[dramatic music]
- [Laurence] Tonight, the conspiracy that led
to the first assassination of an American president.
- [Sami] A single gunshot rings out through the theater,
[gunshot pops] followed by screaming.
- [Michael] A man in black lands on the stage and before they
know it, he's ridden off into the night.
- [Barton] By the next morning,
John Wilkes Booth is a wanted man.
He's a national fugitive,
- [Laurence] But it's soon apparent
that this assassination is more
than just the act of a lone gunman.
- [Sami] There are some basic facts that are absolutely known.
Booth was the gunman that killed Lincoln.
There was also a conspirator who attempted
to kill the Secretary of State William Seward.
- [Vaughn] And this starts not only the largest manhunt in
American history, but it also sparks off one
of the largest conspiracies.
- Now we explore the top theories surrounding the plot
to kill Abraham Lincoln.
- [Barton] Now many people believe that someone more
powerful than Booth was giving the orders.
- [Christy] She believed that Johnson was in on it
because he had the most to gain by her husband's death.
- [Vaughn] They saw Lincoln as enemy number one.
- Was there a mastermind
or secret organization behind the plan
to kill Abraham Lincoln?
And if so, who was it?
[dramatic music]
- [Laurence] It's a pleasant 70 degree spring day in
the nation's capitol.
Good Friday, the start of Easter weekend.
- Good Friday, Washington DC is a jubilant place.
First, they get news that Richmond, the capital
of the Confederacy has fallen to US troops.
Then as Lee makes his way south,
he surrenders to Grant at Appomattox on April 9th.
- Even though the war isn't technically, completely over,
everybody knows it's just a matter of time now.
The Confederacy is defeated.
There's peace ahead.
- [Sami] On April 14th, 1865, it's said
that Lincoln awakens in probably one
of the best moods he's ever been in.
That evening, he's going to be going
to a play at Ford's Theater in
Washington DC called "Our American Cousin".
- There's just a moment of national release
that's playing out in microcosm in the theater there.
This is Lincoln's highest moment in some ways in terms
of joy of celebration, it sort of peaks.
- [Laurence] But the spirit of celebration
will be short lived.
- [Marvin] Around 10:00 PM an audience member looks up
at the president's box and notices a man with dark hair
and a nicely groomed mustache making his way
towards the president's box.
- [Michael] There was a funny line on the stage, a big
swelling of laughter, and in the middle of it all,
there's this very loud popping sound.
- The first lady lets out a terrible scream.
Something bad has happened to the President.
He's clearly unconscious,
but nobody at first can tell how he has been injured.
- [Sami] According to Harry Hawk, a stage actor who's
performing that night, he hears the assailant yell
"Sic semper tyrannus",
which in Latin stands for thus always to tyrants.
The assailant then jumps from the president's box
onto the stage, but as he's jumping,
he catches his foot on a bunting
and he lands a bit awkwardly on stage.
- [Martin] He then shouts that the South shall be free
before running off the stage out a side exit
and disappearing from the theater.
A doctor rushes to the booth
and initially he believes that the president's been stabbed.
- But then the doctor is able
to find a small wound in the back of his head.
Then they know that this is a gunshot wound.
- [Heather] People notice the moment
that this assassin jumps onto the stage who he is
and they realize he's an actor.
He is a very well known actor
that is none other than John Wilkes Booth.
- [Laurence] While the stunned audience tries
to make sense of what just happened, there's more chaos,
less than a mile away.
- [Vaughn] Across town, you have a man knock at the Secretary
of State William Seward's house,
and when he gets close to Seward's room,
he pulls out a knife and he starts slashing.
He stabbed and slashes Seward multiple times
and then runs out of the house himself.
- [Sami] Remarkably Seward survives the attack
because he's wearing a metal neck brace,
which stops the assailant from outright killing him.
- [Martin] The president is carried across the street
to a boarding house
and he's brought there so that physicians can
provide care for him.
The bullet has passed through his brain
and lodged itself at the back of his right eye.
- [Laurence] Lincoln never regains consciousness
and at 7:22 AM on April 15th,
the president is declared dead.
- [Martin] Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton swings
into action very quickly
and he orders that the city is sealed off.
He also orders the arrest of any man, woman,
or child attempting to cross a bridge
to escape from the city.
- [Sami] The news of Lincoln's assassination spreads across
the country by both newspaper and telegraph
and millions in the country are reeling.
- [Christy] What is absolutely clear is
that John Wilkes Booth was the man responsible
and that there was another attack taking place at the exact
same time, and that could not be a coincidence.
- [Martin] Attention is directed toward the state of Maryland.
This is where Booth is from.
Investigators quickly run down Sam Arnold,
who was a known confidant of John Wilkes Booth
and a previous conspiracy
to strike out against the president, but he then bowed out
because he didn't wanna be associated with it.
- [Barton] In the aftermath of the attack on Lincoln, they
discovered that Booth had frequented a local boarding
house that was owned and operated by Mary Surratt
and Mary Surratt was Confederate sympathizing
woman from Maryland.
- [Vaughn] So as authorities are interviewing Mary Surratt,
she's saying she doesn't know anyone.
She doesn't know anything about this.
There's a knock on the door
and when they open the door, there's a man standing there
with a pickax in his hand, a man
by the name of Lewis Powell.
Powell also matches the physical description for the man
who violently attacked Seward a few days earlier.
- [Martin] So the big question is who's responsible
for this conspiracy and a good place to start is
with the man who fired a shot that night
and who is also still on the run.
[dramatic music]
- [Sami] Booth is a major Confederate sympathizer.
On top of that booth is a staunch advocate for slavery
and believes that all abolitionists
are treasonous individuals.
- [Christy] What makes Booth different is he uses his
platform from the stage to eventually denounce everything
that Lincoln stands for.
Basically calls for the death of abolitionists.
He does all of this from the stage.
- [Laurence] Booth comes from a famous acting family,
and over the last decade he's become a star.
He's toured extensively even during the war, almost always
to critical acclaim.
- [Vaughn] As the alleged conspirators are rounded up,
they start to talk of course.
All of them start to point the finger at Booth.
Given all of Booth's actions, his words up to this point,
he almost surely appears to be the ringleader.
- [Michael] John Wilkes Booth told people when he was trying
to enlist their help in this plot, he said,
we are just going to capture the president.
- [Vaughn] Shortly thereafter, booth attends a speech of
Lincoln's where Lincoln's really espousing these notions of the
future of free black people in America,
all the rights that they should have.
- [Michael] That sort of keyed into Booth's mind
and he said, that's the last speech he will ever make.
It is often said that that's the turning point.
From that moment on, there is no doubt in Booth's mind
that he's not gonna capture the President,
he's going to kill him.
- [Vaughn] So as Booth decides he needs to kill Lincoln,
the plot turns to not just killing Lincoln,
but also to killing Lincoln's main cabinet.
So he wants to kill Lincoln's Vice President Andrew Johnson,
his secretary of State William Seward
and one of his major generals, General Grant.
- [Martin] Vice President Johnson is spared that night
and that's simply because of the man who was assigned
to carry out his assassination,
gets cold feet at the last minute and abandons the plot.
If the effort had not been abandoned, the idea
of decapitating the US government so
that the Confederacy would have a chance
to resurrect itself, that might have
actually become a reality.
- [Laurence] Federal officials offer a $100,000 reward,
but 10 days after the assassination,
there's still no sign
of John Wilkes booth.
- [Sami] After Booth jumps from the president's box,
he's still able to escape the theater
and then ride out of DC on horseback that night.
- [Vaughn] Shortly thereafter, he rendezvous
with another co-conspirator named David Herold.
They'd met a few years earlier
after his show, he's swept into the web of Booth.
- [Michael] 12 days after the assassination,
a detachment from the 16th New York cavalry finally caught
up with Booth
and Herold at a farm just outside of Port Royal, Virginia.
- [Sami] When the soldiers and detectives arrive at the barn
and tell the men that they've got them surrounded,
Herold gives up and walks right out of the barn,
but Booth refuses and stays in the barn.
The barn is then lit on fire,
but within all of the commotion, a soldier fires his weapon
and shoots Booth in the neck.
- [Michael] He died about the same time of day
that Lincoln had died 12 days earlier,
and that was the end of John Wilkes Booth.
- [Laurence] Investigators must now piece together
the conspiracy puzzle,
without the most prominent suspect.
- [Marvin] The man who shot Lincoln is now dead,
but this hydra
of conspirators is still alive and in captivity.
- [Christy] By the end of April, 1865,
eight people had been publicly identified
and were preparing to stand trial as co-conspirators
to the Lincoln assassination.
- [Marvin] Unlike most crimes committed by civilians,
these conspirators would not be tried
in front of a civilian court.
This would be a military tribunal.
- [Sami] This includes people like Sam Arnold, Lewis Powell,
Mary Surratt, David Herold, Dr. Samuel Mudd.
You also have a man by the name of George Atzerodt.
George Atzerodt was the man who was tasked to kill
the vice, President Andrew Johnson that night.
- [Marvin] At this point in time, all of the evidence points
to John Wilkes Booth.
One of Booth's friends, Sam Arnold,
who was part of the plot to kidnap Lincoln fingered Booth
as the leader of the party.
- [Christy] The key point about this conspiracy is
that the prosecution set forth the idea
that John Wilkes Booth put all these people together.
He's the one who managed to rally their support,
but there was always speculation as to whether
or not he really was the mastermind
or was he merely the puppet?
- [Laurence] On May 12th, 1865 testimony begins in the trial
of eight defendants accused of conspiring
to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.
In the coming weeks, over 300 witnesses will take the stand
and the stakes are high.
Guilty verdicts could mean the gallows.
- [Sami] Prosecutors start laying out their case
for each person one at a time.
When it comes to Lewis Powell, the argument made
by his lawyer is not that he's not guilty,
but it's that he's so passionate
and so moved by the idea of a confederacy
that it literally drove him to insanity.
- [Martin] George Atzerodt, who is assigned
to assassinate Vice President Johnson,
he eventually abandons the mission, gets drunk
and stumbles around the streets of the city,
and his argument is that he was too cowardly
to carry out the crime.
- [Sami] David Herold, the man who assisted Booth's escape,
he stands very little chance in trials considering
that he was found in the barn with John Wilkes Booth.
- [Martin] Mary Surratt is presented as being a ringleader
by providing a place for the co-conspirators to assemble.
She denies her guilt in the conspiracy throughout
all of this.
Her son, John Surratt, is one of the co-conspirators,
but the only one who manages to escape the country
after the crime is committed.
- [Laurence] David Herold, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt
and Mary Surratt are all found guilty and hanged.
Three other conspirators are sentenced
to life in prison in including Dr. Samuel Mudd
and Sam Arnold, but Arnold is pardoned in 1869.
- All told we have 10 total conspirators who are civilians.
So you have the eight who have been tried.
We have John Wilkes Booth who of course is dead,
and then you have John Surratt,
who at this point is on the lam in Canada,
soon to make his way to Europe.
- [Laurence] But federal authorities
and northern newspapers have their eye on a bigger target.
- [Martin] The conspirators who were on trial are asked about
not only just their role in the conspiracy, but whether
or not it went all the way up to the heights
of the Confederate government.
- [Barton] April 2nd, 1865, Jefferson Davis flees the city
of Richmond and the city falls the next day
to the Union Army.
He makes his way down into North Carolina with part
of the Confederate government.
- Unlike Robert E. Lee who told his soldiers just to go home
and be citizens, Jefferson Davis is
wanting to keep this fight alive.
- [Sami] After Lincoln's assassination,
the pressure on the Confederate leadership increases.
In fact, President Johnson offers a $100,000 reward
for the capture of Jefferson Davis.
So while Booth was a trigger man, you have members
of the media, members of the government
and American citizens firmly believing that the mastermind
behind the plot was none other
than the Confederate president.
- [Laurence] By the summer of 1864, nearly a year
before the Lincoln assassination,
the Confederate government is in dire straits,
both militarily and financially.
- [Vaughn] A lot of people think that in Jefferson Davis' mind
by this point, especially
after Lee surrenders as if he's gonna win this,
he's gotta make a huge swing.
He has to take out the head of the Union Government.
- [Laurence] Author and researcher, John C. Fazio argues
that if one follows Booth's movements in the months leading
up to the assassination, the trail leads directly
to Jefferson Davis.
- [Sami] John C. Fazio maintains
that Booth was actually a part
of the Confederate secret service, that he was a spy,
and Fazio talks about booth making trips to places
to drum up support for the Confederacy,
including places like Montreal,
Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore,
and Washington DC as well.
- [Vaughn] He makes this trip to Montreal in late 1864,
which on the surface, okay,
but when he returns to Washington DC
he deposits $1,500 in
the bank, which would be $30,000 today,
and there's no really accounting for where he got this.
- [Sami] Fazio claims that the movement of money
and meetings with all
of these high ranking Confederate officials indicates
that there was an operation that was known about
and that was also approved by the heads of the Confederacy.
- [Laurence] According to Fazio's research,
Booth's co-conspirator John Surratt went to Richmond,
the Confederate capitol
and met with top leaders in March, 1865, perhaps even
with Davis himself.
- [Martin] Fazio finds evidence of John Surratt returning
to Mary Surratt's boarding house with a large quantity
of money, and he believes that what this indicates is that
Surratt had gone to Richmond, he came back to Washington DC
to the boarding house with instructions
to carry out the assassinations
and the money to get the job done.
- [Vaughn] We know that Lincoln was killed in 1865,
but what starts to come out is that the death of Lincoln,
the attack on Lincoln could have been a part
of a larger plot to take out the Union Government.
- [Laurence] In early 1865 before the trial,
President Johnson himself issues a proclamation claiming
the crimes of April 14th were incited
and procured by Jefferson Davis.
- [Vaughn] Union Force has finally captured Jefferson Davis
on May 10th, just a couple days
before they're gonna try these conspirators.
- [Martin] Although some people at trial indicate
that Jefferson Davis was the ultimate authority
for this operation,
the government's case against him fizzles when some
of the details that these witnesses provide prove
to go nowhere and they're contradicted by other evidence.
- [Laurence] None of Davis's closest associates
believe he would've ordered Lincoln's assassination.
- On the surface, it may be very easy to believe
that Jefferson Davis would've wanted Lincoln killed,
but when you look at their personalities, you see
that there's a good deal of mutual respect between them.
- [Vaughn] But there's also the hard fact that if Lincoln dies,
his vice president Andrew Johnson is gonna come in
and it's well known that Jefferson Davis
and so many other southerners cannot stand Andrew Johnson
because Andrew Johnson is a southern unionist,
they see him as a traitor.
They don't want him to be their new president,
- [Sami] But there are still those who believe that Davis
and his men are responsible, given Booth
and Surratt's suspicious activities,
a lot of people continue to speculate
and point the fingers at Jefferson Davis.
- [Laurence] 19th century newspaper editor
Horace Greeley once estimated that Abraham Lincoln
received more than 10,000 death threats
over his four years as president.
For Lincoln, the specter
of assassination was always present.
- The hate for Lincoln ran deep in the South,
you have Southerners taking out newspaper ads
where they're offering money to kill Lincoln.
You have Southerners actually sending candied
fruits to the White House, they're poisoned.
- [Laurence] Assassination attempts
begin almost immediately
after Lincoln's victory in the election of 1860.
These include a plot to kill him as he travels from Illinois
to Washington for his inauguration.
This trip requires changing trains in a city rife
with confederate sympathizers, Baltimore, Maryland.
- At that time in our nation's past,
we did not have a deep security apparatus
around the president.
- [Vaughn] His allies and his advisors are so worried
about Lincoln.
They bring in this guy named Alan Pinkerton.
They bring him in to really watch out for Lincoln
and try to root out any attempts on Lincoln's life.
- [Sami] Pinkerton finds out that there's a group
of conspirators in Baltimore who are planning
to assassinate Lincoln when he makes it to the city,
but his operatives infiltrate the group,
including a young woman by the name of Kate Warne,
who's considered to be the first female private detective
in US history.
- [Laurence] Pinkerton and Warne learned that the assassins
who are using Lincoln's published schedule,
plan to form a mob to ambush him
when he changes trains in Baltimore.
- [Martin] The ruse becomes that Lincoln is posing as a sick
and older person who's dependent on a caretaker,
and that's Kate Warne.
Kate Warne has him abandon his characteristic hat in favor
of a beaver hat and they change
to a different train station.
- [Laurence] The disguised Lincoln arrives
in Baltimore at 3:30 AM
and makes the mile long trip across town
to his connecting train.
He arrives safely in Washington at 6:00 AM.
- [Sami] The group that was supposedly gonna carry
out this assassination attempt are now foiled.
However, there are some researchers who do suggest
that this same group will try
to take Lincoln out once again.
- [Vaughn] An even deeper current
of this, is these conspirators were supposedly a part
of this much larger organization
that had deep roots throughout the south and the north,
and some people argued that Booth was actually a part
of their ranks and that when he fired
that bullet in the Lincoln's head, he was doing
so under their orders.
- [Michael] In the 1850's, the idea
of a secret society was all the rage
and there was a man
named George Washington Lafayette Bickley.
He hit upon the idea of creating an organization
that he would call the Knights of the Golden Circle.
- [Christy] These folks were absolutely dedicated to two
things, preservation of slavery
and the establishment of a perpetual slave society
that would unite Mexico, the Caribbean,
and the American South.
Their plan was to invade Mexico
and make Mexico a part of the confederate states of America
and continue to push forward
and then they would align with the Caribbean nations
that had not yet abolished slavery
and together they would create a superpower.
- [Marvin] Bickley is quite successful.
Thousands of young men sign up
and are recruited by him
to join the Knights of the Golden Circle.
- [Vaughn] It's easy to just assume groups like this
were relegated to the south.
That wasn't the case. People in the north felt this way too.
- [Laurence] In his 2013 book,
"The Knights of the Golden Circle", researcher,
David Keen describes this secret society also known
as the KGC.
In 1859, a group of actors in Richmond,
Virginia is captivated by this clandestine organization.
One of them is 20-year-old John Wilkes Booth.
- [Vaughn] It's not beyond pale to wonder whether he was one
of these conspirators who actually helped
with this 1861 attempt in Baltimore,
Maryland, his home state.
- [Sami] But once the Civil War starts,
the mission of the KGC changes,
it's no longer about invading a foreign nation.
It's now about protecting southern secession
and the right to own slaves.
- [Vaughn] At the end of the war, they imprisoned Bickley
because they had found evidence that
the KGC members knew about this plot to kill Lincoln
before it even happened.
- [Martin] Judge Henry Burnett, who presides over the trial
of the co-conspirators, he'll go on to say
that the footprints of the Knights
of the Golden Circle is all over the trial.
- [Laurence] It's believed that before 1865,
the KGC actually incorporates its intent
to assassinate the president
and his cabinet into the oath sworn by its members.
But whether or not this secret society was the driving force
behind Lincoln's assassination remains an open question.
- [Martin] If Booth is actually receiving instructions from the
Knights of the Golden Circle, it would suggest
that the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln is not
just some wanton act of revenge,
but it's part of a coherent plot to secure the interests
of the Knights of the Golden Circle
and the future of the South.
- [Sami] Given their secrecy, it's really hard to truly know
all of the KGC's activities in the spring of 1865
and their true size for that matter.
While it is tantalizing to want
to pin the assassination plot on a group like this,
without proper and true evidence to prove it,
it's all circumstantial at best.
- [Laurence] November, 1864.
A meeting allegedly takes place in New York City at the
opulent fifth Avenue mansion
of super rich financier, August Belmont.
In his 2004 book "Murdering Mr. Lincoln" biographer,
Charles Higham argues that the main agenda of the meeting is
to plot the assassination of the president,
and among those in attendance is John Wilkes Booth.
- [Sami] While the majority
of hatred towards Lincoln comes primarily from Southerners
in places like New York, you have groups of people
that are called Peace Democrats.
They're nicknamed Copperheads after the snake
because many on the union side consider them
to be treacherous snakes.
- They didn't think Lincoln was doing things right.
They thought that the war needed to end,
and if that meant that the South should be able
to secede, so be it.
- [Heather] Others argue that they're racist
because part of the secession is
to keep slavery,
and so there's dual arguments as to
who were these peace quote Democrats.
- [Sami] Another massive problem
that these northern Peace Democrats have
with Lincoln is a financial one,
and this is where we get into August Belmont.
- [Barton] August Belmont is a fascinating individual.
He was born Aaron Schonburg in what is today Germany.
He becomes the agent
of the Rothschild International Banking Operation
and then eventually immigrates to the United States
before the American Civil War
and becomes a member of the Democratic Party.
- [Sami] When Belmont moved to America, he remained aligned
with the Rothschilds
and some suggests that that's
where his anti-Lincoln sentiment begins,
because apparently when the Rothschilds offer up these high
interest loans as a way to fund the war, Lincoln said no.
There are also people that are affiliated
with the cotton industry that have it out for Lincoln
as well because they believe that he is messing
with their finances.
- [Vaughn] Historian Charles Higham has argued
that there was this meeting
that Belmont held in 1864 at his home
and at this meeting, a lot
of wealthy men in the north had a real ax to grind.
- [Sami] The meeting is described in a letter that's
sent to the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton six months
after it takes place.
The letter points to the idea that the plot
to assassinate Lincoln doesn't come from a Confederate
sympathizer or even the Confederate side,
that it comes from the union side.
[dramatic music]
- [Laurence] According to this letter, the meeting is attended
by some of America's richest and most influential power players.
- [Barton] August Belmont's one
of the richest people in the United States.
He's a racehorse owner.
He is the namesake for the Belmont Stakes,
which is run at Belmont Park in New York.
- [Vaughn] Allegedly George McClellan was at the
same meeting.
Now, George McClellan definitely has an ax to grind
with Lincoln, but for different reasons.
After the Battle of Antietam in 1862,
Lincoln had stripped him
of his leadership of the Union Army.
- [Sami] Other prominent men at the meeting allegedly include
the pro-South former mayor of New York
and now US Congressman Fernando Wood.
Wood, when he was mayor of New York, believed
that New York City should have also seceded from the union.
- [Vaughn] You also have Charles Haswell,
who is a wealthy ship designer.
They're all coming together, they're meeting in this room,
but most importantly, allegedly John Wilkes Booth might have
joined their group as well.
- [Sami] Belmont actually was someone who raised large sums of
money for McClellan's presidential campaign in an
attempt to unseat Lincoln from power.
He also launched a campaign to disseminate anti-Lincoln
and anti-Emancipation Proclamation propaganda.
- [Laurence] The meeting is not the only evidence
of a plot allegedly involving Belmont and McClellan.
- [Sami] McClellan's secretary writes in his diary about a
month before the meeting
of the Copperheads about an encounter he has
with Alan Pinkerton.
- [Vaughn] Pinkerton comes and interviews McClellan's secretary
and he asks McClellan's secretary if he knows anything.
The secretary says he doesn't.
Pinkerton then tells him, well, I think it's McClellan
and his friends, so your boss is up to something
and we've got an eye on you.
- [Heather] The Democratic Convention of 1864 was very
volatile, very violent in rhetoric at least, talking about
the need to not reelect Lincoln, the need to get him out of
office, and if we cannot do it by the ballot, then it's going
to happen by the bullet.
- [Laurence] Given the level of anti-Lincoln sentiment
in the North, it's not surprising that Belmont
and others might have made menacing statements,
but for some historians,
its Booth's surprise attendance at the alleged November
meeting that signifies their talk may have turned to action.
- [Sami] George Atzerodt made a confession which was lost
and then later discovered in 1977
that while in New York he saw Booth giving a secret hand
signal to two people,
- [Marvin] George Atzerotd confesses that booth met
with a quote unquote party in New York
and that they were gonna get the President for sure.
This was a plot to blow up the White House
with Lincoln in it as well as his captain.
- [Sami] Now it isn't that much of a leap for this group of
people to turn to Booth to come up with a more direct
and less messy method.
- [Laurence] Rumors about August Belmont's supposed connection
to Lincoln's assassination run wild in 1865.
- [Vaughn] Biographer David Black has argued
that Belmont did indeed have something to do with this,
but Belmont always vehemently denied this
and there's no real hard evidence to this.
- [Barton] Booth told people
That there were far more people involved in the plot,
maybe 50 to a 100.
It's possible that Booth created this in his own mind
to make himself feel bigger.
Many of the people who eventually were tried do allude
to the fact that they felt they didn't know all the pieces
of what was going on even in the plot they were part of.
- [Laurence] The investigation of Abraham Lincoln's
assassination at Ford's Theatre doesn't
end with the trial of his conspirators.
The monumental nature of the crime
and the many questions remaining lead to decade
after decade of Lincoln conspiracy research
and speculation, including a controversial book
that 72 years after the fact makes a startling claim.
- [Sami] In 1937, a book is released called
"Why Was Lincoln Murdered"?
This book is written by Civil War
historian Otto Eisenschiml.
Now, Otto Eisenschiml is a chemist by trade,
but he's fascinated by the Civil War era
and through his research, he comes
to the conclusion in his book
that it wasn't John Wilkes Booth
that led the plot to kill Lincoln.
It was in fact Lincoln's own
Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.
[dramatic music]
- [Martin] Eisenschiml's case is entirely circumstantial.
He doesn't have a smoking gun,
but he nevertheless points to evidence like Grant's failure
to attend Ford's Theatre
the night of the assassination attempt.
- [Laurence] Grant is originally set to accompany the Lincolns
to Ford's Theatre that night,
but drops out at the last minute.
The author claims that Secretary
of War Stanton convinced Grant
to refuse Lincoln's invitation.
Stanton argued that having the victorious commander
and the president together at the same public function would
present a security risk.
- [Sami] When Grant decides to go to New Jersey,
Stanton seems a bit more lax about Lincoln's
security detail that night.
- Eisenschiml also alleges that Lincoln personally requests
to have one of his best bodyguards, Eckert,
be with him the night of the play.
- [Heather] Eckert is a very strong guy.
It's even rumored they can break fire pokers, you know,
with just his bare hands
and Stanton says, "No, he can't go to the theater".
Why can't he go to the theater?
He's got very important work to do that night
- [Laurence] With Lincoln's preferred bodyguard unavailable,
Washington police patrolman John Frederick Parker,
one of four officers assigned
to White House detail steps in.
- [Vaughn] Allegedly Parker had a checkered history, allegations
of activity unbecoming of an officer.
At one point, allegedly in 1864,
he got himself mixed up in a brothel
and fired his pistol through a window.
- [Barton] Parker is mysteriously not there
to protect Lincoln on that evening.
What had actually happened was
that John Frederick Parker had gone across the street
to the bar with Lincoln's valet, his coach driver.
- [Martin] A bar coincidentally, which is
where John Wilkes Booth is also physically present,
tying on a few drinks to give him some liquid courage to go
and carry out the assassination.
Eisenschiml believes that Stanton's denying
the President's request about Eckert
and giving him Parker instead was paving the way for
and making it easier for Booth to carry out the crime.
- [Vaughn] If you wanted to go with Eisenschiml's theory,
you could look at what Stanton does afterwards.
Parker has a slap on the wrist.
He's never even officially noted in the assassination report
and then he's still on White House detail after this.
- [Laurence] Some believe this all points
to Stanton orchestrating an assassination plot
and there's even more suspicious
behavior after the murder.
- [Barton] Booth and David Herold were both somehow able
to make an escape.
The bridges were supposed to be secured by the Union Army.
How they managed to get through
that night across the bridges was of real concern
to Eisenschiml, so he believed that somehow this pointed
to a larger conspiracy.
- [Laurence] The author also questions the handling
of the standoff between Booth
and Union soldiers in Virginia.
- [Martin] Stanton had ordered that booth be taken alive.
His death then at least to Eisenschiml,
proves that this assassination plot
inside job has been carried out perfectly
because now Booth can't possibly provide any
testimony in any trial.
- [Sami] So if you follow this theory,
this is Stanton just tying up loose ends
and he continues to do so by pushing
for the military trial of the co-conspirators
- [Laurence] When published in 1937,
"Why Was Lincoln Murdered?" causes an uproar.
Critics ask, why would Stanton do this?
- [Sami] Now when it comes to Lincoln
and Stanton's actual relationship,
this has always been a matter of debate.
For starter, Stanton was not a supporter
of Lincoln in 1860 in the election,
he was actually a supporter
of his opponent, John Breckenridge.
- [Laurence] The author suggests Stanton
was worried Lincoln would fire him once the war ended.
If he could cause chaos
and confusion with an assassination,
then perhaps he could maintain control of the army
and consolidate power.
- [Sami] But skeptics see a problem with this theory.
The two men had buried all their differences during the war
and following Lincoln's assassination, it was said
to have deeply, deeply affected Stanton for quite some time.
- [Laurence] Approximately seven hours
before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln,
John Wilkes Booth pays a visit to the Kirkwood House Hotel.
It's not just any Washington inn,
it happens to be the residence
of Vice President Andrew Johnson.
- John Wilkes Booth asks whether
or not the vice president is there.
The clerk at the desk says, I'll check.
And he says, oh, wait a minute, don't bother.
And he takes out a piece of paper
and he writes, don't wish to disturb you.
Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth.
- [Laurence] This cryptic note never gets
to Johnson that day,
but it fuels two questions that remain unanswered.
Why was Booth reaching out to the vice president
and why would they appear to know each other?
- [Sami] George Atzerodt, the man who was apparently tasked
with killing vice President Andrew Johnson was also staying
at the same hotel as Johnson,
but he ends up not going through the assassination
because he ends up getting cold feet.
- Some people believe that Booth was doing this simply
because he was concerned
that Atzerodt might not carry out the crime
and he was laying a framework for him
to do the job later on if necessary.
But there's also then a belief
that it could be just Booth leaving this little piece
of evidence that would suggest a conspiracy
that also involves the US vice President.
[dramatic music]
- [Vaughn] Some historians wonder whether John Wilkes Booth
and Andrew Johnson had met.
Well, there's some circumstantial evidence there
to suggests that maybe they had,
because Johnson is from Tennessee
and we know that John Wilkes Booth performed at the newly
opened Woods Theater in 1864 there.
- [Sami] Now, at the time of the assassination, plenty
of people think that Johnson is involved,
including Abraham Lincoln's widow, Mary Todd Lincoln.
In fact, in a letter that she wrote in 1866, she writes
"That miserable inebriate Johnson had cognizance
of my husband's death."
She goes on to say, "As sure as you
and I live, Johnson had some hand in all of this."
- [Laurence] In 1867,
Missouri representative Benjamin Loan publicly accuses
Johnson of conspiring with the Confederacy
to assassinate Lincoln.
- [Martin] Benjamin Loan says that Andrew Johnson only became
president as a result of an assassination that was paid for
by Confederate Gold
and the price that Johnson paid
for his promotion was treachery.
These suspicions are so serious
that they eventually establish a body
to investigate the extent
to which Andrew Johnson may have been involved in the plot
to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
- [Barton] What they find is that there is no concrete direct
evidence that Andrew Johnson was involved with Booth
or any of the planning related to the assassination.
- [Vaughn] Even with the close investigation,
for some people, it's hard to get past it.
That night of all three people who had anything
to gain from Lincoln's assassination,
Andrew Johnson had the most
'cause he'd be the next president.
You could also argue that Booth leaves this note at
the hotel because he actually does want to talk to Johnson
because Johnson actually was the mastermind of the plan.
- [Barton] There are a number of areas where Andrew Johnson's
policy and decisions after the Lincoln assassination do make
him look more suspect.
One was his May, 1865 proclamation
where he gives amnesty
to most Confederate people involved
in the American Civil War.
That didn't do anything
to help his public reputation in terms
of Lincoln assassination.
- [Christy] Had it not occurred,
there's all kinds of speculation of what kind
of president would Lincoln have been, given his full second
term, and we'll never know.
That was stripped away from this by the conspirators.
- [Sami] Johnson's one term presidency is just filled
with all these terrible political battles.
Case in point, he tried to fire a member of his cabinet and
because of that he was brought up on impeachment charges
and he was saved from being convicted of impeachment
by one vote.
- [Marvin] Many historians today regard President Andrew Johnson
as one of the worst presidents in US history, the president
who started off reconstruction
and tried to veto any kind of reconstruction legislation
that would've had a positive effect on the Black Americans.
- [Sami] The Congressional Committee designed
to investigate Johnson as to whether he had
to hand the assassination doesn't come up
with any real, hard evidence to prove
that he had a part of it outside of the note
that Booth left in the mailbox.
But even after that, many Americans,
including Mary Todd Lincoln, still firmly believed
that Johnson was a part of the plan.
[dramatic music]
- Abraham Lincoln was the first US president
to be assassinated and the shock continues to reverberate.
More than a century
and a half later, new books are being written about
his life and death.
The turmoil of Lincoln's time in some ways is still with us,
and so is the desire to know the truth about a conspiracy
that left us forever changed as a nation.
I'm Laurence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching his 'History's Greatest Mysteries".
[dramatic music]