped somebody helped somebody essentially, and Mary Surat, and the prosecution was led by a US Army Judge Advocate, general Joseph Holt.
Jayson Blair:Do you know where they kept them? So Surat ended up in the old Capitol Prison, which is the prison in the Capitol. Obviously she was moved, I think, to the Washington Armory. But where they kept Azzarat, spangler, arnold and Laughlin was on the USS Sagas in the Anacostia River. They kept them there and they also kept Powell there. Oh, wow.
Jayson Blair:But then several others were also put on another ship that was there, I forget, which I think was the Montauk. Okay and then okay. So this is before the trial. Once Booth ends up dead, they plan to secretly bury his body, I think in DC, I think at the old Capitol. But they bring his body and hold it with Samuel Mudd and Mary Surat in the old Capitol Prison. Oh, wow. And let me tell you about the old Capitol Prison. It is not a big place. It is not bigger than I don't know, maybe this room, the next room, in the bathroom, it's the Surat Mudd and Booth's body.
Allison Dickson:Wow. Yep and all of them just held together there.
Jayson Blair:Yep, it's now actually the site of the current Supreme Court building, if you're familiar with the area.
Allison Dickson:Wow, that's another bit of fascinating American history there. I thought it was interesting that they did a military tribunal and I know that that provoked a lot of criticism. There was like an attorney general, Edward Bates, and a secretary of Navy, Gideon Wells. They believed that a civil court should have presided, but Attorney General James Speed pointed to the military nature of the conspiracy and the fact that the defendants acted as enemy combatants and that martial law was enforced at the time in the District of Columbia. In 1866, in the ex parte milligan in the United States Supreme Court banned the use of military tribunals, though in civil proceedings only a simple majority of the jury was required for a guilty verdict and a two thirds for a death sentence. There was no route of appeal other than to President Johnson. But the execution of Mary Serrat, Lewis Powell, David Harold and George Atzerot happened by hanging July 7, 1865 at Fort McNair in Washington DC and Fun fact, where they were hung are now some beautiful tennis courts.
Jayson Blair:Not even kidding, I was just there last year. I was like they were hung there, really nice tennis courts. They still have the courtroom. They still have the grand hall, that where the it's really tiny, tiny, tiny building and I think it was on the second or third floor.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, I think it was the third floor.
Jayson Blair:You had to go up two flights of steps for your inevitable kangaroo court trial. But, yeah, they were hung on rafters that are now beautiful, beautiful tennis courts.
Allison Dickson:That's something to think about Anytime you walk through a.
Jayson Blair:You might be hung on tennis courts.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, the place where somebody died is now a tennis court. I mean, that's If you walk through any field, probably through Virginia it's like, oh, this was once a battlefield. But the trial lasted seven weeks and it included a testimony of 366 witnesses, and all the defendants were found guilty on June 30.
Jayson Blair:And interestingly it was not a jury trial.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, you're right.
Jayson Blair:It was all judges, but I'm sorry I interrupted your Mary Serrat role.
Allison Dickson:Oh no, you're fine. I mean, she was the first woman to be executed by a federal.
Jayson Blair:I think it was In the United States. Yes, First United States government.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, first to be executed by the United States government. Yeah, there were attempts at clemency, but Johnson said hell, no. Although he later claimed that he never saw any letters for clemency, but I don't think he would have granted them in any rate.
Jayson Blair:Johnson is not to be trusted.
Allison Dickson:No, Johnson was not a good guy.
Jayson Blair:I mean just to give you the example of how much this was so not really about justice and was about vengeance. They kept their bodies up there for 30 minutes before cutting them down and dropping them in gun boxes. And so they didn't even put their names, like the normal tradition of writing it on the casket. They wrote it on a piece of paper for each of them and placed it in the box, in a glass vial, and just buried them against the wall. Oh, wow.
Jayson Blair:Behind, hidden behind the arsenal. Now, later mines prevailed and they were moved elsewhere within the arsenal, so they have two burial sites there, but eventually the booths and the Serats beg to have the bodies back, and Johnson turned them over.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, that took some a bit of doing on the part of Edwin in fact to get his brother's remains Edwin and Booth John Booth. They feuded for many years, of course, as we established, before the assassination and afterward Edwin disowned his brother publicly and did everything he could to distance himself from his brother. That said, yeah, he did actively pursue having his brother's remains returned home After his death at the Garrett farm. John was secretly buried in the old penitentiary and at the site of the Co-conspirators and then Johnson did relent and now those remains are in an unmarked grave. Interestingly, you know Booth.
Allison Dickson:Edwin Booth spent a number of years after the assassination, avoiding the stage and public in general. He received a lot of death threats and even an assassination attempt during a performance. However, he did eventually return to the stage and Hamlet became his signature role and he would remain active in the drama community until his death in 1891. And there's still a contingent of people who believe that Booth was never actually caught and they want to exhume Edwin's body to compare to DNA samples from a piece of artifacts belonging to John, including a vertebrae said to belong to him. That's at the Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland, by the way.
Allison Dickson:But the last update on this was from 2013. But descendants of the Booths reported they obtained permission to exhume the Shakespearean actor's body to obtain DNA samples to compare with the sample of his brother's John's DNA, to refute the rumor that he had escaped after the assassination. However, bre Harvey, a spokesperson from the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, massachusetts, where Edwin Booth is buried, denied reports that the family had contacted them and requested to exhume Edwin's body. The family hopes to obtain these DNA samples from artifacts or from remains such as vertebrae, but on March 30, 2013, the museum announced that the family's request to extract the DNA from the vertebrae had been rejected, which is odd. I mean, why wouldn't you want to run that test? I don't know why they would reject it. Maybe they're worried about disturbing the material. I don't know.
Allison Dickson:They would have to destroy a part of it but that just adds to the conspiracy, don't you think? You mentioned John Wilkes Booth's diary, and that's another interesting thing here. So A date book was recovered from John Wilkes Booth's body, which contain a selection of written entries that show him confessing to his deeds, and the diary was taken to Washington DC, placed into a file and then largely forgotten. It wasn't presented at the conspiracy trial, in fact. There are, however, more pages missing from this book, and there is always some debate as to whether this is due to some kind of cover up on the part of our government. In nineteen seventy five, a rare books dealer named Joseph Lynch claim to have these missing pages, but that didn't lead anywhere. Later, people believe the missing pages, along with the Civil War era train, were bricked up inside a closed New York City subway tunnel. Have you heard of this, by the way?
Allison Dickson:no this is crazy. This is crazy, so so this guy who believed that, like these, missing pages, along with the Civil War era train, were bricked up inside a closed New York City subway tunnel, which a few enthusiasts have obsessed over For years. The hope is to uncover evidence that the New York mayor and other city officials conspired to assassinate Lincoln. This is just so.
Allison Dickson:That makes sense this theory hinges on the belief that Booth got away after the assassination and fled to New York where he apparently hid those pages on that train. And there is this guy named Bob Diamond who is known was known as the tunnel king of Brooklyn. He made this tunnel and the discovery of that train and its contents his lifelong obsession. He found this tunnel and unbricked it like, discovered it and the city maps and and stuff, plenty of like abandoned tunnels and stations and yeah and he in the city like would never let him.
Allison Dickson:I fully in it. Like they just threw the door down and said, no, you're not getting in there. It was, it was crazy and it was. There is a huge Article on this and both the New York Times and Newsweek. I'll post the links in the show notes. But it is a hell of a rabbit hole, so to speak. But others believe those past pages probably went missing under more mundane circumstances, such as that John tore them out to use his toilet paper, actually during his time on the run. That makes.
Allison Dickson:Yeah, I mean to this day there are so many rumors and theories, but the official narrative still holds pretty strong. The diary pages that we do have offer Really unique insights in the booth state of mind during his flight from Washington DC, and you know I'll have all that stuff on the show notes as well.
Jayson Blair:So a good code for you is John Wilkes booth was originally buried at Fort McNair. Then he was moved to Greenmont Cemetery in Baltimore, right closer to his family, where he is buried near Elijah Bond, the maker of the Ouija board.
Allison Dickson:That is. That is just an amazing way to come full circle, my friends, as we come to the end of this discussion of quite A vintage villain and really especially when you consider the consequential history of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and what that meant for the future of this country.
Jayson Blair:And even if you think about the talented booth family, just like looking at that as a microcosm, you had Asia. You were just saying Edwin stopped acting for a while. Asia Booth Clark was a well known writer who fled to England. Like it destroyed that family which you know. I kind of wonder whether, like part of the whole booth thing you probably never in my mind, my guests never meant to get away yeah, had a ton of resentment against his country, his family, and I just see the entire thing as a giant F?
Jayson Blair:you. F you for the North, winning F you family. That never put me first. Just F you for everyone.
Allison Dickson:There were probably any number of small moves that could have been made to have prevented this. It's easy to look at it now, 100, you know some years later, and you know 150 years later and go, yeah, they should have done this, they should have done this, especially given what we know now and what we've Through, it was still like a miracle oh pulled it off even then it is a story that, I think, remains consequential to this day, as we, as we feel sort of like the frayed edges of the fabric, sort of holding this republic together.
Allison Dickson:perhaps more than ever to know, though, that and this is why I study history is that, no matter how far back I look, I find that we are often the same humans were the same species people say history doesn't repeat and rhymes.
Jayson Blair:Now I'm pretty sure it repeats.
Allison Dickson:Oh, how true. That is my friend, and with that, I think this is a great time to bring this whole saga to a close. I want to thank Jason Blair again for taking his time to lend his knowledge and expertise on the topic of John Wilkes Booth and the DC Maryland area. He will definitely be back for more episodes in the future. Unlike John Wilkes Booth, I happen to have smart friends, and when you have smart friends, you keep them close.
Allison Dickson:And if you want to hear more from Jason, I cannot say enough about the quality of interviews he does with his guests over on his show, the Silver Linings Handbook. Do go check that out and if you like what you heard here today, consider supporting the show over on Patreon, leaving a review over on Apple or Spotify or even picking up some merch. It really helps grow the show and keeps the gears of this time machine turning freely. Also, stop on by the vintage villain Suaree. That's the Facebook discussion group where you can ask questions or make suggestions on future episodes. I'll have all those links to everything in the show notes. Meanwhile. I thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time in another century.