When the kidnapping pot falls apart disintegrates, a lot of historians say, you know, that's where it could have ended, that John Wilkes Booth would just be known as some guy who didn't like Lincoln's policies will join the Club. There was lots of at the time. But on that Tuesday, April 11, before Lincoln goes to the theater on that Friday night, Lincoln gives an impromptu speech from the second story window of the White House, the public is coming out on the executive lawn to listen, here's Lincoln talk about reconstruction, and where he sees the country going. And he discusses perhaps that African American men should obtain the right to vote. John Wilkes Booth is in that audience that night, and he hears Lincoln say that, and some historians say that is where it becomes an assassination plot.
Just days after the end of the Civil War, the nation mourns the loss of one of the country's greatest presidents Abraham Lincoln. The argument can be made, however, that it was during those days that Lincoln became great. That is in the court of public opinion. Welcome to random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we're talking about one of the most infamous events in American history, the Lincoln assassination and the stories surrounding this world changing incidents. As we introduce the topic, let our guest today make her own introduction.
I am Christina Lee Smith, and I teach 19th century American history courses for community ed,
one of the courses you teach is about Lincoln's assassination, just the assassination, which is a sliver but a very well known sliver of American history. What do you find most people don't know about Lincoln's assassination.
Since Lincoln was assassinated. We've had three other presidents assassinated, Garfield, McKinley, John F. Kennedy, those assassinations are very different from the Lincoln assassination. The people who assassinated those presidents you probably other than Lee Harvey, Oswald wouldn't even remember their names. They lived a very small footprint on life. In fact, when you think about assassination, people who assassinate presidents, you think of them as losers in life, somebody who didn't really make their way through stumbled, that's not the case with John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes Booth was as famous as Brad Pitt is today, he was known as one of the most handsome men in America from the most famous theatrical family. That's not a loser. And the other thing that's very different from the Lincoln assassination from the other presidential assassinations is that those had one target. The President John Wilkes Booth, conspired with a group of individuals to kill multiple Cabinet members and General Grant he was also a target. So it was a an effort to take down the union government to allow the Confederacy to rebuild and to get back into the fight. And the assassination plot wasn't really an assassination plot to begin with, it was initially a kidnapping plot. So those are all things that vary greatly from the other presidential assassinations.
Do you think that perhaps because of the prism of the Kennedy assassination, and how a generation sort of grew up with how that unfolded? Do many people think they know about Lincoln's assassination as it being a lone killer?
I would say yes. But what I think is interesting is there are as many conspiracy theories around the Lincoln assassination, especially right after the Lincoln assassination, when the conspirator trial is going on and May, June and July, before they're executed on July the seventh, there's all these conspiracy theories. And one of them was that the Catholic Church was actually part of that conspiracy theory. Now think about it in at 48. Across Europe, there are a variety of revolutions that are occurring. Europe is primarily a monarchy, a nation of countries, you know, a continent of countries, they are dominated by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church makes a lot of money off kings and queens who continue to push that religion on to their people. America is the only country in the world that was a democracy at the time. And if we succeeded in our own revolution, the Civil War and democracy survived, then what would that tell the countries in Europe, also, John Surat, who was an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth, his mother was a devout Catholic. He said I was never near the assassination. Remember, he wasn't one of the ones that was hung on July 7. He actually escaped to Elmira, New York. On the night of the Lincoln assassination. He is shuffled across the border into Canada and hidden there by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church pays his way to get on a steamer and to sneak across to Europe where he ends up being In the Pope's xvavi military guard, and only then does he talk to a friend of his that he also was a suave military guard just happens to run into an old palace and says, Hey, how you been? Guess what I got mixed up in, he reports him, they put him under arrest in the Vatican he escapes. He ends up boarding a ship all the way to Alexandria, Egypt. When he gets off that steamer the US government is there to arrest him. This is 1867 They finally bring him home. So while his mother is being executed as the very first woman to ever be executed by the federal government, he is being harbored as a fugitive by the Catholic Church. It's one of the great conspiracies.
So how many people were held accountable for Lincoln's assassination, how many people were tried and then executed.
So we have seven total, four will be executed three will receive life in prison, one of them will die in prison. The other two will be pardoned by Andrew Johnson as he leaves office in 1869. I think that
most people think that there are people that helped booth afterwards that didn't have prior knowledge. Are you referring to Dr. Samuel? Yeah, okay. And that's one of the big stories that people say that he was caught up in the fervor of people.
He's just the country doctor, he was just doing his doctorly duties. He had no idea how do you not know who John Wilkes Booth is when he comes and sits on your couch with a broken leg? Here's where I dispute that. Samuel Mudd actually knew John Wilkes Booth and they were having meetings in Washington, DC in December of 1864. He knew him well in advance, he had been introduced to him months in advance, and then I had been proven. So I think that his defense during the conspirator trial, played it off, as this is just a doctor doing his duties what he took the medical oath to do. But you can't tell me you wouldn't know who John Wilkes Booth was even after he shaved his mustache upstairs. You kept the boot that had his initials inside of the cuff. And you've made sure that the individual who lived next door to you made him a set of crutches. And you sent him on his way. There was previous knowledge, there were previous engagements that they had had together. So he had to have known who that was. And he would have known anyway, as I said, John Wilkes Booth was one of the most famous men in America at the time.
Let's talk about booth fame, and also his, I guess disregard of any type of stealth or candor, he was very open about feeling that Lincoln should be killed and openly, I guess, did say he was going to do it. Talk a little bit about that.
Well, first of all, he's acting and he's making a lot of money acting. He starts out as an actor, and he's not all that great. People actually are booing him from the stage. And so his brother Edwin, helps mold him into the actor that he becomes he goes from making $8 a week to making $20,000 a year. That's $5,000, less than what Abraham Lincoln was making as President of the United States. So extremely popular, but he was a secessionist, he was in support of the South and the Confederacy. And he hated Lincoln's policies, especially around African Americans. So he devises this kidnapping plot, initially, when the kidnapping plot falls apart disintegrates. A lot of historians say, you know, that's where it could have ended, that John Wilkes Booth would just be known as some guy who didn't like Lincoln's policies will join the Club. There was lots of them at the time. But on that Tuesday, April 11, before Lincoln goes to the theater on that Friday night, Lincoln gives an impromptu speech from the second story window of the White House. And there are two people that there's the public is coming out on the executive lawn to listen and there are two people in particular that are in that audience. One is John Wilkes Booth. And John Wilkes Booth, hears Lincoln talk about reconstruction, and where he sees the country going. And he discusses perhaps that African American men should obtain the right to vote. But he's very clear in it, that he says those that are very intelligent, and those who have fought for the Union army. Now remember, most people in 19th century America are racist. And so there are racist types of statements that Lincoln makes and we have to kind of recognize it for what it is is a sign of its time. John Wilkes Booth is in that audience that night and he hears Lincoln say that, and some historians say that is where it becomes an assassination plot. Other historians say no, it went immediately from kidnapping to assassination, a plot now one of the other persons in on that executive lawn that evening listening to Lincoln is a 23 year old doctor, Army doctor. By the name of Charles Leal. He will be the first doctor at Ford's Theatre in that presidential box trying to save Lincoln's life that night after John Wilkes Booth jumps 12 feet to the stage. So John Wilkes Booth was very adamant that night on the Executive lon once he heard Lincoln talking about his reconstruction policies, that that would be the end of him, that he was going to take action, whatever that action would be. What I find interesting about John Wilkes Booth is that he is an actor. He loves the stage. He loves the attention. He loves the applause. Lincoln did not travel Secret Service was not a detail of the president at the time. In fact, that's Lincoln's last act in office is to create the Secret Service, but to fight counterfeiters, not as a detail security detail. In fact, most times when Lincoln would travel, he would have a Calvary escort of some sort. When he went to Ford's Theater that night, he had his foot men from the carriage and one security detail from the Washington Metropolitan Police who's actually a relative of Mary Todd Lincoln's mother, which is how we got the job. Unfortunately, he was an extraordinary King at the bar. So Lincoln didn't really have the doorman was there from the carriage, but he has no gun. He doesn't have security responsibilities. So because of the lack of security detail that Lincoln had on him at all times, and Lincoln would often walk alone, there was ample opportunity to assassinate Lincoln prior to this. But John Wilkes Booth is an actor and he loves the attention what greater joy than to jump 12 feet from the Presidential box onto center stage to lift the dagger the bloody dagger that he had just ripped through major Henry Reed rathbones arm from elbow to shoulder, raise that dagger with his left hand over his head and scream, the Virginia state motto, sic semper tyrannis. That's always to tyrants. And he stood there for a minute as if he's waiting for applause. And then comes that is amazing to me. Because he must have hated Lincoln. But at the same time, he loved himself so much he was going to do it in dramatic fashion. In fact, Lincoln even thought John Wilkes Booth was a great actor. He had seen him many times before. He had sent a note backstage one time at Ford's Theatre in 1863, when he had seen John Wilkes Booth act and said, I would like to, I'd like to meet you. John Wilkes Booth denied him the request. It said no, I have no desire to meet that man. Of course, he didn't use those exact words. But you get the idea.
Well, that I think that touches on a little bit of a perception people may have lost in history on Lincoln's popularity in a Lincoln was president and presided on the preservation of the Union. But it's the bloodiest war in American history, the nation was torn apart. A lot of people didn't like his policies, there were a lot of people not just in the South that didn't see Lincoln as the savior of the United States, and did even in the waning days of the Civil War. And when the war was over, there was not a high regard universally for Lincoln.
Like it was very unpopular from the time he was elected until the time he was assassinated. And there's a common myth that says, everyone in the north mourned Lincoln. He was a Great Martyr, he went from being a hatred baboon, as they used to call him to martyr in the instant that that gun was fired. And the myth persists that in the south, Southern people also mourn Lincoln, because that would have been the leniency that chance that they were going to get to come back into the Union with little repercussions. He had even told grand Sherman be lenient. So a lot. There is this persistent myth, I think, in our culture in our American history that says, people in the north and the south mourn to Lincoln, but there's diaries and newspaper editorials, where people in the south this little girl had written a diary from South Carolina. And she basically it said in her diary, hurrah Abraham Lincoln is dead. Mississippi and Louisiana, both had newspaper editors had published similar types of editorials praising John Wilkes Booth. So in the south, we can recognize that I see that in the north, there's copperheads, which are Democrats, typically, who wanted to end the war, and keep the country the way that it was. Was slavery intact, or just let the south go let them create their own nation. That's all right. Those people despise Lincoln, abolitionists, even his own Radical Republicans did not get along with Lincoln. One of the things I would think that Lincoln was great at was keeping his pulse his thumb on the American populace. He never made any drastic moves. He made conscious measured steps. They were slow. They were painful for some to watch. Frederick Douglass didn't think he moved fast enough that he Stevens didn't think he moved fast enough. But he made them deliberately in order to get where he needed to be. During my assassination class. One of the things that I talked about and I think it's fascinating is There are court martial records for the Union army. And after the assassination date for the remainder of the war, up until remember, the US government does not declare the war officially ended until August. So men are still mustered into service during this time. There are 70 court martial records of union officers, soldiers and sailors, that all ended up in prison. Some of them even had the death penalty assigned to them for saying that they were glad like it was Dad, that if they could find his grave, they would dance on it. 70 Union soldiers and sailors our own men that fought that battle, despise Lincoln.
There are some people that say that reconstruction was such a painful task, no matter who handled it. And many people say that President Johnson is one of our worst presidents for how he did handle it. Of course, we have a lasting legacy of a bunch of mistakes that were made. Certainly the Jim Crow laws weren't the right step for our nation. But I think in a way, Lincoln kind of gets the benefit of having maybe he would have done something differently. We will never know when did public opinion start to shift. So Lincoln became not even the Lincoln we know today. But the Lincoln that people felt of as a martyr of as someone that did represent the entire nation, as opposed to somebody that presided over a divided nation.
I think it was Lincoln's funeral train that really pushed that momentum. Once Lincoln dies at 7:22am. On April the 15th, his body is wrapped in American flag, placed in a pine box and taken back to the White House. Edwin Stanton and McHenry MIG start planning this massive funeral train. That's going to take the circuitous route through the north through a variety of cities. And it almost follows exactly with a few turns here and there, have his original train ride out for his 1860 inaugural. During that train ride home, it's a 1600 mile journey. Lincoln takes on a life of his own the train takes on a life of its own. And James Swanson is probably the leading historian around the Lincoln's funeral train. And he talks about the arches, the bonfires, Thaddeus Stevens will stand along the train tracks in the pouring rain by a tunnel, takes his head off as the Lincoln train the Lincoln funeral train passes to go home 1000s upon 1000s of people, it will be in Philadelphia, it will be in New York, it'll be in Albany, they put the train on ferries and ferry it across the Hudson. And once they put it in a variety of state capitol buildings, hundreds of 1000s of people will stand in line at 1am 2am 3am 12 hours, 14 hours just to get a glimpse. You can't even stop. You have to keep walking by the casket. Once he gets to Springfield, he is immortalized. I think the funeral train really magnified his transition from unpopular president, someone with reconstruction policies that might not have been popular if implemented to the martyr and the icon that we know today. I think it definitely started with the Lincoln funeral train.
How interested in the manhunt and the trial and the punishment of the conspirators was the American public did that also have a big effect on the opinion that the nation had towards this? This is you know, this was an attempt to, as you say, decapitate the government.
Yes, I do think so. It was the biggest news that had all the newspapers, and it was instantaneous. What I think is really interesting is the John Wilkes Booth manhunt, will last days, and there will be rewards put out on the heads of John Wilkes Booth and the conspirators. We've all seen the wanted posters $100,000 $75,000 $50,000, so forth, depending on which of the characters that you were in this tragedy. What I think is really interesting is that when the union Calvary comes up on the Garrett farm in Virginia, and runs down John Wilkes Booth and David Harold and finds them in that tobacco barn. David Harold surrenders against John Wilkes Booth, better judgment. And John Wilkes Booth is shot. They take David Harold and John Wilkes Booth back to Washington DC, who gets that reward. So what I think is interesting as well the nation is captivated by all this that's going on. and they absolutely are captivated. In fact, Matthew Brady took photographs of the execution that day, you can go out to the Library of Congress and look at the 10 stereo graphs that he took of that day of the execution. But what I think is more interesting is what happening behind the scenes with the American public, the people of that Calvary unit, so that was 16. They all want a piece of that reward. And so that's what's starting to captivate once these people are put to death, and the reward comes up. Now the American people are interested in who's getting this money. And so the widow of the veterinarian surgeon for the regiment says, Well, I think I deserve a piece of it. Her husband wasn't even there. So yes, I would say that the American public are extremely interested in what's going on. So when Lincoln was assassinated, and they moved his body from Ford's Theater, and they walk it across the street to the Peterson boarding house, I think there's a couple of interesting stories there. The first one is William Peterson, who owned the Peterson boarding house. He wasn't the gentleman who went to the door and invited the party to come in with the President's body. In fact, there was a border in an upstairs window that happened to be looking out. And they were carrying the President very gingerly, very slowly across this cobblestone wet road. And the the border in the upstairs window, said Bring him here, bring him here. So he runs downstairs and lets him into a boarding house that he doesn't even own. At this point. William Peterson, his wife is out of town with his daughter, but his son and the other borders and his son's about nine or 10 years old Fred Peterson. William Peterson says I'm leaving. Come get me at the tailor shop that he owned around the coroner. He actually had a union contract he made union uniforms, Union military uniforms, and he told his son Fred Peterson, I am going to leave come get me when the President is dead. So his family and his borders are actually put into service by Stanton. Their job is to run up and down the spiral 13 stairs from the kitchen to the upstairs back bedroom to fill water bottles full of hot water so they could keep them compressed against Lincoln's body to keep the circulation of the blood is what they were thinking at the time. They worked all night long. And William Peterson, the owner of the Peterson boarding house, just up and left did not want to deal with it. Fred Peterson goes and gets them the next morning Lincoln stead brings his father home. His father sees bloody sheets, bloody pillows, bandages, mustard plastered on the floor. The place is a disaster and he blows up. He sends a bill to the United States Government demanding retribution payment for soiling his home the way that they did. And for his own time, considering he wasn't even there. He wants $500 Edwin Stanton scrolls a nasty little note and attaches it and sends it over to the quartermasters office to be paid that says pay this gentleman a reasonable amount for this day. He ends up getting $293.50. Now that would have been the end of it but the newspapers pick it up and find out. This gentleman who owns the boarding house who had the president dying in his back bedroom sends a bill to the federal government how dare he the editorial reads paltry meanness condemns Peterson. Peterson writes reply through the Washington Intelligencer trying to redeem himself saying no and never submitted a bill. The federal government came to my house and inspector offered me money and I declined, which we obviously know is not true. So I think that's an interesting story about the man that owned the Petersen boarding house. The other story that I think is very interesting, that would never happen today if we had another presidential assassination. That back bedroom that Lincoln was in the week before was being rented out by an actor by the name of John Matthews. John Matthews was a friend of John Wilkes Booth effect John Wilkes Booth had laid in that same bed the week before that Lincoln was put there. Lincoln is laying in that back bedroom. And the room is so small, and they have to pull the bed out from the wall so the doctors can go all the way around the headboard. Harold Holzer, the great Lincoln historian talks about the rubber room syndrome, where we if you go out online, and you Google the Lincoln assassination, you can typically find some images of Lincoln Lane in his deathbed, with 65 people in the room. That was absolutely utterly impossible. That room was not big enough. There were a lot of people in the room. And what I find interesting that would not happen today is they actually had sketch artists and painters in and out of Lincoln's death bedroom during the hours of him laying in a coma. Painting Scenes drawing scenes of the people who are in the room at the time. So if you want it to be preserved in history, you made a point of being there, Dr. Charles Leal post for three. But again, most of the pictures we see cram so many people in there that is just absolutely impossible.
Well, Christina, thanks so much for taking some time to talk to us today. Tell us some of these stories. And I know that there are dozens and dozens of others and things that we think that we know about this famous incident with probably the most famous American, and there's always so much more to learn. And I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Christina Lee Smith teaches 19th century American history and community education courses at Heartland Community College. If you're interested in learning more about the compelling moments of American history, like what you've just heard, check out the Community Education catalog at Heartland Community College. These courses are for everyone and aren't for college credit. And if you've enjoyed what you've just heard, please subscribe to random acts of knowledge on iTunes or Spotify to hear more. Thanks for listening
