♪ Killing Lincoln ♪ Original Air Date on February 17, 2013
== sync, corrected by elderman ==
Harry Ford: Hello, John.
John Wilkes Booth: [humming].
Murcott: I am harmless except to myself.
Florence Trenchard: I hear you.
Mrs. Mountchessington: You will please recollect
you are addressing my daughter.
And in my presence.
Asa Trenchard: Yes.
I'm offering her my heart and
hand just as she wants them,
with nothing in 'em.
Mrs. Mountchessington: Dear, to your room.
Augusta: Yes, ma.
The nasty beast!
Mrs. Mountchessington: I am aware.
[gun cocks].
Mrs. Mountchessington: Mr. Trenchard, you are
not used to the manners of good society and that,
alone, will excuse the impertinence of
which you have been guilty.
Asa Trenchard: Don't know the manners
of good society, eh?
Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out,
old woman; you sockdologizing old man-trap!
Tom Hanks: On the evening of April 13th, 1865,
John Wilkes Booth initiates his plan
not only to kill Abraham Lincoln,
but to decapitate the government of
the United States.
A Civil War that has lasted four years is
drawing to an end.
While Washington City celebrates the surrender
of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army,
Booth and his co-conspirators plot
a carefully coordinated triple murder.
John Wilkes Booth: And?
Mister Powell?
Lewis Powell: The Secretary of State
ain't going nowhere soon.
Confined to his bed and slow to recover.
Got his-self a nurse.
A little slip of a man.
And there's a nigger butler.
John Wilkes Booth: Mister Atzerodt,
you will check into the Kirkwood tomorrow morning.
Vice President Johnson's suite is
on the first floor.
George Atzerodt: No.
John Wilkes Booth: No?
George Atzerodt: No.
I do not wish.
I cannot.
John Wilkes Booth: It is too late, George.
We have, all of us, conspired together.
George Atzerodt: To capture, ya.
To kidnap one man.
Not to murder.
John Wilkes Booth: This is an act of war.
And you are stuck to it.
It is a tar pit from which you cannot pull away.
And when tomorrow night is through and
our deed is done,
we will, all of us, be known as its authors.
I have seen to it.
And we will be hailed as heroes!
We will meet back here tomorrow night
at nine o'clock.
And Powell and Herold will pay a visit
to the Secretary of State.
Mr. Atzerodt will go to see the Vice President.
And I will go to Grover's Theater
for a performance of
"Aladdin" or "His Wonderful Lamp."
And there I will kill a tyrant.
[small explosion sound]
Tom Hanks: This is the true story of the killing
of Abraham Lincoln, the first assassination of
an American president, and what might be the most
resonant crime in the history of the nation.
John Wilkes Booth's plan to kill Lincoln isn't
the first Black Flag operation to target
the 16th president of the United States.
At least five kidnapping or assassination
schemes are hatched,
although none are attempted.
None, save perhaps one.
Abraham Lincoln is riding alone,
as is his custom,
from the War Department to the soldier's home where
the family stays during the hot summer months.
[loud rifle shot]
Abraham Lincoln: Whoa, whoa!
[grunts].
Help me, son!
Private Nichols: Whoa, whoa!
[horse neighs].
Private Nichols: Steady, steady now.
Steady.
[horse neighs].
Private Nichols: I, uh, I heard a rifle shot.
Abraham Lincoln: Yes.
Down by the bottom of the hill.
That is what frightened him so.
And, uh, he bucked and separated me from my,
my $8 pug hat.
Private Nichols, I am much obliged to you.
Private Nichols: Your hat, sir.
I found it at the bottom of the hill.
Abraham Lincoln: It is properly ventilated for
these hot summer months.
Likely some fellow returning from a day's
hunt discharged his gun in a precautionary measure of
safety before bringing it into his home.
I assure you I am in greater danger from a
rumor of snipers than I am from your
silence in this affair.
I would ask that you tell no one of this adventure.
Private Nichols: Sir, I.
Abraham Lincoln: I will be doubly obliged to you.
Private Nichols: Yes, sir.
Tom Hanks: That is Abraham Lincoln.
The self-educated statesman who has
abolished slavery and will go on to
end the war and save the Union.
Yet, during his 4 years and 41 days in office,
the intensity of the hatred leveled toward him,
even by members of his own party, is extreme,
even by today's standards.
But while the killing of Abraham Lincoln
serves to sanctify him,
to transform a controversial
president into a dearly beloved martyr,
it also serves to pervert the truth
about his killer.
John Wilkes Booth, a passionate and
well-admired man on the path to become one
of the greatest actors of his time,
is reduced by history to a two-dimensional
scoundrel and dismissed as a madman.
John Wilkes Booth: Harder!
Faster!
Come on!
[laughs].
[audience screams].
[audience gasping].
James McCollom: Good God, I've.
John Wilkes Booth: It's all right, old man.
Come on hard, for God's sake and save the fight.
[audience applause]
John Wilkes Booth: [screams]
[audience gasps]
[audience applause]
Man: Curtain!
Bring the curtain down.
James McCollom: Mr. Booth.
John Wilkes Booth: Why, Mr. McCollom!
James McCollom: Mr. Booth, I,
I am so very sorry.
John Wilkes Booth: Come, come, old fellow.
You look as if you had lost the blood.
Not another word.
Now, if you'd had gotten my eye,
that would have been bad.
But you didn't.
And it was, well, it was splendid!
James McCollom: Thank you, sir.
Tom Hanks: That is John Wilkes Booth.
Born and raised in Maryland,
a border state,
a slave state that did not secede from the Union.
John Wilkes Booth is also a Southern zealot,
whose hatred of Abraham Lincoln is
nothing less than fanatical.
In October of 1864, Booth makes contact
with the Confederate Secret Service.
And shortly after Lincoln's reelection,
he determines to kidnap the President.
He stops in Philadelphia to visit his sister, Asia.
And there he writes a letter.
John Wilkes Booth: To whom it may concern.
Right or wrong, God judge me, not man.
My love is for the South alone.
Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting
to make for her a prisoner of this man
to whom she owes so much misery.
Edwin.
Our brother voted for him?
Asia Booth Clarke: Yes.
John Wilkes Booth: For a false President?
A tool of the North who means to crush out
slavery by robbery, rapine and slaughter?
Oh, God, grant that I may see the end!
This country was formed for the white man
and not for the black.
Asia.
Lock this in your safe for me.
I may come back for it.
But if anything should happen to me,
open it alone and send the letters as directed
for brother Junius and sister Rosalie.
And one other, to whom it may concern.
A Confederate doing duty upon
his own responsibility,
J. Wilkes Booth.
Abraham Lincoln: Hmm.
I will fix that for you, son.
We'll put a fine point on it.
Tom Hanks: On February 5th, 1865,
Abraham Lincoln visits Alexander Gardner's
photographic studio.
Abraham Lincoln: Are we ready, Mr. Gardner?
Alexander Gardner: Aye, that I am,
Mister President.
Now, if you wouldn't me mind moving to the
other side of the table.
That angle favors you.
Tom Hanks: After four years and more casualties
than in any conflict in the nation's history,
the Civil War is almost over.
But the image made on this day will be the
last official portrait ever taken of the
16th President of the United States.
Abraham Lincoln has six weeks to live.
Abraham Lincoln: Taddy.
With malice toward none;
with charity for all;
with firmness in the right as God gives
us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in;
to bind up the nation's wounds;
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
and a lasting peace among ourselves and
with all nations.
Tom Hanks: Booth is there.
A face in the crowd on the steps of the east portico.
On March 17th, 1865,
Booth and two boyhood friends,
along with Confederate agent Lewis Powell and
smuggler George Atzerodt, lay in wait along the
President's route to visit the
Campbell Military Hospital.
But Lincoln cancels the hospital visit.
Booth then travels to New York,
where he learns of a Confederate plot to
kill Lincoln by planting explosives
in the White House.
[faint crying]
Abraham Lincoln: Who is dead in
the White House?
Honor Guard Soldier: The President.
He was killed by an assassin.
[crying becomes louder]
[music builds dramaticly]
Tom Hanks: Lincoln awakens from a dream
of his own death.
According to one account,
it is in the early morning hours of April 2nd
and Lincoln is aboard the steamship River Queen.
He has left Washington to visit the warfront
where General Ulysses S. Grant
is poised to capture the Confederate capital
of Richmond, Virginia.
[cannon fire]
Abraham Lincoln has 13 days to live.
[female singing]
Tom Hanks: On April 3nd, 1865,
Confederate forces set fire to their own capital
of Richmond, Virginia before evacuating ahead of
advancing Union troops.
Confederate president Jefferson Davis
escapes by train.
Abandons his White House of the Confederacy.
And Abraham Lincoln lands in Richmond to
view the devastated ruins of this American city.
Soldier: Form up!
Abraham Lincoln: Do any of you know the
way to General Weitzel's headquarters?
Freed Slave: Yas-suh, Master Lincoln.
I know the way!
Admiral Porter: Fix bayonets!
[train whistles].
Abraham Lincoln: Look.
[whistle].
Crook: Window.
Abraham Lincoln: Thank God I have
lived to see this day.
On we go.
Tad Lincoln: Papa-day.
Old Slave: May de good Lord bless and
keep you safe, Massa Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln: You are a free citizen
of this republic.
Kneel to God only.
And thank him for the liberty that is yours.
Tom Hanks: It's one of the most unforgettable
scenes in American history.
An American President walking the streets of a
fallen rebel capital in the midst of a Civil War.
Scarcely 36 hours after Jefferson Davis
has fled his capital,
Abraham Lincoln arrives at the
surrendered home of the Confederate president.
Crook: I am informed that General Weitzel
is on his way, sir.
And this is Mrs. O'Melia, the housekeeper.
Abraham Lincoln: Ma'am, might you direct me to
President Davis' desk?
So this must have been President Davis' chair.
Tom Hanks: Jefferson Davis will soon
be captured in Georgia.
He will die 24 years later,
at the age of 81.
Abraham Lincoln: This is whence
Mr. Jefferson Davis has conducted his war, Tad.
Tom Hanks: But Abraham Lincoln has
less than 11 days to live.
Abraham Lincoln: Might I have a glass of water?
Tom Hanks: Ironically, on this day,
Tad's 12th birthday, April 4th, 1865,
the immediate danger to the President
is not in Richmond.
It's on its way to Washington.
Sergeant Thomas Harney, an explosives expert
with the Confederate Torpedo Bureau,
has already been dispatched on a secret
mission to blow up the White House and
Lincoln in it.
And there is sound evidence that John Wilkes Booth
learns of the plot while in New York,
at the same time that Abraham Lincoln is
walking the streets of Richmond.
Southern Gentleman: Sergeant Harney is with
Colonel Mosby in Virginia as we speak,
seeking to infiltrate Washington at the
earliest convenience.
John Wilkes Booth: And Jefferson Davis has
sanctioned this harebrained incendiary scheme?
I see.
And it is true that President Davis escaped
intact from Richmond?
Southern Gentleman: Yes.
Thank heaven he is safely bound for Danville.
You seem troubled.
John Wilkes Booth: Troubled?
I?
For four years I have lived not daring to
express my thoughts or sentiments,
even in my own home, constantly hearing every
principle dear to my heart denounced as treasonable.
And I have cursed my willful idleness,
begun to deem myself a coward.
And to despise my own existence.
Richmond has fallen,
in a war against the Constitution,
against states' rights,
against Southern rights and institutions.
And a malignant tyrant, a half-breed,
low-mannered, country buffoon is threatening
to proclaim himself king.
I should have killed him on Inauguration Day.
I could have.
I was that close.
And now, if the South is to be aided at all
it must be done quickly.
And it may already be too late.
Troubled, gentlemen?
When Caesar conquered the enemies of Rome and
the power that was his menaced the
liberties of the people, Brutus arose and slew him.
Troubled?
Not at all.
I stand with Brutus.
Tom Hanks: Lincoln might have remained
in Virginia, on the battlefront with
General Grant.
He might even have been present to witness
Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9th.
But, as fate would have it,
Secretary of State William Seward
and his son, Frederick,
are victims of a carriage accident in Washington.
[door creaks].
Abraham Lincoln: William?
William Bell: Mr. President.
Frederick Seward: Mr. Lincoln, sir.
Abraham Lincoln: Frederick!
Is your father able to tolerate a friend?
Frederick Seward: This way.
Tom Hanks: Seward's jaw is broken in two places
and his right arm is fractured.
So on April 9th, unaware of Lee's surrender,
Lincoln returns to Washington to visit
his injured Secretary of State.
Abraham Lincoln: I think we near the end at last.
Richmond is back in the arms of the Union.
I walked her streets.
I sat in Jeff Davis' own chair.
[laughs]
Miss Fanny.
Fanny Seward: Thank you for coming,
Mister President.
Abraham Lincoln: How could I stay away when
my Secretary of State is rendered in such
a way as he cannot but listen?
[laughs]
I have worked my own hand as hard as at sawing wood,
so many others' hands have I shaken.
I've been to Libby Prison.
General Weitzel asked me point blank how
to treat the defeated Confederate soldiers.
I told him to let them up easy.
My old friend.
Tom Hanks: It is close to 10 PM when
Secretary of War Stanton delivers to Lincoln
the telegram reporting that Robert E. Lee
has surrendered.
The next day, Washington City
is in full celebration.
A crowd gathers in front of the White House to
serenade Lincoln and to call for him to speak.
He politely promises a speech the next night
and requests that the band play the
Confederate anthem.
He asks them to play "Dixie."
[gunshot]
[hits target]
James Powell: A fine shot with a parlor pistol.
John Wilkes Booth: Thank you, Mr. Powell.
James Powell: Payne.
It's Payne.
Not Powell.
I ain't goin' by Powell no more.
Abraham Lincoln: Let us all join in doing
the acts necessary.
Tom Hanks: On Tuesday, April 11th,
faithful to his promise,
Lincoln speaks from the north portico
of the White House.
Booth is there.
Abraham Lincoln: It is also unsatisfactory to
some that the elective franchise is not
given to the colored man.
I would myself prefer.
John Wilkes Booth: That means nigger citizenship.
Abraham Lincoln: On the very intelligent and
on those who serve our cause as soldiers.
Some 12,000 voters.
John Wilkes Booth: Shoot him.
Draw your revolver and shoot him now.
James Powell: There's people.
John Wilkes Booth: There are always people.
I wonder, Mr. Powell or Mr. Payne,
in spite of your reputation,
if you have what it takes.
I already suspect that Mr. Herold here does not.
David Herold: Oh, no, there's no call for that.
James Powell: I got what it takes.
John Wilkes Booth: Now, by God,
I will put him through.
That is the last speech he will ever make.
Tom Hanks: Abraham Lincoln has less than
four days to live.
[fireworks]
Tom Hanks: Washington City celebrates
Robert E. Lee's surrender with a grand illumination.
Candles burn in every window,
public and private.
Fireworks and cannon volleys proclaim victory.
On April 13th, Booth visits Grover's Theater
and learns that a production of
"Aladdin! or His Wonderful Lamp"
is planned for the next night,
April 14th.
Good Friday.
And that the president has been invited to attend.
Booth arranges for a ticket to the box
adjoining the President's and informs his
co-conspirators that the plan has changed from
kidnapping to murder.
That on April 14th, Lewis Powell will kill
Secretary of State Seward.
David Herold will accompany Powell and
lead him across the Navy Yard Bridge
and into Maryland.
George Atzerodt will kill Vice President Johnson
in his room at the Kirkwood House Hotel.
And Booth will kill Lincoln during the
performance of "Aladdin"
at Grover's Theater.
[watch ticking].
Tom Hanks: With little more than
24 hours to live,
Abraham Lincoln rises at 7:00 AM
and writes four brief messages,
including one instructing acting
Secretary of State Frederick Seward
to call a cabinet meeting for 11:00 AM,
then joins his family at breakfast to find his
eldest son, Robert,
just returned from witnessing
the surrender at Appomattox.
Robert Todd Lincoln: General Lee,
stately, elegant.
His uniform spotless.
With a jeweled sword and shining spurs.
And General Grant,
so shabby in a muddy blue uniform,
borrowed from a private.
Abraham Lincoln: [laughs]
Robert Todd Lincoln: It, it was great.
Oh and here is Lee.
Tad Lincoln: Papa-day, let me see!
Can I see it?
Can I have it?
Mary Todd Lincoln: Wait a moment, Tad.
Abraham Lincoln: Now that is the face
of a noble man.
And brave.
Listen to me, Robert.
You must lay aside your uniform.
Return to college.
Read law for three years.
And at the end of that time I hope that we will
be able to tell whether you will
make a lawyer or not.
Robert Todd Lincoln: Yes, sir.
And I will, sir.
Tom Hanks: Shortly before 11 AM,
Lincoln sees Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
at the War Department.
Abraham Lincoln: Mr. Stanton!
Mrs. Lincoln has invited General and Mrs. Grant
to join us at the theater this evening.
And General Grant already hints that they will
decline in favor of taking a train to
New Jersey to visit with their children.
I trust that you have had no occasion to encourage
this desertion in the face of entertainment.
Edwin Stanton: Had I the occasion,
I would have seized it.
I am sorry, sir, but it is a fact that rumors of
assassination schemes are everywhere now.
It remains a constant subject of concern
between myself and Mr. Seward,
even in the face of his recovery.
Abraham Lincoln: The doors to the White House
stand open to one and all,
day and night, Stanton.
My life is within reach of anyone, sane or mad.
By the hand of a murderer I can die but once,
but to, to go continually in fear,
why that is to die over and over and over again.
John Wilkes Booth: Will you be attending
the theater tonight?
"Aladdin" is playing at Grover's.
Barber: No, sir.
I'm afraid not, sir.
John Wilkes Booth: Pity.
There will be some fine acting there tonight.
Ulysses S. Grant: The officers could keep
their side-arms.
Abraham Lincoln: And what terms did you make
for the common soldiers?
Ulysses S. Grant: I told them to go
back to their homes and families
with a promise to not again take up arms
against the United States of America.
Abraham Lincoln: Quite simple.
And quite right.
Which brings to mind how very providential it is
that this rebellion was crushed just as
Congress has adjourned.
There are men in Congress who harbor feelings of
hate and vindictiveness toward the South.
But there will be no persecution when this
war is over.
No bloody work.
We must bend every effort to reanimate the South,
to put her state governments in order
and to reestablish the Union before
Congress reconvenes.
Still no word from General Sherman?
Ulysses S. Grant: We are hourly expecting it.
Abraham Lincoln: It will be good news.
General Sherman will have secured
Johnston's surrender.
I, I know this because I have had
the dream last night.
I've had it before.
It's always the same and
invariably followed by favorable news.
As Secretary of the Navy,
it has to do with your element,
Mr. Welles.
Water.
I am in some kind of vessel,
in the dream.
And always moving with rapidity toward
an indefinite shore.
Tom Hanks: In an aside, General Grant informs the
president that his wife insists upon them leaving
on the afternoon train.
They will not be attending the theater.
Shortly before noon, John Wilkes Booth stops
at Ford's Theater, as is his daily custom,
to pick up his mail.
Harry Ford: Well, here's the man who
don't like General Lee.
Here for his mail.
John Wilkes Booth: I told you, Harry,
I don't like the way he surrendered.
Given his sword by the Senate in Richmond
and swearing an oath never to give it up,
he should have died on the battlefield before
rendering his Southern manhood
to the butcher, Grant.
[chuckles].
That's what I said, Harry and it's what I meant.
Now let's just hope he's not paraded through the
streets as the Romans did their captives, huh?
Thank you, Raybold.
Harry Ford: Well, I'll be sure to ask the
President his plan in that regard.
John Wilkes Booth: The President?
You mean the buffoon who walked into Jeff Davis'
house in Richmond, threw his legs over the chair
and spit tobacco juice all over the place?
[men laughing].
Harry Ford: He don't chew tobacco,
John or I woulda put a spittoon in the
Presidential Box tonight.
A messenger for Mr. Lincoln called this
morning for tickets.
For them and General and Mrs. Grant.
Maybe we'll have Robert E. Lee
and old Jefferson Davis himself in
another box, both of them in chains.
John Wilkes Booth: I thought he was
attending Grover's tonight.
[singing "Honor to Our Soldiers"].
Tom Hanks: Booth goes to Pumphrey's stable
to reserve a horse, then to write a letter,
a confession, an explanation,
a manifesto,
signed by him on behalf of himself,
Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt.
Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln take a
carriage ride, alone.
According to Mary Todd Lincoln,
she has never seen her husband so
supremely cheerful.
They talk about the past,
about the death of their son,
Willie, three years before,
about the future,
traveling abroad and Lincoln's plan to
return to his law practice.
Lincoln tells Mary that on this particular day
he feels that the war has come to a close.
They end up at the Washington Navy Yard,
where Lincoln summons a young naval officer,
William H. Flood.
William H. Flood: Mrs. Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln: Mother, the last time we saw
young Flood here, we were in Springfield.
I was a lawyer and he was but knee-high
to a grasshopper.
His mother was kin with Governor Carlin.
Mary Todd Lincoln: Oh, I remember Priscilla Flood.
Abraham Lincoln: And his father served with me
in the Illinois State Legislature.
A Democrat, but, uh, a friend and a good man,
despite his fervent support of my opponent
for the presidency.
William H. Flood: Sins of the father, sir.
Abraham Lincoln: Never a sin to stand up
for what you believe.
Now, Flood, tell me, which is the vessel
with the history?
William H. Flood: Well, Mr. Lincoln,
they've all been mussing around
under fire quite a lot,
but I guess you mean the Montauk over there.
She's got the hardest hitting.
Been in the tightest spots.
Abraham Lincoln: The very one, Flood.
Show her to me.
Mother?
Tom Hanks: At 4:30, a group of Confederate
prisoners of war is being escorted from the
Navy Yard and up Pennsylvania Avenue
when Booth encounters his friend,
the actor John Mathews.
John Wilkes Booth: Great God,
I have no longer a country!
John Mathews: What's the matter, John?
John Wilkes Booth: Mathews,
I have a favor to ask you.
Will you grant it?
I may have to leave town tonight and
I have a letter here,
which I desire to be published in
the National Intelligencer.
Please attend to it for me unless I see you
before 10 o'clock tomorrow.
John Mathews: Why, there goes General Grant.
John Wilkes Booth: Where?
Come on!
Tom Hanks: General and Mrs. Grant will later
recall the horseman who peered into their
carriage twice on its way to the train station.
The actor John Mathews will be on stage
that evening at Ford's Theater.
The next day he will burn the letter.
The signed confession given to him by
John Wilkes Booth.
Abraham Lincoln has less than 15 hours to live.
[audience laughter].
Lord Dundreary: You see, I gave her a draught
that cured the effect of the draught.
And that draught was a draft that didn't pay
the doctor's bill.
Florence Trenchard: Good gracious!
What a number of draughts.
Florence Trenchard: You have almost a
game of draughts.
[audience laughter].
Florence Trenchard: What's the matter?
Lord Dundreary: That was a joke, that was.
Florence Trenchard: Where's the joke?
Lord Dundreary: She don't see it.
[audience laughter].
Florence Trenchard: Why, anybody can see that.
[audience applauding].
[orchestra plays "Hail to the Chief"].
[applause continues].
Tom Hanks: At roughly 8:30 PM,
the Lincolns arrive at Ford's Theater,
driven by coachman Francis Burke and
footman Charles Forbes.
Abraham Lincoln: Mr. Forbes, Mr. Parker,
I hope that you both might enjoy the play.
Tom Hanks: Since November of 1864,
four officers of the Metropolitan Police
have been detailed to protect the President.
On this night, John Parker is on duty.
As last-minute replacements for
General and Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Lincoln invites her
dear friend, Clara Harris,
in the company of her fiancé,
Major Henry Reed Rathbone.
[audience applause].
Tom Hanks: The famously self-educated Lincoln
is an enthusiastic lover of theater.
But during the war he is drawn to comedy,
telling Noah Brooks that "a farce, or comedy,
is best played;
a tragedy is best read at home."
A last-minute meeting with Lewis Powell,
David Herold and George Atzerodt
has just concluded.
The coordinated attack that Booth outlined on
April 13th is to go into effect immediately.
At 10:15 Lewis Powell is to kill
Secretary of State Seward
in his home on Lafayette Square.
David Herold will guide Powell out of
the city via the Navy Yard Bridge.
George Atzerodt is to kill
Vice President Johnson
at the Kirkwood House Hotel.
The only change in the plan is that Booth
will not be attending "Aladdin" at Grover's!
Harry Ford: Hello, John.
Tom Hanks: He will kill Lincoln at Ford's Theater.
Murcott: I am harmless except to myself.
Florence Trenchard: Speak on, sir.
I hear you.
Tom Hanks: It is still early in act two.
Booth has calculated that the appointed time of
10:15 will fall at the beginning of act three of
"Our American Cousin" and there will be an
intermission between the acts.
Booth retrieves his horse from Pumphrey's stable.
[knock at door].
John Wilkes Booth: Mister Spangler,
hold this mare for me 10 or 15 minutes.
Mind you, she's a bad little bitch.
Edman Spangler: I can't, Mr. Booth.
It's almost intermission.
I gotta shift scenery.
John Wilkes Booth: May I cross backstage?
Edman Spangler: You're gonna have to cross under.
And I can't keep the horse.
Just go with him, DeBonay and tell Peanuts
to come here and hold this damned horse.
Florence Trenchard: Mr. Asa Trenchard,
our American cousin.
This young gentleman has carried off the prize by
three successive shots in the bull's eye.
Actress: I congratulate you sir
and am happy to see you.
Why have you left the archery, Florence?
Florence Trenchard: Because after Mr. Asa's
display, I felt in no humor for shooting.
[footsteps].
Tom Hanks: Booth heads next door to
Peter Taltavul's Star Saloon.
Whether or not Francis Burke,
the man who drove the Lincoln carriage and
John Parker, the man detailed
to protect the President,
are drinking at the Star Saloon
when Booth enters,
will never be known with any certainty.
John Wilkes Booth: Mr. Taltavul.
Tom Hanks: But the urge somehow to be a part of or
witness to the killing of Abraham Lincoln will
prompt many to make claims that are
impossible to substantiate.
The remark allegedly overheard during
intermission by orchestra conductor
William Withers is a prime example.
Peter Taltavul: You're a fine tragedian, John,
but you'll never be as great as your father.
John Wilkes Booth: When I leave the stage for good,
I'll be the most talked about man in America.
Tom Hanks: And the stage is set for the most
dramatic and resonant crime in American history.
Asa Trenchard: Nary red, it all comes to their
barkin' up the wrong tree about
the old man's property.
William Bell: Yes, sir?
James Powell: I have here medicine for Mr. Seward
from his surgeon, Dr. Verdi.
William Bell: I don't know that
we are expecting any such thing, but,
but I'll see to it that he gets it.
James Powell: No, I gotta take it to
him myself personal.
[audience laughter].
William Bell: Please, sir.
Uh, the house is mostly asleep now and,
and you don't want to be wakin' 'em.
Asa Trenchard: Oh, no.
Which he meant to leave to me,
and left it to his granddaughter,
Miss Mary Meredith.
[audience laughter].
Frederick Seward: Who is this, Bell?
William Bell: Mr. Frederick,
this man says he's from Dr. Verdi.
James Powell: I have a medicine here for
Mr. Seward with instructions on how he
must take it.
Frederick Seward: I'm sorry,
but you cannot see him now.
My sister and his nurse are endeavoring
to compose my father to sleep now.
James Powell: But I must.
Dr. Verdi's orders.
Frederick Seward: Wait, wait.
[audience laughter].
Frederick Seward: As I thought and as I said,
it is not worthwhile to talk about this any further.
[audience laughter].
Mrs. Mountchessington: Miss Mary Meredith!
Oh, I'm delighted.
Mary Todd Lincoln: What will Miss Harris
think of my hanging on to you so?
Asa Trenchard: And mothers would go away
from a fellow when they found that out,
but you don't valley fortune, Miss Gusty?
Abraham Lincoln: She won't think anything about it.
Mrs. Mountchessington: My love, you had better go.
Asa Trenchard: You crave affection, you do.
Frederick Seward: Go back and tell the doctor that
Mr. Seward's son refused to let you see him,
if you think I cannot be trusted with the medicine.
James Powell: Very well then.
[gun cocks].
James Powell: You son of a bitch!
[gun clicks].
[audience laughter].
Mrs. Mountchessington: Mr. Trenchard,
you will please recollect you are
addressing my daughter.
Asa Trenchard: I'm offering her my heart and
hand, just as she wants them, with nothing in 'em.
[audience laughter].
Fanny Seward: [screams, crying].
Augusta: The nasty beast!
[audience laughter].
Mrs. Mountchessington: I am aware, Mr. Trenchard.
[audience laughter].
Mrs. Mountchessington: You are not used to the
manners of good society and that, alone,
will excuse the impertinence of which you
have been guilty.
Asa Trenchard: Don't know the manners of
good society, eh?
Well, I guess I know enough to turn you
inside out, old woman;
you damned old sockdologizing.
[gunshot].
John Wilkes Booth: Sic semper tyrannis!
Maj. Rathbone: Stop that man!
Clara Harris: Stop him!
John Wilkes Booth: Let me pass!
Fanny Seward: Murder!
Help!
Murder!
John Wilkes Booth: Give me that horse, boy!
[horse neighs]
John Wilkes Booth: Go.
William Bell: Murder!
Stop that man!
Murderer!
Tom Hanks: John Wilkes Booth
has less than 12 days to live.
[clock ticking].
[gun clicks].
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing and screaming].
Man: What's happening?
Clara Harris: The President is, is shot!
Mary Todd Lincoln: [screams].
[crowd screams].
[pounding on the door].
Maj. Rathbone: Back away!
I've been stabbed, please.
Clara Harris: Help us!
Someone please, please help us!
Dr. Charles Leale: You're in no immediate danger.
Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln,
I'm Dr. Leale,
a United States Army surgeon.
Mary Todd Lincoln: Oh, Doctor!
[sobbing]
Help him!
Dr. Charles Leale: Water!
Bring water!
And Brandy!
On the floor.
I want him recumbent.
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Men: One, two, three.
Man: Watch his head.
Watch his head.
He might have been stabbed.
Dr. Charles Leale: We need to cut the shirt
and coat away from the neck to the elbow.
Man: Charlie.
Dr. Charles Taft: Dr. Charles Taft.
Mary Todd Lincoln: You help him!
Is he dead?
Someone answer me!
Help him!
Oh, God.
Dr. Charles Leale: I'm checking for
hemorrhage of the subclavial artery.
Wait.
I found it.
A hole.
And there's a clot.
[audience screaming].
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Dr. Charles Leale: It's a bullet wound.
Occipital bone here.
Removal of a clot has relieved pressure
on the brain.
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Lieutenant Bolton: Ladies!
Gentleman!
The President is being attended by physicians!
Please make your way in orderly fashion
to the street!
Dr. Charles Leale: I'm opening up his larynx for
a free passage of air.
I need you and you to lift his arms and
manipulate them back and forth.
Up and down to expand his thorax.
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Dr. Charles Leale: Feeble.
Respiration not satisfactory.
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Maj. Rathbone: Here, here's brandy!
Keene: May I hold his head?
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing]
Tell me!
[sobbing]
Tell me, is he alive?
Tom Hanks: At 10:35,
20 minutes after shooting the President,
Booth arrives at the Navy Yard Bridge,
his escape route into Maryland.
Sgt. Silas T. Cobb
of the 13th Regiment Massachusetts
Heavy Artillery is on sentry duty.
Sgt. Silas Cobb: Halt!
Who goes?
John Wilkes Booth: A friend.
Sgt. Silas Cobb: Name?
John Wilkes Booth: My name is Booth.
Sgt. Silas Cobb: Where from?
John Wilkes Booth: I'm from the city.
Sgt. Silas Cobb: Where are you headed?
John Wilkes Booth: Down home, Charles County.
Sgt. Silas Cobb: What town?
John Wilkes Booth: I don't live in a town.
I live near Beantown.
Sgt. Silas Cobb: I don't know where
that place is, friend.
But do you know it's against the law to cross
here after nine o'clock?
What is your object to be in town so late when you
got so far to travel?
John Wilkes Booth: It is a dark road.
I thought if I waited 'til now I should have the
light of this moon to help me see my way.
Sgt. Silas Cobb: Well, I will let you pass,
but I don't know as I ought to.
John Wilkes Booth: Hell, there'll be no
trouble about that.
Man: Make way.
Make way!
To the White House.
We must take him to the White House.
Dr. Charles Leale: No, he will die on the way.
Dr. Charles Taft: The saloon.
Here, next door.
Peter Taltavul: No!
No, it should not be said the
President of the United States
died in a saloon.
Not even my own.
Lieutenant Bolton: Doctor, give me your commands and
I will see to it that they will be carried out.
Dr. Charles Leale: As I said, across the street,
to the nearest house.
Lieutenant Bolton: Make a path!
Let us pass!
Dr. Charles Leale: Stop, stop!
[grunts].
Abraham Lincoln: [gasping breath].
Dr. Charles Leale: [grunts].
William H. Flood: The house opposite is closed.
Henry S. Stafford: Here, here!
Bring him here.
Dr. Charles Leale: Go, go, go.
Man: Clear the way, please.
Out of the way, please.
Tom Hanks: Lincoln is taken to a boarding house
directly across the street from the theater and,
due to his 6'4" height, laid diagonally on the bed
of absent boarder, William Clark.
Shorty after 11:00 PM, Secretary of War
Edwin Stanton sets up a headquarters in the
back parlor of the house and establishes relays
between there and the War Department
telegraph operators.
He alerts General Grant and calls him back to
Washington, issues emergency directives to
police and military authorities,
orders the National Detective Police,
to initiate a manhunt for the as-yet unknown
assassin and notifies Vice President Johnson
that the President is dying.
And shortly before midnight,
Chief Justice David Kellogg Cartter begins to
hear eyewitness testimony of the crime.
But the appointed stenographer cannot
write fast enough.
General Christopher Augur: Is there anyone here who
knows the practice of shorthand writing?
Albert Daggett: Here!
There's a boarder here who does!
General Christopher Augur: Tell him that his services
are required here.
Immediately.
Albert Daggett: Jim, it's General Augur.
They want you next door.
Corporal James Tanner: Tell him I'll be right there.
[clock ticking].
[gun clicks].
Tom Hanks: Minutes after John Wilkes Booth crosses
the Navy Yard Bridge, Sergeant Cobb stops
David Herold, riding a gray roan horse.
Herold asks if a rider has passed here and
Cobb tells him, "Yes," and lets him pass.
David Herold's job on April 14th is to guide
Lewis Powell out of Washington after killing
Secretary of State Seward.
But hearing the cries of "Murder"
from Seward's house.
Fanny Seward: Murder!
He's killing my father!
Tom Hanks: Herold flees the scene,
not waiting for Powell.
He catches up with Booth at Soper's Hill,
eight miles from Washington.
And it's a little after midnight when they arrive
at a safe house for Confederate spies.
[banging on door]
David Herold: For God's sake, Lloyd,
make haste and get the things!
Tom Hanks: A tavern where weapons have been stored.
David Herold: Lloyd, the things!
Tom Hanks: A tavern owned by the mother of
Confederate courier John Surratt.
John Wilkes Booth: I cannot carry a carbine.
This little bitch fell on me.
Stumbled while jumping.
I broke my damned leg.
I need a surgeon.
We'll go to Sam Mudd's.
David Herold: But, no.
Hadn't we oughta get down south,
cross to the river, cross into Virginia.
John Wilkes Booth: I cannot go on
without a doctor.
Lloyd?
John Lloyd: Huh?
John Wilkes Booth: I am fairly certain we have
assassinated the President and Secretary Seward.
Mind your damn horse, Davey.
Let's go.
Tom Hanks: Meanwhile at the Petersen boarding house,
Corporal James Tanner, who has lost both legs
at the Second Battle of Bull Run
and is just 10 days past his 21st birthday,
is about to take the first eyewitness testimony
in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Dr. Ezra Abbott: Pulse 48, rising.
Dr. King: Respiration 21.
Dr. Barnes: Ecchymosis is setting in.
Edwin Stanton: Who are you?
Corporal James Tanner: Uh, Corporal James Tanner, sir.
Uh, you're in need of a phonologist?
Edwin Stanton: What?
Corporal James Tanner: Shorthand, sir.
Edwin Stanton: Yes, come here.
Mr. Hill will be asking questions of the witnesses
before Chief Justice Cartter.
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Tom Hanks: The assassination of
Abraham Lincoln is witnessed by
more than 1,500 people,
yet no two accounts match.
Lieutenant Crawford: A.M.S. Crawford.
Henry Hawk: Uh, William Henry Hawk.
James P. Ferguson: Uh, James P. Ferguson.
Lieutenant Crawford: I thought at first
he was intoxicated.
There was a glare in his eye.
I turned to Captain McGowan,
intending to say something in reference
to this man's manner.
James P. Ferguson: I was looking with
an opera glass to see, uh, which citizen it was,
with the President.
Lieutenant Crawford: The next instant,
the shot was fired.
[gunshot].
Lieutenant Crawford: I said at once it was the
president's box and jumped to the door.
Henry Hawk: I was on stage at the time of the firing.
[gunshot].
James P. Ferguson: And he put his hands
on the cushion of the box and
he threw his feet right over.
And he pulled part of a state flag off.
Henry Hawk: And as I looked towards him,
he came in the direction in which I was standing.
B.A. Hill: Can you describe the
man's form that jumped from the box?
Lieutenant Crawford: Yes, sir.
I saw him as he ran across the stage.
James P. Ferguson: As he ran across,
he looked right up in my face.
I, I pulled the lady down behind the banister.
Lieutenant Crawford: As he went through the scene he
threw his hand behind him and the knife
was up in sight.
Henry Hawk: He made some expression when
he came on the stage.
John Wilkes Booth: The south shall be free!
Henry Hawk: But I did not understand what.
James P. Ferguson: He stopped as he said.
John Wilkes Booth: I have done it!
James P. Ferguson: Shook the knife.
Lieutenant Crawford: His face was towards me.
He did not say a word that I heard,
but very strongly resembled the Booths.
Henry Hawk: I, I believe to the best of my
knowledge that it was John Wilkes Booth.
Still, uh, I'm not positive, uh.
Abraham Lincoln: [gasping breath].
Tom Hanks: At 4:30 AM April 15th,
Booth and Herold arrive at the home of
Dr. Samuel Mudd.
Either during his jump from the
presidential box to the stage,
or as the result of his horse falling,
Booth has sustained a clean break of his fibula,
two inches above the instep of his left foot.
John Wilkes Booth: [grunts in pain]
Tom Hanks: At the same time that Dr. Samuel Mudd
is tending to John Wilkes Booth,
30 miles away,
Abraham Lincoln is dying.
Dr. Barnes: I am inserting a Nélaton probe.
Dr. Ezra Abbott: Pulse 60.
Dr. King: Respiration 24.
Dr. Barnes: At three inches,
following the track of the ball,
there's the bone plug.
Driven in from the skull.
I can feel the ball at, at five inches.
And two inches further, fragments.
Dr. Charles Leale: The orbital plate?
Dr. Barnes: Undoubtedly.
Dr. Charles Leale: Perhaps we should summon
Mrs. Lincoln.
Dr. Barnes: Barely perceptible.
Mary Todd Lincoln: [sobbing]
[clock ticking]
[gun clicks]
Mary Todd Lincoln: [whimpering]
It's your Mary.
Mother.
It's your Molly.
I'm here little Puss.
[sobbing].
Your child-wife.
[crying].
Oh, my love.
Live but one moment to speak to me once.
To speak to our children.
You'd speak to little Tad, wouldn't you, Father?
You love him so well.
Abraham Lincoln: [gasping breath].
Tom Hanks: Mary Lincoln screams and faints.
And Secretary of War Stanton orders that she is
to be removed from the room.
As she is led away, Corporal Tanner,
transcribing his shorthand in the back parlor,
overhears her to say,
"Oh, my God and I have given my
husband to die."
Dr. Charles Augustus Leale,
the 23-year-old surgeon who has been by the
president's side for nine hours,
has scarcely let go of Lincoln's hand,
for no other reason than,
"To let him in his blindness know that he
was in touch with humanity and had a friend."
At 21 minutes and 55 seconds past 7 AM on
Saturday, April 15th, 1865,
Abraham Lincoln draws his last breath.
15 seconds later, his heart stops.
Robert Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Tom Hanks: The Reverend Phineas Gurley will recall
that those present remain motionless and silent for
several minutes after Surgeon General Barnes
says, simply.
Robert Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Tom Hanks: "He is gone."
[clock ticking]
Edwin Stanton: Now he belongs to the ages.
Robert Todd Lincoln: [sobbing].
Tom Hanks: Angels.
According to Corporal Tanner, Stanton said,
"He belongs to the angels now."
But Tanner was unable to record the moment.
His pencil had broken.
[rooster crows]
His leg splinted and with the aid of a crutch,
Booth leaves Dr. Samuel Mudd's home
late on the afternoon of Saturday, April 15th.
Already, members of the 13th New York Cavalry have
been ordered to southern Maryland in search of
Lincoln's killer.
What will soon become the largest manhunt in
American history at that time begins with troops
searching scarcely four miles from
Dr. Mudd's farmhouse.
Lost in the dark and on the edge of the Zekiah swamp,
Booth and Herold have promised to pay
tobacco farmer Oswell Swann $12 to
lead them to the home of Samuel Cox,
a leader in the Confederate underground.
John Wilkes Booth: How is it that you
know Captain Cox?
Oswell Swann: Oh, we all know Captain Cox, sir.
He a true man of the South.
He a hard man.
Beat a nigger to death hisself.
Mmm-hm.
David Herold: You, you a free nigger?
Oswell Swann: Oh, we all's free now, sir,
thanks to Marse Lincoln.
Lawd rest his soul.
But I ain't no nigger.
I's a we-sort.
David Herold: What?
Oswell Swann: A we-sort.
You know.
"We-sorta-folk."
Nigger, injun, white man, all mixed up, you know.
John Wilkes Booth: You have heard about Lincoln?
Oswell Swann: Yas suh.
He in the arms of the Lawd.
[pounds on door]
David Herold: Um, my friend and I,
we're in need of some shelter, food.
Not the nigger.
Samuel Cox: Name?
David Herold: Um, my friend, he's hurt his leg.
Samuel Cox: You're John Wilkes Booth.
I think I know what you have done.
Tom Hanks: They have arrived at about 1:00 AM
on Easter Sunday.
After talking until dawn,
Cox is sympathetic, but no fool.
He will put Booth and Herold in touch with a
Confederate smuggler who will get them across the
Potomac and into Virginia.
But Cox will not allow Lincoln's assassin to stay
in his home.
So Booth and Herold are directed to wait in a pine
thicket just across Cox's property line.
They don't know it yet, but they will wait there
for the next five days and four nights.
John Wilkes Booth: Davey!
Don't you know I can't get on?
David Herold: Help him on his horse.
John Wilkes Booth: [groans in pain].
$12?
Oswell Swann: Yas suh.
John Wilkes Booth: Thought you said Captain Cox was a
man of Southern feeling.
David Herold: You say anything about this,
and you won't live long.
Tom Hanks: John Wilkes Booth
has 10 days to live.
[clock ticking].
[gun clicks].
Tom Hanks: On April 17th Colonel Lafayette Baker,
the head of the National Detective Police,
asks Alexander Gardner
to make copies of three pictures.
It is the first time in history that photographs
have been used on a wanted poster.
Thanks in part to papers found in Booth's room at
the National Hotel, Lewis Powell and Mary Surratt
are jailed in Washington and George Atzerodt,
who simply got drunk and wandered away from the
Kirkwood Hotel, rather than attempt to kill
Vice President Andrew Johnson,
is discovered hiding-out in his cousin's home in
Germantown, Maryland.
Elements of the 8th Illinois Cavalry
and the U.S. 22nd Colored Troops join the
13th New York Cavalry in southern Maryland.
And two members of the National Detective Police,
Lieutenant Luther Baker and
Colonel Everton Conger,
accompany 26 members of the 16th New York Cavalry
under the command of Lieutenant Edward Doherty.
John Wilkes Booth: Our cause being almost lost,
something decisive and great must be done.
I struck boldly and not as the papers say.
I shouted "sic semper" before I fired.
In jumping, broke my leg.
This night, before the deed,
I wrote a long article and left it for one of the
Editors of the National Intelligencer in which I
fully set forth the reasons for our proceedings.
He or the government.
Tom Hanks: The first of Booth's two journal
entries ends there.
He is interrupted by Thomas Jones,
Samuel Cox's foster brother.
Cox has asked Jones to see to it that Booth gets
across the Potomac to Virginia.
In spite of the $100,000 bounty being offered,
Jones keeps Booth and Herold hidden and fed
while government troops occupy and
sweep through the region.
Later, Jones will claim that Booth's singular
desire was for newspapers.
So it is here, in the pine thicket,
that Booth reads the horrific accounts,
the lurid details, and bloody result of
Lewis Powell's attack on Secretary of State
William Seward.
Fanny Seward: [screams].
Murder!
He's killing my father!
Murder!
Help!
[screams].
[sobbing].
James Powell: I'm mad.
I'm mad, I'm mad!
Emerick Hansell: [screams].
William Bell: Murder!
Stop that man!
Murderer!
Tom Hanks: Miraculously,
Secretary of State William Seward
is still alive, as are all of the victims
of Lewis Powell's savage attack.
And George Atzerodt's intended victim,
Vice President Andrew Johnson,
has been sworn in as the 17th President
of the United States.
But as Abraham Lincoln's body lies in state
in the East Room of the White House,
John Wilkes Booth lies on a bed of dirt and pine
needles and reads the worst reviews of his life.
A man who was raised on Shakespeare is brought
to his knees by his own hubris.
In one fell swoop, with one grand gesture,
he has changed the course of American history
and dramatically jeopardized the fate
of the South that he loved so dearly.
[horse neighs]
[search party passes]
Tom Hanks: Booth's tragedy is nearly complete.
On the night of April 20th,
Thomas Jones leads Booth and Herold to a boat.
The current is strong.
There are naval patrols searching the
Potomac for the fugitives.
John Wilkes Booth has less than six days to live.
[clock ticking].
[gun clicks].
Tom Hanks: On April 18th, Abraham Lincoln's dream of
an assassinated president lying in state in the
East Room of the White House is fully realized.
On April 21st, Lincoln's body leaves Washington by
train to travel 1,654 miles to Oak Ridge Cemetery
in Springfield, Illinois.
After one failed attempt, it's in the early morning
hours of April 23rd that John Wilkes Booth and
David Herold finally cross the Potomac and
land in Virginia.
As he writes in his diary, "With every man's hand
against me, for doing what Brutus was honored for,
looked upon as a common cutthroat.
Abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me."
And on April 24th Booth and Herold arrive at the
farm of Richard Garrett.
Booth presents himself as James W. Boyd,
a Confederate soldier wounded at the
Battle of Petersburg and the family takes them in.
But the very next day, Booth is writing in his
diary when word comes that Union cavalry are
heading toward the Garrett farm.
Booth tells Herold to get his pistols and
the two men flee to hide in the woods.
When they return,
Garrett's suspicions have been aroused.
Tonight they will not be welcome to
sleep in the house.
Tonight they will sleep in the tobacco barn.
John Wilkes Booth: Tonight I try to escape
these bloodhounds once more.
I have too great a soul to die a criminal.
David Herold: I don't want to die, Booth.
I don't want to kill no one.
John Wilkes Booth: I do not wish to
shed a drop of blood.
But I must fight the course.
'Tis all that's left to me.
Tom Hanks: At 2:30 AM on the morning of April 26th,
the tobacco barn at Garrett's farm is
surrounded by 26 members of the
16th New York Cavalry.
Lafayette Baker: We know who you are!
John Wilkes Booth: Who are you?
What do you want?
Lafayette Baker: We want you!
And we know who you are!
Give up your arms and come out directly!
John Wilkes Booth: Well, my boy?
David Herold: We have no choice.
John Wilkes Booth: You God damn coward.
You would leave me now?
Go, go on.
I would not have you stay with me.
This is a hard case!
It may be that I am to be taken by my friends!
Lafayette Baker: Be assured,
we are not your friends!
John Wilkes Booth: You have the sound
of a brave man,
an honorable man.
I am a cripple.
I've got but one leg.
If you will withdraw your men in line 100 yards from
the door, I will come out and fight you.
Lafayette Baker: We did not come here to fight!
We came to make you a prisoner!
John Wilkes Booth: You put any more kindling there;
I'll put a ball through you.
I could have picked off three or four of your men
by now if I wished to do so.
Draw off your men 50 yards.
Lafayette Baker: I will not!
John Wilkes Booth: Well, my brave boys!
You can prepare a stretcher for me!
Go, go out.
Save yourself if you can.
Captain!
There is a man in here who wishes to
surrender awful bad!
Lafayette Baker: Let him hand out his arms!
You carry a carbine and you must hand it out!
John Wilkes Booth: I declare before my
maker that this man is innocent of any crime.
Upon the word and honor of a gentleman,
he has no arms.
The arms are mine and I've got them!
Doherty: Show your hands!
Put out your hands!
David Herold: Booth.
John Wilkes Booth: Go!
One more stain on the old banner!
[laughs].
Make quick work of it, Captain.
Shoot me through the heart!
[gunshot].
[door creaks].
Conger: He's shot himself!
Lafayette Baker: No, he did not.
Doherty: Quick, get him out!
Get him out of here!
Private Parody!
Man: Pick him up!
Conger: Speak, speak!
John Wilkes Booth: Tell my mother that I
die for my country.
Conger: For your country?
Is that what you say?
John Wilkes Booth: Yes.
Conger: Here, get him away from the fire.
Let's go.
Man: Let's go.
Let's move!
Come on!
Go!
Man 2: Got him?
Set him against the wall, soldiers.
Prop him up.
Get him up!
Doherty: Where's he shot?
Conger: In the neck.
I told you, he shot himself.
Doherty: Nah, Corbett did.
Give me that.
I saw him through the barn planks.
He claimed he was raising his rifle against us.
Sergeant Boston Corbett shot him.
Tom Hanks: In Washington,
Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt
will soon be joined by David Herold,
and all of them will be held in custody aboard the
ironclad monitors USS Saugus and USS Montauk.
And tomorrow, their photographs will be taken
and the public will see, for the first time,
the faces of the men who conspired to decapitate
the government of the United States.
Now, it is the morning of April 26th.
And John Wilkes Booth has only hours to live.
[clock ticking].
[gun clicks].
Conger: There's nothing in your throat.
No blood.
Tom Hanks: The ball that passes through Booth's
neck severs his spinal cord between the 4th and
5th cervical vertebrae,
paralyzing him from the neck down.
John Wilkes Booth: K, kill m, kill me.
Conger: We don't want to kill you.
We want you to get well.
John Wilkes Booth: [gurgling, gasping]
Ha, hands.
Let me, lift them.
Let me see my hands.
Doherty: He asked to see his hands.
John Wilkes Booth: Useless, useless.
[slow, rasping breath].
Tom Hanks: Shortly after dawn on Wednesday,
April 26th, 1865, John Wilkes Booth
draws his last breath.
His belongings are wrapped in paper.
His body is sewn into a saddle blanket
and loaded onto wagon, then a steamer,
then a tugboat bound for the Washington Navy Yard.
Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan board
the ironclad monitors USS Saugus and Montauk to make
collodion glass plate photographs of the men who
conspired first to kidnap and then to
kill Abraham Lincoln.
George Atzerodt, who lost his nerve
and got drunk rather than attempt to kill
Vice President Johnson,
is condemned to die.
Alexander Gardner: Mr. Lewis Powell.
Have a seat.
Tom Hanks: After his savage but failed attempt
on the life of Secretary of State Seward,
Lewis Powell hides in Washington for three days
before wandering into Mary Surratt's
boarding house and into the arms of the police.
Alexander Gardner: And don't you move now, laddie!
Tom Hanks: Powell is sentenced to death.
On April 27th, David Herold is brought
aboard the USS Montauk.
The young man who followed John Wilkes Booth
to the bitter end is condemned to die.
And at the request of Secretary of State Stanton,
Alexander Gardner takes one more picture
on April 27th.
Lafayette Baker: Dr. Frederick May,
can you positively identify the body?
Dr. May: Is there a scar upon the back of its neck?
Lafayette Baker: There is.
Dr. Barnes: Let me describe it before it's
seen by me.
It's on the left side and has the appearance more
like the cicatrix of a burn than that of a
surgical operation.
It was occasioned when I removed a fibroid
tumor from his neck.
It is exactly as you have described it.
Dr. May: Yes, that is he.
That is John Wilkes Booth.
Alexander Gardner: Gentlemen,
please stand where you are and perfectly still.
One, two, three.
Tom Hanks: James Wardell,
one of Lafayette Baker's detectives,
takes the single glass plate and
delivers it to Lafayette Baker.
It is presumed that Baker gives it to
Secretary of War Stanton.
But no one knows.
Alexander Gardner's photograph of the autopsy
of John Wilkes Booth has never been found.
The trial of the conspirators is a
military tribunal.
366 witnesses testify.
And all of the defendants are found guilty.
And in attempting to create a definitive record
of the people and events surrounding the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln,
Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan are
given extraordinary and exclusive access.
On July 7th, 1865, the sentences are carried out
for the first assassination of a
president in the history of the nation.
And Mary Surratt becomes the first woman ever to be
executed by the United States Federal Government
when she joins Powell, Atzerodt and Herold on a
scaffold at the old Arsenal Penitentiary.
In an interview 10 years later,
the former President of the Confederacy,
Jefferson Davis, states simply,
"Next to the destruction of the Confederacy,
the death of Abraham Lincoln was the
darkest day the South has ever known."
Tad Lincoln learned of his father's assassination
while attending "Aladdin" at Grover's Theater.
He died of heart failure six years later.
Briefly committed to an asylum by her only
surviving son, Robert, Mary Todd Lincoln died in
Springfield, 17 years after the assassination
of her husband.
John Wilkes Booth's body was buried in a
storage room at the old Arsenal Penitentiary,
then in a warehouse and finally interred in
Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland,
four years after the killing of Abraham Lincoln.
10 weeks after the President's death,
the Civil War was over.
And Lincoln's Gettysburg declaration was realized.
That, "Government of the people, by the people,
"for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."
== sync, corrected by elderman ==