Episode 623: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part III - Sic Semper Tyranus

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That's when the cannibalism started. Mustard don't do no bad. Mustard ain't high quality. Mustard's not high calorie. If you're driving down the road and you're eating mustard like with a spoon and it's too spicy and you cough and you accidentally pull your car into another lane because you're chopping from the mustard, then it could be dangerous. That's not the mustard's fucking problem. It sounds like extenuating.

circumstances that surrounded the consumption of the mustard mustard's too spicy but sometimes it's not sometimes mustard's kind of sweet it is and also i don't find a yellow mustard to be spicy at all honey mustard yeah honey mustard yellow mustard and honey mustard Go fuck. You don't like... Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You come in hot the last two episodes because we talked about, on Side Stories, he's not into Ferrero Rochers.

No, I actually don't like him either. Yeah, well, it's nothing to like. Yeah. Unbelievable. It's a stupid fucking snowball. I don't like hazelnuts. I'm starting to understand John Wilkes Booth. Just in terms of being a man alone. God, are you calling me Lincoln? Yeah. I'm a man alone. Do you want to share a bed? We are going to on the road soon. I only sleep on the bed with my best friend. I ordered a twin bed for my twin.

man. Yes, but we soon won't be twins when I'm inside you. We'll be one man. One man in charge of a split nation. Split ass, if you will. I'm coming. I'm gone. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zebrowski, the split man. I am the split man, and I am happy to be two halves, ready to come together onto the penis. of the greatest living American president when he was alive. Does that cover it? Yeah, I think so. And we have Ed.

Twin bed Larson with us in the studio as well. Please share my bed. Get in my bed. I've got two covers if that'll change your mind. God, I can't even sit on a twin bed. Dude, I've been... pillow nuts lately. We've got nine pillows. Right now I'm a five pillow man. I'm a five pillow man right now. One under my head, one gripped in my hands, one under my ass, one between my knees, one between my feet. One between your feet. Interesting.

I've been putting it under my feet lately. If I sleep on my back, I've been putting it under my feet and I've been so comfy. Isn't that nice? Isn't that great? We're 40 years old, guys. I was just thinking 20 years ago. This would not have been the conversation. He had whatever sweat-filled pillows he found in a fucking orphanage. I was like, oh, my towel works fine. Why should I get a pillow? I had one pillow. I had one blanket. I remember the pillow that I had during the Cowman years.

the one because i always i would always come in like covered and like makeup and like blood fake blood and i would never fucking wash it off before i passed out yeah so i just had this horrible pillow tricolor pillow that was also very Very brown. And nicotine yellow. My college pillow, if you took the cover off of it, looked like a bag of brown rice. You know what I mean? It looked like a burlap sack filled with greasy ducks.

Like, it was just the worst thing. And then a woman would sleep next to it every once in a blue moon. Those poor ladies. They didn't know any better. Here we are.

John Wilkes Booth, The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Part 3. So when we last left John Wilkes Booth, he had just convinced his co-conspirators in the failed plot to kidnap Lincoln that the best course of action following the fall of the Confederate capital of Richmond would be to simply murder the president along with various members of the executive...

branch. Lot of shit's going on right now. Yeah, just so you know, if you haven't listened to the first two episodes, we're killing Lincoln! We're killing fucking Lincoln! I can't wait to do it again! Well, as far as motivation goes, Booth and his Confederate buddies had gotten quite riled up by Lincoln's mere suggestion in a speech made shortly before he was killed that maybe some black people should have the right to vote at some point in the future. Sounds vague, though.

Well, he was somewhat specific about it. He said, I think the exact quote was something along the lines of men who had served in the war and the extremely intelligent. You don't want to throw too much at everyone at once. Well, I mean, that was actually what they argued against his cabinet at the time. He's like, you're doing too much. Like you just ended the war.

Give it some time. But Lincoln was like, no, I'm going to fuck. I'm going to go out and I'm going to say what I feel. I'm going to say what I believe. Because I asked that question about the idea of how did people really feel about slavery at the time? And I got some very interesting responses. But the idea that it was way more.

just people didn't people in the north just kind of live with it and didn't think about it but then once it all became like you're like oh but now we're gonna let black people vote yeah and it seemed to be being an abolitionist was cool it was all it was kind of it was like it was hip

Underground. Yeah. Do you think that maybe there were just like less farms up north? That was part of it. I mean, there were quite a few farms up north at that point. Like, you know, American industry hadn't really, like, kicked into high gear. Yeah, it's like apples and corn and shit. You never see the hair, Joel? orchards of New Jersey? Like, there is some incredible stuff. It's so beautiful. The Tressem Farms outside of Newark. Yeah, I mean, America at large was very agrarian.

uh prior to the civil war fucking agrarian means nothing oh my god so when i went and saw lincoln in the theater i went and saw it in new jersey right when it came out and you know the scene where they're all voting on the 13th amendment yeah And then when they got to New Jersey and New Jersey voted no on the 13th Amendment, the entire audience just went, oh! You could just hear in the back, oh. That's horrible.

Well, John Wilkes Booth had also found a way to insert himself into history when he rationalized the murder of Lincoln by comparing the president to Julius Caesar. In Booth's view, Lincoln was a tyrant in need of a Brutus. Because Booth believed that Lincoln planned to subjugate and destroy the United States with a particularly harsh focus on the southern states that had made John Wilkes Booth a star in the acting world.

Now, unlike most straight men on the internet, I don't really care about the Roman Empire that much. Was Julius Caesar a bad man? Julius Caesar, I believe in actual history, it was obviously vast and complicated. But in the play, like this is more based upon the concept of Julius Caesar in. William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Yeah. That shows him as like, he's kind of like an obtuse man who is kind of just bent on his own power. He doesn't seem necessarily evil. He just is so incredibly.

And at the time, they felt that a truly wise man would basically refuse the empire because then he would become a dictatorship. And this is all about Julius Caesar slowly but surely coming. around the idea of what if I am emperor and a bunch of people deciding that's not a great idea. All right.

Now, Booth did not have a specific plan in mind when he pitched the assassination plot to his little band of co-conspirators. From what it seems like, the only part of the plan they had worked out at least halfway was how they were going to escape the Union following the murders. We're going up!

If you'll remember, the kidnapping plan had involved Booth reaching the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia by traveling at night and stopping at various safe harbors during the day. Places like John Surratt's Confederate safe house tavern just outside. of DC and Dr. Mudd's plantation in Maryland.

But once the plan changed from kidnapping to assassination, John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators planned to use these locations as hideouts after they escaped Washington, D.C. Although I'm not sure what good going to Richmond was going to do because it had fallen to grand. forces a month earlier.

They had a lot of kind of hasty made plans that had to be redone last minute. Yeah, there was a lot of we'll figure it out laters. Also, he just loved Richmond, right? Yeah. Now that I have a lot to do with it. Richmond was where he had first gained fame. And he had said that he had found.

solace in the hierarchy of Richmond, which had, of course, fallen apart in the years since because of the Emancipation Proclamation. Also, John Surratt's Confederate Safe House Tavern. Bad name. You know, people are going to find it immediately. You know what's a good name for something like that? John's place. Yeah. Go on down to John Surratt's Confederate Tavern. Don't worry, your hate. is safe.

Well, the problem here, though, is that from what I can tell, the actual Confederates who were halfway funding Booth's plot from Canada, they'd never really gotten around to planning where the next safe house was going to be after Dr. Mudd's farm. It was still...

quite a long ways from there to Virginia. This, I think, points to two possibilities. Either the plot to kill Lincoln to trade him for POWs was never taken seriously by the Confederacy, Or small operations like booths were disorganized, throw everything at the wall of fares that were never really expected to work. But they were very good for introducing an element of chaos into the war. My opinion is it's both. Yeah. It's a Hail Mary at the end of the game. Yeah.

But whether Booth knew what he and his men were going to do after reaching Dr. Mudd's farm or not, the opportunity to murder President Abraham Lincoln presented itself to John Wilkes Booth on the morning of April 14th, 1865, when Booth dropped by. Ford's Theater to pick up his mail. Yes, I have wooden teeth monthly. Excellent. I love to receive that. Oh, God.

Damn, they found me another health care bill. Throw that one out. Ah, very good, very good. Another wonderful series of coupons. Two kills. Excellent. Oh, the student loan officers from my performing arts school have found me once more! Will I have escaped this tyranny? While Booth was chatting with one of the owners, a messenger from the White House arrived requesting a reservation for the presidential box.

The Ford brothers, who did not share Booth's Confederate sympathies, happily agreed and arranged for the box to be decorated in patriotic fashion for the president's visit. I'm seeing red, white, and blue ribbons. I'm seeing a big fancy chair. hoping we get a taco bar, every single thing the president could need or want. Yes, Edwin, that's the best idea I've heard all week. You're right. What if we would have a margarita bar? Yes.

Mexican-themed indeed. He would love it. Old stinking Lincoln is going to be having a time of his life tonight. It's been on the show. And it was a big night as well, as far as being patriotic, because I believe that it was the anniversary of the Confederate surrender of Fort Sumter, which Fort Sumter had been the battle that had kicked off the entire civilization.

War. Oh, I thought it was all for Earth Day. Yeah. Yes. Super into it. But Booth, of course, began salivating when he heard the president was coming. See, since Booth was a regular actor at Ford's Theater and Lincoln was a regular patron, Booth already had a plan worked out for how he could best murder the president during a play and escape unscathed.

The presidential box was located through an outer door that led to a small vestibule, which meant the booth could shield himself from the audience whilst separating himself from Lincoln's box. Therefore, he could wait in the darkness. for just the right moment to step into history. I know that I have the perfect idea. Yes. I shall don a sheet. And I shall present myself to the president as the ghost of his father.

Now I will tell him, oh, I am so disappointed in you, Abe. You gay man. I'm so disappointed in you. Oh, I hate you, Abe. Oh, oh, oh, oh. And his sheer disappointment. He will fling himself from the booth and impale himself into the orchestra rows, therefore making the president be the only president to commence suicide while unawful.

We end up fighting at the Confederacy in one fell swoop. Lincoln's box was often empty, too, because it was the one between Mary Todd's knees. That's disgusting. And you're a piece of shit. You're a fucking piece of shit. She was a well-sexed woman. Abraham Lincoln knew what he had to do. He knew he had to make love to her to convince her he's straight. And it took a second, but once he got into it, he was pretty convincing.

Bye. There's evidence that Booth had plans to kill Lincoln, no matter where Lincoln chose to have his next night out, whether it was at Ford's or at some other venue in D.C., because Booth had knowledge of and access to multiple theaters in town.

See, the day before the assassination, Booth had dropped by to see the mother of one of his co-conspirators, the Confederate sympathizer Mary Surratt. And Booth had told Mary to tell the tavern keeper at Surratt's tavern, his first safe house, to quote, Have the shooting irons ready! It just all has to be so dramatic. Yes, please, and then bring me the stabbing sticks. And then I shall have... I need some burning liquid. I don't know names of things. Okay?

I'm an actor. Normally they write the words down for me to thrat and fret. But as it happened, Ford's theater was Lincoln's choice on the evening of the 14th. So when Booth learned of Lincoln's plans, he visited his co-conspirators one by one to relate their parts in the plan, as most of them were still in Washington, D.C.

waiting for their orders to strike. First, Booth instructed George Atzerodt, the filthy German drunk, to register for a room at the Kirkwood Hotel with the purpose of assassinating Vice President Andrew Johnson. The Kirkwood was at that time the temporary home of the vice president, who was staying there following his election until more suitable quarters could be found.

There was, however, a very good reason why Andrew Johnson was still without housing three months into his vice presidency, and it all went back to Lincoln's second inauguration. I'm just kind of a guy that likes to live out of a suitcase. See, Vice President Andrew Johnson, who would, of course, be president following Lincoln's murder, he was brand new to...

the Republican ticket in the election of 1864. Lincoln's first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, was a radical Republican from Maine who would strongly encourage the Emancipation Proclamation in addition to... really going forth with its calling for the arming of freed black people. Wow. He's like, give them guns. Give them weapons. Let them defend themselves. Hannibal Hamlin's a fucking G, dude. Yeah, he is. It's very Tom Morello of him. It is.

But as I said last episode, Lincoln's reelection had not been a lock. The army actually had trouble keeping recruits after the Emancipation Proclamation, because while northern whites had no trouble fighting for the Union, the idea of dying for the rights of enslaved black people was another highly racist matter. altogether. The key is to never tell Americans that one thing that you do could potentially help.

somebody else. If you just be like, this helps you. You just have to tell an American it helps you. And then that's how you get them on board. Or you just don't tell them at all. You just tell them it helps freedom. Just tell them it helps freedom just so long as it's not directly benefiting somebody else, especially someone who is not white. Also, just kill forward. That works too. Kill forward.

So, Lincoln made a compromise. He replaced his abolitionist vice president with a slave-owning senator from Tennessee, Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson had actually given up his 14 slaves just a little over a year before he... he was elected as Lincoln's VP. I'll tell you what, nothing's been the same since I let go of my precious slaves. Yeah, I call them slaves. It's fun to do. I do a little kind of funny little kind of innocent little child name for the whole.

fucking bad shit I'm the vice president I'm just here to make sure he fucking gets shot first Andrew Johnson, however, was either somewhat terrified at the very real prospect that he could be president if Lincoln was killed, or he had no respect whatsoever for the Lincoln administration. Because on the day of Lincoln's second inauguration, Johnson had in a day drinking session for the ages.

With an extremely red face and a terrible case of whiskey breath, Johnson gave a rambling, nearly incoherent 20-minute speech in which he said the phrase, I announce here today no less than 20... times. All while the VP he replaced, Hannibal Hamlin, tugged on his coat and urged Johnson to wrap it up. Shut the fuck up, Hannibal Hamlin. Hammy fucking Hammy Hammy, Mr. Hannibal Hammy.

Fuck you. I'm the vice president of the United States. I announce here today, everybody shut the fuck up. I announce here today, everybody stop giving me fucking shit. Right? Because I'm the damn vice president. and they don't put a vice in there. If I was supposed to do all the good things, you get out there right now and cheer today. Everybody's fucking, jeez, fuck your mother. I'm fucking, I'll do whatever I want. I'll do whatever I want.

Once Johnson took his mostly inaudible oath of office. Yeah, I'll do it. I'll do what you need me to do. He grabbed the Bible he swore upon, faced the audience, and said, quote, I kissed the book in the face of the United States. And then he actually kissed the Bible. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck yeah, man. Yeah. Oh, so much paper. Oh, cut my tongue. Oh, fuck.

Johnson was so drunk that he couldn't administer the oath of office to the incoming senators. And during Lincoln's second inaugural address, Johnson sat with his hat over his face. Take a little nap. had to be carried out of the inaugural ball. Anybody else know fucking Lincoln's gay? I know he's a lavender fellow. That's what they say in the newspaper. I tell you what, he's got a bit more brown to him. You can't tell me to leave. Fire myself.

Johnson's drunkenness at the inauguration was not a secret. The Lancaster, Pennsylvania newspaper actually printed a phonetic transcription of Johnson's slurred speech complete with hiccups, while the London Times reported that anyone else...

would have been arrested for being intoxicated in the Senate chamber, which I didn't know was a law. That's awesome. Yeah. As such, Johnson had disappeared from the public eye in shame and hadn't returned to Washington, D.C. until the occasion of Robert That meant that Lincoln and Johnson had only met twice in two highly unproductive and highly unpleasant meetings that were held just days before Lincoln's death.

death i think lincoln called him that miserable man and said i can't imagine what kind of trouble he's going to cause in my second term all sorts of shit but you never want you're not gonna be around anywhere to fucking to hear about it sorry is that fucking spoilers let me just keep him liquored up so he does nothing yeah yeah that is true yeah well that's the thing is that i don't think he was an alcoholic at least that's what lincoln said he's like

He had one bad day. Bad day for Mr. Johnson. Yeah, he just did not like Abraham Lincoln. That's what I would say if I just picked the drunk as my vice president. It's just today. Don't worry about it. He's going to be fine. He's going to be fine. It was only the day. He was inaugurated as vice president of the United States. We're all allowed to have a bad day. Yeah, dude. It's just one day out of his year.

But that's all to say that this was why Andrew Johnson was staying at the Kirkwood Hotel on April 14th, where John Wilkes Booth figured that Johnson would be an easy target for the consistently unwashed German immigrant, George Adsara. You hate this guy. He's a fucking dick. He's a smelly fucking asshole. Yeah. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid, all in one place. Seems amazing, right? It's because it is.

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So after John Wilkes Booth set at Surratt on the path towards assassinating Vice President Johnson on the same night that Booth would assassinate President Lincoln, Booth returned to Ford's Theater at 6 p.m. while the actors and crew were having supper. See, Booth wanted to ensure that he would not be disturbed during the assassination and that nobody would follow him after the shot. So he entered the vestibule to the president's box when no one was around and closed the outer door behind him.

Booth then took a knife and cut a small square in the plastic wall with the purpose of creating a socket that could hold a wooden brace that would keep the door jammed shut. Booth, of course, would have his own method for escaping the presidential box after the assassination. Booth then took the stock of a music stand and tested his method for trapping the president. And there! Another rehearsal, please! And?

Action. I got you. Yes. And once satisfied that the brace would hold, he removed it and placed it on the floor where it wouldn't be noticed. Now, after setting up the scene at Ford's Theater, Booth left to meet the co-conspirators who would carry out the third assassination of the night. At 7 p.m.,

Booth took a meeting with the cruise muscle, the 21-year-old Confederate soldier Lewis Powell, along with the cruise geography expert, David Herold. Oh, if you're such an expert, what do you call it when a mountain suddenly gets flat? When the mountain gets flat, you mean like when the big one gets little? I don't think he's a real geographer. You're a plant! I know not to go north. It's also...

What it's called is a plateau, which is also what my brother's career is doing right now. Funny, right? It's a funny geography joke, yeah. It's kill us many presidents. Bye. Powell's assignment would be to go to the home of Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward. Billy Suey! And murder him in his bed. Harold, meanwhile, would wait outside, then use his geography experience to lead Powell out of town.

town to a rendezvous point in Maryland where all four assassins would continue on to Dr. Mudd's plantation. Now, as far as why Secretary of State Seward was targeted, he'd been a vociferous abolitionist prior to the war and had argued consistently against any compromise with the South concerning slavery. Seward had also earned the ire of Booth's beloved conspiracist Know-Nothing Party by making appeals to the Catholic population.

From Booth's Shakespearean view of the situation, William Seward was Abraham Lincoln's Mark Antony. By Booth's estimation, Seward was the one who was really running the country, and leaving him alive would have allowed Seward to step into the power vacuum. So, Seward had to die that very night, along with Johnson and Lincoln.

Oh, vociferous abolitionists. I had a great cocktail there in Salt Lake City. It was called the Andrew Johnson. Now, at the very least, Abraham Lincoln's last day on earth was a good one. Robert E. Lee's armies had disbanded, and Union General Ulysses S. Grant was visiting the president in Washington, D.C., where the two men were having a victory lap of sorts, even though the war wasn't technically over.

Well, over 175,000 Confederate soldiers were still scattered throughout the South, still under command. And Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, was stubbornly trying to continue the war after the fall of Richmond by giving orders from a... boxcar in greensboro north carolina you tell that bag of rice get to the front line we gotta do it we still got a chance boys we still got a chance i believe it sir we ain't had rice now in two years don't you quit lying to me

Oh, we got spaghetti. Yeah. We did. Sir, do you want these hobos in your boxcar? Yes, I do. That's my cabinet. Yes, I love them both. I love Razor John. And I love, I think his name, honestly, the last I heard his name is just Tugs. No, that's Cigarette Bill. Yeah, Tugs died. Man Tug. That's right.

But even though there were still Confederates itching to continue the fight, Lincoln was still exuberant over the news coming from the front and was therefore in the mind to go see a play that night with his wife Mary Todd so he could blow off a little steam.

Naturally, Lincoln invited General Grant to join at the theater with his wife, but Grant maintained that he and his wife wanted to leave Washington that night to visit their children in New Jersey. Others have suggested, however, that this was merely an excuse.

See, Grant's wife had been on the business end of a Mary Todd Lincoln blowout a few weeks earlier, in which Mary Todd had made a woman cry for riding her horse too close to the president while the Lincolns were visiting General Grant at a military base.

Therefore, Grant's wife wasn't really feeling the idea of a hang with Abe and Mary Todd, especially since, in the middle of Mary Todd's blowout, Mary Todd had openly accused General Grant and his wife of engaging in a plot to steal the White House. She might have been right about all of this, right? Yeah, yeah. This guy's riding too close to Lincoln. She's worried he's going to get killed.

Turns out he's right. There's people mechanizing against it in the background, wondering whether or not they're all jockeying for a position, trying to figure out whether or not he's going to die or make it through the presidency. She was correct as well. And then didn't Grant switch political parties to win the presidency from Johnson? I do believe-

So yeah, she might have had some insight. But you were forgetting, Eddie, she also was a crying woman. Which is far more important as far as the historians are concerned. concern no one liked it and people mary todd she had issues obviously she did no no mary i think a lot of it did have to do i mean mary todd definitely had her problems but i think it also had a lot to do with the fact that she was married to the president during, you know,

The hardest time in American history. Her son, Willie, had died like three years earlier at the age of 11. No, what I'm saying is that I think, you know, people do portray Mary Todd Lincoln as, you know, the so-called hysterical. woman i think it might be a little more fair to say that mary todd lincoln had been dealing with a lot of shit yeah yeah definitely and also you know she had other kids die too yeah

You also had to kiss Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, and I must have fucked her chin up with all the whiskers. It's rough, dude. Also, you know what I forgot to bring up? Guess what's also coming up this week? They're killing the penny. What? What? They're wiping out the penny. We're not getting the penny anymore. Really? Lincoln's dead.

Again. He's on the dollar bill. Five dollar bill. No, a five dollar bill. Yeah, but I barely use those. Five dollar bills? Yeah, I use pennies. I like to throw them at people on the street. I like to throw them for my car. Well, now you can start collecting them and they're worth something. Wow.

You know what they say about pennies? Saving them makes sense. I read that on a Bazooka Joe comic. It's weird. I read that same thing and it was just on the side. Of a bazooka. Well, Grant begged off by saying that they needed to go see their kids. And Mary Todd instead invited the assistant secretary of war, who also made an excuse by pretending to be busy with work.

Finally, though, Mary Todd settled on Major Henry Rathbone, a friend of the Lincolns. I'll come. He didn't ask me yet. He asked two other people in front of me. I don't know why. You're not busy. right nope oh good old hank rathbone no hank rathbone ain't never got nothing going on i've never had a plan oh boy the theater Can I bring my whistle? Yes, you can bring your whistle. And also joining Major Rathbone was his fiancée.

And so they became the Lincoln's box mates at the theater on April 14th. Sadly, though, the lives of Major Rathbone and his future wife would be forever changed by their night at the theater with the Lincolns. Rathbone's mental state would steadily decline in the decades following Lincoln's death due to his perceived inability.

to save the president from John Wilkes Booth. In reality, there was absolutely nothing he could have done. His head kept going from the front to the right. From the front to the right from the front to the right from the front.

To the right, his hat wasn't there. His head exploded from the front to the right. From the front to the right. This slam poetry open mic's fucking amazing. It's so good. In a fit of madness, 18 years later, Major Rathbone shot and murdered his wife in an attempted family annihilation before attempting suicide by stabbing himself five times in the chest. Rathbone, however, survived and was convicted and committed to an asylum for the criminally insane where he died in 1911. Cool.

I had never, I did not know, but I had never heard of that. The guy that was in the fucking booth with Lincoln murdered his wife and tried to stab himself in the chest 20 years later because he was so upset about it. You know what it is? guy couldn't even annihilate his own family seriously what a failure you know it's interesting i feel like this is one of those

Where it shows how nerds, how big of nerds we've become. Where you're like, it really brings history to life. It's the truth. It's the idea of you don't, I don't think about it in terms of like, you just always. Think about it as like paintings in a museum or like pages in a history book. And you're like, no, he was fucking traumatized by watching the guy blow his brains out and watch it spin the whole country into fucking total chaos so that he had his own fashion family annihilation.

breakdown yeah yeah he was like how many people throughout history could be described as all fucked up he's one just imagine stabbing yourself in the chest five times and just not being able to but he finished the job he did he was

Really, genuinely sad. I think that he didn't really want it. Look at Artie Lang. He lived. Yeah, he did. And that was 13. He's the only one of that entire crew. Dirty work. Still fucking alive. I was thinking about.

that the other day it's crazy yeah dirty work incredible movie yeah even jack warden's dead well he was old he was very old Now, even outside of family annihilations, there's a lot of speculation as to what would have happened if General Grant had attended Ford's theater that night instead of Major Rathbone.

Some say that Grant's military retinue would have prevented Booth from reaching President Lincoln with a pistol. But... Grant and Lincoln had attended a performance at Ford's Theater just two months earlier, and there is no evidence that guards were posted outside their box, nor that a full military escort had accompanied them. So...

In reality, it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. There's also speculation that Lincoln didn't even want to go to the theater that night, but that Mary Todd had insisted. Two months after the assassination, however, Mary Todd wrote in a letter that she'd actually had a headache that night and had wanted to stay at home, but had agreed to go to the play because her husband, quote, had his mind fixed on some relaxation.

In fact, by Mary Todd's recollection, Lincoln's mood on the day of his death was quote, and this is a direct quote, so gay. Gay, of course, meaning happy in the parlance of that time. My mom used to say that about people she saw on the television and stuff that she thought was gay. She'd be like, he's happy and lighthearted. Happy pride. Yep. He was, in her words. boyish and supremely cheerful, much as he'd been in the old days before the war.

And the death of their 11-year-old son, Willie, three years earlier. Ha-ha, boo-hoo, that's what I did then. Now I'm going, ha-ha, boo-hoo. At least he died happy. Lincoln and Mary Todd had even taken a relaxing carriage ride on the afternoon of the 14th.

to the Navy Yard. Interestingly, the Navy Yard was Lincoln's number three visitation spot during his presidency behind the White House and soldiers' home, having been host to no less than 60 visits from the president in the first three years of the war. There's nothing like sitting down on a bench and watching a bunch of sailors tossing ropes. In the Navy.

Now, Abraham Lincoln was a massive fan of the theater. God, everything about it. I know. I know. It's just like... Credible interior decorator. Wonderful dresser. Excellent cook. Yeah, actually, it wasn't... Cressley. He was the one who coined the term zhuzh. Isn't that incredible?

Well, Lincoln was, as I said, a massive fan of the theater, and he'd seen shows at Ford's countless times prior to the night of his death. In fact, Lincoln had already seen the play that was being performed on April 14th multiple times. That play, of course, was a satire. called Our American Cousin. Thank God I was worried I didn't know how it ended. No, you know. You know.

Our American Cousin was a British fish-out-of-water comedy that played the interactions between a vulgar, backwoods American cousin and his uptight British family for laughs. The American cousin has inherited the family fortune, and the uptight British family led by a noble with the humorous name of Lord Dundreary. My sides are already splitting. You have all the crazy shenanigans. Lord Dundreary is forced to

do his crass country boar manners in order to retain access to their generational wealth. It's congrats! Yeah, it is King Ralph. Now, the Lincolns arrived at Ford's Theater around 8 p.m. and were greatly enjoying the performance of Our American Cousin when John Wilkes Booth arrived on horseback in a narrow alley behind the building. At 9.30. First, let me lube up the front of this horse so it could fit in the alley. Excellent. Jam-packed filled with horse. Lincoln loved the narrow alley himself.

Yeah, I really do prefer a nice, heaving, bottomless alley. So while the owners of the theater and most of the actors were not Confederate sympathizers, a stagehand and old family friend of the booth, Ned Spangler, was. So when Booth arrived in the alleyway, he specifically asked for Spangler. Spangler, being an unreliable drunk, did not have any previous knowledge of the conspiracy. But Booth figured that he could trust Spangler to, at the very least, watch his horse.

But Spangler was working the play, so he forced a fellow employee at Ford's, a guy named Johnny Peanut, to watch Booth's horse in his stead. Sure thing, I'll take a look at the horse. You bet, absolutely.

Which one is the horse? Which one is that? Johnny Peanut! You asked for me. You know, that's what I know. Literally asked Mr. Peanut to watch the horse. That's my fault. That's my father's name, Mr. Peanut. You can call me Johnny Peanut. Oh, my God. The top of my head is smaller than the bottom of my head. What is that right there? Oh, is that a dog? That's a horse.

John Wilkes Booth don't understand. You walk inside him? Now Booth's entrance into Ford's theater was suitably dramatic and completely unnecessary. After walking inside through the back, Booth lifted the trap door that led to a basement beneath the stage. Finding his way along the dirt floor in the dark, Booth crossed underneath the stage during the performance. Slither like a snake, like a man in the shuttle. Then he found the second trap door that opened to the other side.

Booth then made his way to a door that led to another alley. Another door! Another alley! I don't mind that at all! There, Booth exited the theater and entered the adjoining saloon. Now, looking at a diagram of the area, there's absolutely no reason that I can see as to why Booth had to go into the theater and crawl under the stage to get to the side door when he could have very easily just dropped off his horse and walked around.

around the building directly to the saloon. Sneaky sneaky Johnny. Sneaky sneaky Johnny. That would have gotten him caught. Everyone knows him there. He gets his mail there. Just walk in the fucking door. No, I am the Phantom. I am the Dark Vengeance. I am the man who... Won't kill the president. I mean, I do understand him going in through the back, or at least having his horse back there. I understand. He needed the horse out back so he could escape. But the alley led directly to the saloon.

He could have just walked over to the saloon. He didn't have to go inside and do all the subterfuge. But I think... Since Booth looked at everything as a performance, all the subterfuge made him feel as if he was in the role. He's doing what he expected an assassin to do, rather than what made the most sense.

It reminds me of like those fat fucks in Charlottesville or any of those guys with a Punisher flicking tag where they have like all the gear. They have all the stuff. They have like, they've got all the crazy mags and all the weird. Pocket harnesses and shit. It's looking the part and playing the part. We're looking the part first. Yeah. Now, after Booth had a whiskey and water at the saloon, he walked to the front doors of Ford's Theater and asked for the time. What time? You

The doorkeeper, who knew Booth as well as everyone else at Ford's Theater, told the actor to go inside and check the clock in the lobby, you fucking idiot. Yeah, do I look like a fucking walking clock, or is there a clock in the other fucking room? Let me get my sundial out. Oh, guess... Squad, it's dark. Are we improvising an argument or are we having one? Because I love a game of improv. But if you're really yelling at me, stop.

The clock's in the lobby. Okay, you're right. I'm sorry. Once inside the theater, Booth made his way upstairs towards the presidential box. Now, President Lincoln did have a bodyguard that night, a man named John F. Parker. But as we discussed last episode, Lincoln's security protocols were lax to say the least. And to this day, nobody has been able to produce a satisfactory...

as to where Parker actually was when the president was shot. There is no satisfactory answer unless it's in front of the bullet. Yeah. You know, it's also I feel like there's almost a portal.

that some people like just walk into where it's like it's that guy it's the same guys that like where the guys that were supposed to be watching jeffrey epstein where those guys go it's like there's like a portal and all these guys ended up at the same place yeah at the same time nexus all just hanging out in a giant white like endless lobby it's just being everywhere except where they're supposed to be

Probably just staring at a wall. In a super crucial moment. In history. In American history. What happened to that guy? Did he kill his family too? No, he was just like, I'm sorry. Should have done better. I apologize. When John Wilkes Booth arrived at Lincoln's box, the only person standing watch was the president's valet and footman, Charles Forbes. If you've ever seen Veep, like Charles Forrest, he was like the equivalent of Gary.

You know, like the guy that's played by Tony Hale. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's concerned more with the president's comfort than his safety. Excuse me, Mr. President, Jeff Wilkes Booth is here today. He said he's going to kill you, but I don't really think he's going to. I just want to make sure you have your...

shoe inserts. I know you have sometimes... Do you need a water? Do you need some gum? Do you want me to take Mary Todd and take her down the street so you can have sex with a man? Yes, please. That you can do. Post-haste. I know it's April, so I don't have any of your wet wipes here right now because I know your body is a little... We had a very long conversation about how I need wet wipes because I can't schmear in front of the South. I understand. Mr. President, next week is for...

420 if you want me to get you some weed I can try I can find you some. 420? That sounds wonderful. I would love a pair of weeds. Maybe some dandelions from there. I don't think you understand what I'm talking about.

What this meant was that all John Wilkes Booth had to do when he got to Lincoln's box was get past Forbes. And Booth easily did so by simply handing the president's valet his calling card, which says, I'm John Wilkes Booth, the famous... actor and since booth was a famous actor forbes scrutinized the card and satisfied himself that booth had legitimate business with the president so forbes waved booth through before returning his personal

attentions back to the play. Which truly... You go and see him right now, Mizzou. Absolutely. He farted at dinner. Oh, he's... Oh, he doesn't know how to use the... What happened? Was I laughing too hard? Well, once Booth was past Forbes and into the vestibule, he kneeled and picked up the stick that he'd laid out earlier. Then he braced the door so no one could enter once the shooting began.

Booth had also cut a small hole in the door leading from the vestibule to the box. So Booth peered through and saw his target, President Abraham Lincoln, sitting in a large rocking chair. I hope your brain's already too... Confetti. Got you, Lincoln. Got you, Lincoln. You fucking don't know what's coming for you, fucking Lincoln. I got your fucking ass, Lincoln.

Once the door was blocked and the president was in his sights, Booth rose and drew his small derringer in anticipation of a moment of his choosing during the play. See, while Booth had never performed in a production of Our American Cousin, the play had been fantastic. fantastically popular so booth was well acquainted with the script he therefore had timed his shot to coincide with a tried and true line that had always earned a big laugh from the crowd and that laugh would hide the noise

of Booth's shop. As such, the last thing Abraham Lincoln ever heard was this line. They know the manners of good society, eh? I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal. You sock-dollagizing. You sock-dollagizing, old man-trap. That's my favorite punchline. I laugh about it to this day with my family. And with that line, Booth pushed open the door to the box, raised his Derringer, and squeezed the trigger less than two feet from President Lincoln's head.

With a bang, the lead ball smashed into the president's skull, fully penetrating his brain before lodging itself behind his right eye. As Lincoln's body went limp and his head slumped against his chest as if someone had turned out a light, Booth yelled out his infamous line. Which, of course, means thus always to tyrants. Booth then pulled out his knife and lunged at Major Rathbone. But he only managed to cut Rathbone's arm.

Booth's brace, meanwhile, was doing its job well and was preventing anyone from entering the president's box in time to catch Booth before Booth made his escape. Now, a scream from the box, either from Mary Todd Lincoln or Major Rathbone's wife, startled the audience out of its delight. And when the actor who delivered the sock-dologizing man-trap line instinctively looked up at the box, the audience's eyes... followed.

What they saw, and this is incredible to think about from the audience's perspective at this point in time. They saw the famous actor, John Wilkes Booth, attempting a stunt that he'd performed 100 times before. See, Booth's signature stunt was the 15-foot stage jump, and John Ford himself had seen Booth make that same jump three years earlier during a performance of Macbeth in Baltimore.

But if you'll remember, John Ford had decorated the president's box with flags in honor of the president's visit. And Booth, who'd never killed anyone before, was probably a little frazzled after his first murder. All right, come on, Wiltsy, let's... Give them what they paid for. Booth therefore fumbled the stunt. Fuck!

By getting his spurs appropriately tangled up in an American flag. Symbolism. That had been draped over the presidential box's rail. And Booth, therefore, landed on the stage awkwardly and off balance.

It wasn't a total fuck up, but it certainly ruined the drama of what was supposed to be Booth's defining moment. It's often said that John Wilkes Booth broke his leg during this jump, and thereafter bravely made his escape with a massive injury that would have caused a lesser man to crumple on stage from the pain.

The only evidence for that, however, was John Wilkes Booth's own writings. Later, Booth wrote in his diary that he broke his leg jumping to the stage. But witnesses on the scene said that Booth did not falter when he landed from the president's box. he limp away when he escaped. Multiple witnesses also said they saw Booth running through Washington, D.C. that night with incredible speed. All of this, of course, would have been highly unlikely if not impossible with a broken leg. But...

John Wilkes Booth did have a broken fibula when he arrived at Dr. Mudd's plantation later that night, as per the plan. But according to Dr. Mudd... Booth did not say that he had broken his leg in the fall. Rather, Booth told Dr. Mudd straight up that his horse had tripped and rolled with him still in the saddle during Booth's ride to the plantation. I never should have taken him through. Banana-ville. Never, even though he was funny at the time. Very amusing for many to see. Unfortunately.

I have a boo-boo, Dr. Mont. But, of course, a horse accident is nowhere near as impressive of a story as Booth's later revision. But, to this day, people, in that fucking show, Manhunt, you know, like, it makes...

a big show of Booth tripping and breaking his leg. It's still being told to this day. It's because it's a funner story than the horse falling down. It's funnier with the horse falling down. Yeah, of course it's funnier. Who knows? Maybe they couldn't get the proper horse stunt actor. It's so hard to get. Honestly, these horses these days are such fucking pussies. None of them want to do the horse. They need to get in there. They're losing.

They're losing horse stunt jobs to AI. These horses need to fucking gum up. They need to go down there. They need to do the work. They need to be able to fall on cue like they used to and then take it and shot in the head. Sign the waiver, horses. I know you don't have hands, but, you know, sign it. You can just do it with their fucking hooves. Clomp it. Yeah.

But regardless of when Booth broke his leg, he stood to his full height when he landed on stage. He raised his dagger above his head. He shouted, quote, The South shall be free! and scurried off towards the back alley where his horse was still being held by the hapless Johnny Peanut.

Also, the South shall be free is exactly what Lincoln was trying to do. He literally was trying to do it, buddy. He was trying to do it. Some people were like, what are you shaking? Are they charging to go down South? I don't understand. No one was more surprised to see John Wilkes Booth at that moment than his fellow actors. And some of the actors on stage at that very moment had coincidentally... coincidentally, had deep personal connections to the Booth family.

Lead actress Laura Keane, playing the role of Florence Trenchard, she also owned the rights to Our American Cousin. In fact, she was the one who'd made the play such a hit in America. Coincidentally, she had also engaged... Ooh, shit. Ooh. Laura Keene had also been involved in a lawsuit with Booth's brother-in-law over a bootleg production of Our American Cousin in Philadelphia. But Keene had dropped the suit after Edwin Booth gave his brother-in-law personal information about Keene.

that could have caused a scandal and ended her career. If you touch her butt. Her tits fart. Put that in your pocket. Keep it for a rainy day. And here on this night, you had yet another member of the Booth family fucking up Laura Keenan. What the fuck? Because after this, the play that Keane had worked so hard to make a hit, Our American Cousin, it would forever be relegated to the land of presidential assassination trivia. The true victim of this whole thing.

Theater employees also recognized Booth, and one even thought that the whole thing was an elaborate prank, because it was fucking ridiculous to think that John Wilkes Booth, the actor, had just shot the president. How cool would it have been? been, though, if Lincoln stood up being like, you all thought we were fucking with you guys. You guys should see the look of your faces. It was old and elaborate joke. Guess what? No, I'm also joking again

Oh, you're not joking? No. Neither am I. Yay! Yay! That's why the Lincoln voice is really devolved. Luckily, we don't need it anymore. Goodbye, Lincoln. Because the whole scene was just so fucking surreal, very few people, not the cast, nor the crew, nor the audience, really knew exactly what to do in that moment. Only one person in the audience, a major in the Union Army, leapt up on stage. to give chase when Booth ran away.

That major's path, however, was blocked by more bewildered actors. And by the time the major got outside, John Wilkes Booth had already struck Johnny Peanut in the face with the butt of his knife. It was quickly galloping away.

towards Maryland. I did exactly what you asked. I got your horse drunk. I was hanging out. I was hanging out with the horse. I was petting his mane. Why is everybody angry with Johnny Peanut? I mean, it also makes sense. Derringer isn't that loud either. It's just a pop. Yeah, yeah. It's a quick little pop. So if there was a laugh, then I assume most people had no idea what happened until it was already over. Well, you heard the line. Yeah, six separate Tyrannus? No.

Soctologizing old man trap. Yeah, that was the thing. Yeah, of course. No one could handle that line. It was a guaranteed motherfucker. Crush that. That line crushed. That's how dependable that bit was. Yeah. Was that John Wilkes Booth knew he could assassinate the president during it. Yeah. That's huge. Yeah, it really was. He was waiting for that line specifically. Think of another comedian. Who's actually like one stellar bet. What's the guy who would always crush? Cosby.

Pryor. Wow. Yeah, Cosby. Let's just say Pryor. How about we say Pryor? Richard Pryor. Let's just say Richard Pryor. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. I actually think it's more like a Jeff Dunham. It's more like a... Or maybe... Or like Eddie Murphy doing the Goonie Goo Goo. Or get her done. Like, get her done. It just worked. Would cover many a presidential assassination. If you put it correct. If you are a gay man with a big hat in the booth.

You might be the president of the United States of America. Now, one of the other people who'd immediately reacted to the shooting was a young army surgeon who'd attended the theater that night, specifically because he'd read in the afternoon paper that the president was going to be in the audience. The surgeon, however, even after making his way up to the box,

was stymied by the brace that Booth had left behind. Finally, Major Rathbone realized the problem and he removed it, just as another doctor was being hoisted from the stage directly below to examine the president. The two doctors examined Lincoln and found that a small clot of blood was plugging the hole where the lead ball had entered the president's skull. I found the problem. It's this big old gunshot in the back of his head. Yeah, I think this is going to...

The president appeared dead in that very moment, but when they removed the clot, Lincoln began breathing normally.

Six soldiers were then ordered to carry Lincoln out of the president's box and into a nearby house for further observation, because it was obvious that Lincoln would not survive a trip back to the White House. The crime scene that was Ford's theater, meanwhile, was not secured in any way whatsoever. Forensics the way we think of it didn't exist back then, so crowds began stripping Ford's theater and the president's box for grisly souvenirs.

Immediately, one man made off with the president's bloodstained cravat. Another found the stick that Booth had used to trap Lincoln. They just handed Booth's Derringer to a fucking reporter. I mean, it's very interesting. Yeah. It's crazy. But didn't they use it in the trial? The Derringer? Wasn't it an exhibit? They probably got it back eventually, but a reporter ran off with it. Crazy.

People were so hungry to get a piece of history that some even began chipping away the wood on the doors of the house where the president lay dying at that very moment. Now that's a sticky audience. But if you'll remember, President Lincoln... Why true crime now? But if you'll remember, President Lincoln was not the only target that night. There was also the matters of Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Now, perhaps unfortunately, depending on your point of view, the only bad person targeted by John Wilkes Booth that night was also the only one who came out of it completely unscathed. That person, of course, was Vice President Andrew Johnson. like a guy who drunkenly Mr. Magoo's his way through many, like all of his life. Yep. Until impeachment.

What's it turn? That was a bit of a whoopsie do. Let's get a mulligan in the prison and see if we can. I love peaches. Yeah, impeach me. Peaches and mint? That just sounds... When I see peaches out there, you're right, peaches get in peach meat. Why don't we go get some rumplements? Yay, why are you getting rumplements, you fucking, come on, let's party, let's hang out, we never do anything. Hold on, you're a horse.

You know what? It reminds me. I haven't hung out with my horse in like days. Where you been in that horse besides under me? Take me places. As it turned out, the German immigrant co-conspirator charged with killing Lincoln, George Atzerodt, he had in fact been in the same room as Andrew Johnson at around the same time that Lincoln was shot. It was the bar at the Kirkwood Hotel. Atzerodt was even... and had every opportunity to kill the vice president. But...

Atzerod had also been drinking for the better part of the day, and after having a whiskey at the hotel bar, he very simply chickened out and left, hoping that he could just forget about the whole thing and start a new life in Germantown, Maryland.

This is, of course, despite being heavily involved in the conspiracy to wipe out the executive branch of government. Do you know how many people in Germantown, Maryland, are just trying to cool out after having tried to wipe out the executive branch of the government? It's like where you go. It's the first stop. Yeah.

Atzerod, however, couldn't help but talk about the assassination. And after telling people that he knew things about the plot that others didn't, he was awoken around sunrise just four days after the president's death by a police officer holding a 40-year-old.

pistol to his skull but while the assassination of the vice president had not even been attempted the assassination of secretary of state william seward was a bloody affair the damn near came close to success At the same time that John Wilkes Booth was killing President Lincoln, his co-conspirators, Lewis Powell and David Herold, were hitching their horses to a post outside of Secretary of State Seward's home with plans to go inside and commit murder.

most foul hey you guys need someone to watch your horse damn it johnny get to the theater i was at the theater but everybody was super mad with my results I did that. Seward was arguably the easiest target of all because he was bedridden at the time of the assassination. Nine days earlier, Seward had been riding in a carriage when the horses took off while the driver was off the perch opening the carriage door.

Seward leapt from the runaway carriage when the horses slowed down to take a turn, but the 63-year-old politician mistimed his leap to safety. That man's probably jumped once in his life. Seward therefore hit the ground head first, shattering his face, jaw, and right arm when he smashed into the pavement. As a result, Seward was in bed recovering from his injuries when his assassins arrived. I just love this.

Fuck, because old-time medicine is also fucking rough. So he's just covered in metal braces, just like... Yeah, this is the transition point when like all medicine hurts. Yes, man. I remember I tried to do the same thing one time when I was in a parking lot riding on my buddy's car, like hanging on the back trunk just for fun. And then he started to go too fast and my hands started slipping. And in my mind, I'm like, okay, I'm just going to start running.

And then I'm just going to keep running when I let go of the car. Of course, you're the wily coyote way of safety. And I just hit the ground face first and knocked out my tooth. Nice. Yeah, but we went and saw Event Horizon. That was a nice day. That is awesome. That is awesome. That's a great day. Yeah, it wasn't bad. So I understand what he did. You got to get it. You want to jump. You think you can handle it. Yeah, you're like, ah, just start running. Let's see what happens. Yeah.

Now the plan here was that Harold would stand watch while Powell killed Secretary Seward and anyone who stood in his way. Harold would then use his geography skills to guide both of them out of the city towards the rendezvous point with Booth. How? Is this supposed to be like... Yeah, that's a fjord. He's got the map in his head. He knows directions. Oh, sure. I just thought he meant he knew what formations were. Like, yeah, sure, that's Plazantine Rock, or that's Byzantine Rock.

That's not geography. That's geology. That's knowledge of rocks. It's a totally different thing. You know, I once lost the geography because I didn't understand that someone was asking for the definition of dirt. So I can go both ways here. Either way, it's fucking stupid. You're talking about dirt. You're talking about rocks. I got friends in the geology department. I think that's what I'm saying. I'm sorry, Ellie. But the plan fell apart very quickly. As it went...

Powell knocked on the front door of Seward's home. And when Seward's servant opened the door, Powell said that he'd arrived with important medicine from Seward's doctor, something to help with his injuries. Servant said, sure, just give it to me. I'll take care of it, which is apparently an eventuality. that Powell didn't think of.

Okay, here you go. I can't break the rules of improv. So Powell began arguing with the servant, telling him that he had to deliver the medicine to Seward personally. And eventually, the hubbub attracted the attention of Seward's son. Powell then made like he was going to leave. But when he turned away, he took the opportunity to pull out his pistol. He squeezed the trigger.

But the gun misfired. Fuck! So Powell pistol whipped Seward's son and left him on the ground with a skull fracture bad enough to expose his brains to the open air. Cool.

A male army nurse attending to William Seward heard the commotion and came out of his room. Why are you specifically that he's a male army nurse? Because when I first wrote army nurse, I thought that maybe people would think at the time that it would just be a... nurse they would think i was like okay well if it's 1865 then it might be a woman but i wanted to make sure that people knew that it was a man and not a woman it makes the fight crazy yeah you're right

Yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah, you know, Powell slashing at a woman, that's one thing. But, you know, man, it's different. Man nurse. That's something else altogether. It is. But when the male army nurse attending to William Seward heard the commotion and came out of his room, he was met with Powell's knife. Powell slashed at the nurse and smashed the handle into his head, causing the nurse to fall backwards. If I was a woman, you wouldn't have done that. Male nurse, where do we want to send her?

Powell then made his way upstairs and pushed his way into Seward's room, past Seward's daughter Fanny, where Powell found Secretary Seward lying in bed completely helpless. Kill me. Just fucking do it already. Fucking kill me. Oh, thank God you're finally here. Somebody's here to do something. Finally do it. Oh, Mr. Reaper, please hit me with your secret. But even though Seward could do little more than roll over, Powell still somehow missed Seward with the first slash of his knife.

He should have had the geographies. That's pretty good to help him. His neck! Higher! Higher! North! You know. It's north up or it's up up or it's north that way. You gotta tell me different. Come here, you fucker. Step me in the heart. Step me in the fucking heart. I'm a man and... a nurse. Well, the first slash instead hit the headboard. But with the second slash, Powell caught the secretary on his cheek and landed many more slashes afterwards on Seward's head and neck.

me in the fucking heart take your time and do it right you're just fucking hurting me you're just hurting me oh At this point, though, the army nurse had recovered. Here comes a man. It's time for a man to join this fight. He entered the room and took Powell down to the ground. But Powell...

He managed to break free and run away. On his way out, he stabbed a messenger in the back, all while screaming, quote, I'm mad, I'm mad, I'm mad, I'm just the messenger, I'm mad. But when Powell got back to his horse, he found that he was now all alone. David Harreld had gotten spooked by all the commotion and had taken off without him. So when Powell jumped on his horse and rode away, he had not the slightest clue as to where he was supposed to go next.

Now, as it turned out, the carriage accident had inadvertently saved William Seward's life. Seward had been wearing an iron brace to help his jaw yield. And even though his jaw was now barely attached to his face due to... Powell's repeat slashings. The brace had caused Powell's knife blows to a glance off Seward's neck. Thank God for this brace then, huh?

Thank God that certainly didn't end me quick. Now I get to continue to fucking live. Someone get my large cock nurse. Hey, how about one of you guys? next time. Throw a fucking grenade in here or something. Something to finally end me because I guess I can't fucking die. I mean, Powell had totally failed to kill a bedridden old man. Like, he was, it was like...

I mean, you talk about shooting fish in a barrel. Stabbing an old man in bed is the murderous equivalent of that. I guess I could move my fucking torso fast enough. I would like to make a case to change the expression to stabbing an old man. in a bed. Yeah, yeah. That's as easy as stabbing an old man in a bed. I love that. Yeah, we gotta start using that. Yeah, I'm in. Definitely, it's in. The zeitgeist, no. Yeah, Rob, put it on the whiteboard. Paul, however, did cause Seward much further pain.

Seward's new injuries prompted his doctor to fashion a vulcanized rubber splint for his jaw that was fit inside his mouth and screwed to his teeth. There's no... fucking reason for this I'm begging to die I'm begging to be killed months afterward his cheek had to be lanced so the fluids could drain out But William Seward had nevertheless survived Booth's plot to have him killed. Yep.

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Get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Now, since the president had been shot and the secretary of state was nearly killed, it was only natural for people to assume that this had either been a Confederate conspiracy or a full on coup.

Washington, D.C. was awash with rumors that Lincoln's entire cabinet had been killed, that hundreds of Confederate prisoners had escaped, or that General Grant had also been murdered in a train car. Suffice to say, tempers were running high that night. public turned their attention towards the location of the murder, Ford's Theater. Swarms of people blamed the building for what had happened there and began breaking off anything that could be broken. It's the damn building! That's the dumbest...

i've ever that's insane people get weird yeah they do yeah some people in the mob even began calling for the building to be set on fire with the actors and employees inside because from the mob's perspective it was the theater's fault that the president been killed. It's capital T theater. Burn the place. Burn the costume. This is shows that like when you have a mob of people are well-timed. Get it. Just like everything apart.

What if we get him? Yeah, like that's just a lot of stuff. President Lincoln, meanwhile, was not doing well, although his doctors were surprised at how fit Lincoln still was. They quote, marveled at his muscular development, remarking that if Lincoln had not been in possession of the chest and arms of an athlete, even at the age of 56, what a silver fox, he would have probably died from that shot immediately.

Guys, quit masturbating and try to save my life, okay? The bullets are my head, not my legs. The eyes are up here, okay? Holy fucking shit, what do I have to do here, all right? I know I'm sexy as all hell, but maybe we can. could stop waxing poetic about my body if you guys could just for the love of god save my life and then i'll blow off i've never heard of someone's strong legs saving them from a headshot not once well oh yeah look at this

Look at his balls. For me, it's such a human moment because it shows that there were, I think there were 14 doctors in the room at that point. And it's a tiny, tiny room. And they're all just staring.

And just look at, because the, you know, the original doctor, you know, taking off all Lincoln's clothes, you know, and it's like, let's get him comfortable. So they're just sitting there staring at the president in awkward silence. Somebody's got to say something, you know. You guys notice he's got to.

Kind of a rocket body. How old is he? He was 56. He looks good for 50. He looks really good for 50. Nice tits for a president. I mean, honestly. Honestly, look at this guy. He looks a real... good it would have been far better if he would have just died if he was just to see if he would have had my body just skinny and frail and just fucking died immediately because as it was he lingered for hours

Finally, though, at 7.22 a.m., nine hours after he'd been shot, Abraham Lincoln drew one last ragged breath and died whilst laying diagonally on a bed far too small for his 6'4 frame. Few, however, were more distressed by what had gone down on the night of April 14th than the members of the Booth family. This is going to ruin the world tour. Kinda. Edwin Booth, he'd woken up late.

On the 15th. And he immediately got the news. I love that. Good morning, Slade. Let's go over here. Some nice hot poppin'. What even happened? Well, Edwin Booth, he... was the one that was a little more lefty. But actually, from what it seems like, I think Edwin Booth was more that guy just like...

can we please just not talk about politics? Like I just, all I want to be is an actor. I don't want to get into any of this shit. I just want to be a fucking actor. That's all. I just want to bitch about our American cousin and how I should have been in it. That's all I want to bitch about. Yeah. And he mostly lamented that his family's.

reputation had been ruined by his idiotic Confederate brother. Edwin wrote that he had stayed loyal from the first moment of quote, this damned rebellion, but he, along with his children, now bore the agony of being thus blasted in all hopes by a villain. And that villain had, of course, been his own brother. The Booths actually had to go into hiding after the news broke. And Edwin received letters to his home saying that there were revolvers loaded with which to shoot him and his family down.

the public now hated the Booth name. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Now, concerning the path of John Wilkes Booth after leaving Ford's theater, he'd had quite the night following the assassination of the president. As I said earlier, Booth's horse had tripped and rolled at some point during his escape. Damn clumsy horse! So when Booth arrived at the rendezvous point sometime around midnight, his leg had indeed been broken. So when David Harreld arrived minutes later, having completed

completely abandoned Lewis Powell at Secretary Seward's home, Booth was badly in need of medical attention. So it was decided that they would not wait for their compatriots. And after a short stopover at the Confederate Tavern in Surrattesville, Booth and Harold arrived at Dr. Mudd's plantation. You always want to get the best health care over at Dr. Mudd's. You go down there and his special curated ancient Chinese farts are going to make sure your legs are completely fine.

The Booth's journey following Dr. Mudd's plantation makes for a fantastic TV show. But it also makes... For quite the tedious podcast. If you can't show men on horses going places, it's not interesting to just hear about it. Because that's what this is. It's a lot of men on horses going places. Because that's all a Western is. That's all they do. It's just a man on a horse.

going to a place and then going to another place and talking to other men on horses in between that place. For justice. I should have brought my coconut so I could have done my horse guy. Oh, yes. You know what I can do? I can do old-fashioned. There we go. That's not bad. Rewrite it, Marcus. That's like if a horse was just made out of folds. Cool. Just give me another eight hours or so and we can continue this up.

Yeah, it's pretty good, Henry. It's actually very impressive. Thank you. Well, rather than take you through the escape of John Wilkes Booth moment by moment, we're going to give you the broad strokes of Booth and Harold's adventure.

See, Dr. Mudd was just the second stop on their journey. So after Dr. Mudd set Booth's broken leg, Booth and Harold began making their way towards Virginia, where they expected to be welcomed by the Confederacy, even though the Confederacy was all but... done sorry you just missed the confederacy actually i hear there's a little bit of a confederacy going on in a box car in north carolina but honestly you want to avoid that too because that confederacy is getting pretty intense all these guys

They're fighting over the one last stray cat. Whoever they can do, they're trying to, they all want to pet everybody lonely in there. Hold on, what am I going to do with all these mouth harps? I mean, they are going to fun. Well, despite Harold's supposed proficiency as a geography expert, he and Booth repeatedly got lost after they left Dr. Mudd's plantation. I actually am more of a geology expert.

I can tell you where cobalt is. There was a bit of that's why the confusion was there. I should have checked my references. This is partly because. Harold had overstated his knowledge, and partly because they only had a vague idea of where they were actually going. In a definite instance of irony, though, these two supposed top specimens of the white race came to depend over and over again on the

and navigations of the free black people they came upon in their travels. Without this guidance, Booth and Harold would have no doubt been caught within days. Excuse me, I don't want to interrupt your freedom. And these people, they only helped Booth and Harold because it was the right thing. It was the smart thing to do. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it was the smart thing to do if they wanted to fucking survive. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah.

Did they get lost on a river? Yeah. How does that even happen? Honestly, you'd be super surprised. You'd be crazy surprised how it is to lose that big old geological formation. That we just knew the only fucking thing that you had to do was know what the things were and what to follow. Are you familiar with tributaries? A silt delta. There are many different geological formations. Excuse me, my fellow free man. Ah, yes, very good. Can I also be invited to the cookout? Yes, my good man.

must be one of those newfangled circle rivers. Well, after making their way through a swamp, Booth and Harold arrived at another... I think they lied. I think they pulled through a swamp because they... No, I'm filled with hate. Actually, at one point, they did have trouble. There was one guy that they had to convince to help them, and so Booth wrote him a nasty letter upon his exit. Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you. You jerk.

After making their way through a swamp, Booth and Harold arrived at another plantation where they hooked up with a Confederate agent who promised them safe passage across the Potomac River. But not just yet. Arrangements still had to be made. So while that agent contacted another agent, Booth and Harold were told to wait in a pine thicket located just outside the agent's property line, lest the military show up and find the president's assassin. on the agent's plantation.

Booth and Harold, therefore, huddled in the thicket, exposed to the elements for days, waiting for the word to move on, while the Confederate agent brought them food and newspapers. I hope you guys are doing good in the thicket, alright?

want to keep that bushes on top right on top of your heads here you go i got some tacos and honestly you're going to want to read this as a super funny article uh about uh about there was like a fun you got to read it in the top of the front page but also Also, honestly, the Mariners won.

Not to spoil. I should have said that, yeah. The scores are in there. Good. Yeah, if you could. All right, so you stay in that thicket, all right? And I'm going to be right back for you. Don't worry, I'm going to get you your freedom, all right? Sounds wonderful. You are the thicket. I am the thicket. Okay. I can play a thicket. Stick it in the thicket. You know what I do.

Well, much to Booth's chagrin, the newspapers were not responding to his grand scheme in the way he'd expected. He was stunned when he read that the media had not lauded him for striking down, quote, the greatest tyrant. Instead, the papers were calling Booth's actions, and therefore Booth himself, cowardly and vile. It bombed! I'm getting bad reviews. He shot a man in the back of the head with a hooker's gun. While the man is sitting next to his wife. I thought everyone was going to laugh.

Oh, I am terribly wrong. It might be my algorithm. But while Booth and Harold were hiding in the thicket like animals, their co-conspirators were being snatched up by the police and the military in quick order. See, even though John Surratt had technically left the conspiracy before the plan had turned to assassination, detectives had heard that John Surratt was often seen in the company of John Wilkes Booth at the saloon next to Ford's Theater. They'd also received snippets of information.

from multiple individuals that led the investigation to the boarding house run by Surratt's mother, Mary, who, if you'll remember, had been told by Booth the night before the assassination to quote, have the shooting irons ready. But in another... Amazing coincidence. Just after five detectives entered Mary's boarding house to arrest her and everyone inside for being involved in the conspiracy to kill the president, who should knock on Mary's door looking for sanctuary but Lewis Powell?

who was, of course, the man who had attempted to assassinate Secretary Seward. I don't know if you guys heard that old saying says easier than to stab an old man in a bed, but it certainly wasn't. Oh, my God. Where are you guys all coming from? Pau was soon identified by the Seward family doorkeeper and arrested, while Mary Surratt's involvement in the conspiracy would eventually make her, this is a fun bit of trivia, the first woman to ever...

be executed by the United States federal government. Whoa. Yeah. Hanging, if you're curious. Sisters are doing it for themselves. I thought they would have slapped her to death. Hey. Hanger by the hangers. Strangely, though, other co-conspirators who were even more involved than Mary Surratt would eventually go free. Specifically, Dr. Mudd. Dr. Mudd. He always comes out clean.

Well, despite the fact that a boot with the inscription J. Wilkes written inside was found in Dr. Mudd's attic, Dr. Mudd would claim to the day he died that he was just a sample country doctor who got himself caught up in events beyond his control. Y'all know me. I'm Dr. Mudd. I'm a poo-poo scientist. I deal with butts and farts and stuff like that. I ain't one of these assassination...

Guys, you know, I mostly deal with poop shoots and polyps, butt polyps and hairs. Think about it. Why would a man with a broken leg come to a butt doctor like Dr. Mudd? Yeah, unless some people say, well, the leg... begins the butt that's again that's in leg astronomy if you're part of the butt sciences but i didn't get that master's degree coffee taco bell cigarette want some dates some plumps

the military commission in charge of trying the conspirators in lincoln's death they of course did not buy mud simple country doctor story dr mud escaped execution by just one vote and was instead given life in prison but incredibly president andrew Johnson would pardon Dr. Mudd in 1869, along with Ned Spangler, Booth's inside man at Ford's Theater. And Dr. Mudd, despite being one of the key members of the conspiracy from the very beginning, ended up living out his life.

I just like his name. I like his name. I like his attitude. I think he's a fun guy. And one time, I'm going to confess, yes, I sat on the Robin. It's a long story of the Robin.

took up a bit of a situation inside of me. I had a family in there and I called Dr. Mudd and Dr. Mudd got the burp right out of him. It's crazy that he pardoned him because so many people thought that he... was part of the assassination it's why all the conspiracy theories later on would come about it's like literally these are the things that we even see now every single dumb little human interaction that would spin off into a century of conspiracy

Well, and there's very human reasons behind the Dr. Mudd pardoning. You know, Andrew Johnson was a Democrat, you know, before defecting over to the Republican Party, you know, for his own self-interest. Yeah. lawyer uh was he was either in Andrew Johnson's cabinet or was very close to Andrew Johnson's cabinet. Dr. Mudd's lawyer is just something about his name like Jerry Fartinsky. I'm trying to think of a good lawyer for the name.

Sounds like a Dr. Demento song. Yeah. Dr. Mudd's lawyer. Oh, God, if you don't like Dr. Mudd, wait to meet his lawyer. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, but Dr. Mudd had connections to Andrew Johnson. administration. So that's that's why Dr. Ma was able to be pardoned. Yeah. It seems like Spangler was just stupid. He was. And he originally gotten six years hard labor. But Andrew Johnson commuted the rest of his sentence.

and pardoned him. He's like, ah, you know, he's just an idiot. God, he just shut up. Thankfully, Johnny Peanut got nothing. Yes. Like, he was... Actually, it was really nice. They just let me go to the Tilted World. And they just said, you can stay on that. They gave me a bunch of different tickets and stuff like that. So I've just mostly been hanging out by the corner and going to Subway San Francisco. Because they're real artists.

I don't know what happened in the old theater mess, but everybody's certainly upset about it. If Lincoln lived, he would have been President Walnut. Well, as far as John Wilkes Booth's eventual fate went, he was still stuck in the pine thicket with David Harreld by the time most of his other co-conspirators were... Am I some kind of berry? Am I some kind of groundhog? Booth and Harold laid silent and unmoving for... I am leaves. I am branches. I am the thicket.

That's incredible. Like, patrolling soldiers would pass sometimes within yards of Booth and Harold's hiding spot. When their transport was finally close to being arranged, Booth and Harold were moved back to the Confederate agents' plantation. There, Booth... pathetically begged to be allowed inside the agent's home, asking, quote, Oh, can't I go in and get some of your hot coffee? Please, this won't be so long I could...

Be a thicket. Not without coffee. Please. I'll be anything. I'll be a bush. I'll be a tree. Anything but a thicket. The agent, of course, had to refuse because his servants, who were still enslaved just a couple years earlier, they would have rightfully reported... Everyone inside. You know, I'd love to get you that coffee. I really would. But everybody's super on edge out here. I could just get you to go back to the thicket. I don't want to go back to the thicket.

Yeah, but you're gonna have to go. You're gonna have to go, Johnny. You're gonna have to go. I have to respect your judgment. Well, instead, the agent slipped Booth and Harold leftovers from dinner to their hiding spot outside like they were a couple of fucking stray dogs. Thank you so much. Very good. I just love old meat. My favorite thing. eat while being in and of and with the thicket. What do you think this meal used to be? I imagine it whole was like some kind of gravy and sauce and...

Otherwise, it's just our thicket leaving. After nine days of running and hiding, though, Booth and Harold finally made it across the river to Virginia. They did have one little... They did have an instance where they got put on a skiff, but then neither one of them knew anything about boats, so they just ended up...

back on, they could even cross the river. I am just sick and tired of it. This is the buddy comedy that should have happened with the two of them. It's like back and forth. He's more and more covered in dirt and leaves. Just being like, this is just not... How all of this was supposed to go? Nobody said there were going to be boats. Eventually, they did make it across the river to Virginia to a known Confederate safe house owned by a woman with a fantastic...

name of Elizabeth Cuisenberry. Oh yeah, she's a fucking bitch. You know that. Sounds like she throws up out of her vagina. It's getting all the extra out. Like everyone else, though, Cuisenberry's loyalty to the Confederate cause was quickly fading, and she wanted Booth and Harold gone from her safe house as soon as possible. And after hopping from one unwelcome location to another, Booth and Harold...

finally ran into some friendly faces. See, there were still plenty of Confederate soldiers wandering around without any real idea of what they were supposed to do next. So Booth and Harold were ultimately helped out by a group of three led by a man with perhaps the most incredible name we've ever come across. First Lieutenant... Mortimer Ruggles. Yes, it is I, Mortimer Ruggles. I am the first lieutenant of all time, and I may have felt.

It's going to be here, everybody. Let's let the Confederacy work. Mortimer Ruggles. had no more luck finding a place for Booth and Harold to stay than anyone else did. No, nobody, no daggers. And I don't know, they don't trust the Ruggles. But they sure the people should be contacting the Ruggles. He sounds like a professional child, Malachi.

I train other pedophiles. I train them out to do it. I train them out of cloak. I train them out of groom. We were talking about this beforehand. Like, where did the Ruggles name go? these fabulous Civil War names go. Are you a Ruggles? Yeah. I would love to meet a Ruggles. Do you know a Ruggles? Do you know what happened to the Ruggles family? I think they became the Ruffles family. Oh, wow. The Lays Corporation.

Tell me this. Why don't we turn your G's into F's? I like it. I like it. No one will find anybody. Perfect. Are you a descendant of Mortimer Ruggles? Yep. Did you continue? His legacy of pedophilia. Yeah, I hope we do. We train pedophiles, we make them, and we name them. Yep, it's fun to give them new names. They gotta look like this Tony Gripper.

And he's just a bunch of other Ruggles. Booth was also growing more dramatic by the day. He was reported to complain, quote, If they don't kill me, I'll kill myself. Not knowing what else to do, Mortimer Ruggles gave over the command of the operation to his subordinates, who were both teenagers. You're better off with the kids. You know, you're better off with the children. Do you think I've trained you two boys enough to have fun with the...

teenagers. The thing about pedophile is a wise pedophile knows when the kid's done. And he knows that when the kid's done, he's got to go off. And he said, get on out, get on out. Well, these two had equally incredible names. Absalon Bainbridge and William Jett. Who I suppose in Milton... terms would have been known as private jet no whoa that literally makes him a dj on print some fucking epstein's island but it was private jet who eventually came up with the plan

He led this small group of lost causers to a farm owned by a man named Richard Garrett, who was open to sheltering wounded Confederates in his home. It was, however, at Richard Garrett's farm that John Wilkes Booth would soon meet his deserved death. And it's with the end of John Wilkes Booth and the story of the fascinating American character who killed him.

or return next week for the conclusion to our series on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It takes a lot of men to make a gun. Hundreds, many men to make a gun. Why isn't there a musical about Mortimer Ruggles? Because it would just be like... It'd be about a cartoon dog with a floppy hat on. All right. Take two tickets, please. Yeah, what are you talking about? I'm the only Confederate Labrador. My name is...

I love that. I fucked my American cousin. Please send us our finished musical. Please. Oh, wow. Really great. stuff really thick and way more entertaining than it has any right to be. It's an incredible story and my God, all the stuff that I left out. so much stuff it's just there's so many aspects of the story there's so many people involved in it and there's so many side quests to take on this and the next episode like it is a side quest that I think is

Absolutely necessary. Yes. The man who killed John Wilkes Booth is incredible. Oh, yes. He is such a fucking nut bar. I can't wait to talk about it. I can't wait to talk. And he also gets himself involved in all sorts of activities in the Civil War, like leading up to killing John Wilkes Booth and just has an absolutely fascinating story. So, yeah, very excited. for that.

I can't wait. Can't wait. Can't fucking wait, you fuckers. Go to patreon.com slash last podcast. If you pay us money, we will perform for you. Yeah. We also are live with our last stream on the left every Tuesday, 6 p.m. PSD. You get to see it live if you give to the Patreon and be a part of it.

the chat it's a lot of fun you can also follow us on socials at tiktok and instagram and we've got a ton of new youtube channels all right so here we go this is what i'm gonna i'm gonna so write this down someplace underneath that's one entire undercase, all one word. You don't necessarily have to write it down. You can just go to YouTube and follow them. LPN Romanticy, Who's the Bee, The Foreign Report, No Dogs in Space podcast, and LPN Dash.

Go and follow all of our new YouTube channels. This is going to be, this is where we're headed towards. And it sounds complicated, but it is simpler for you. Yeah. Yeah, we're working on some really cool shit with No Dogs in Space for the YouTube channel. So very much look out for that. And don't forget to come out and see us at all of our upcoming tour dates, including Atlanta later on this month. We're making up that show that we had to skip back in February.

because of the fires here and was it snow in Atlanta? Yes, there was fire. and there was snow. Atlanta, Georgia, June 28th, Salt Lake City, July 12th, Charlotte, North Carolina, August 8th, Durham, North Carolina, August 9th, St. Paul, Minnesota, September 20th, Milwaukee. wisconsin october 11th oakland california october 25th cleveland ohio november 29th portland oregon december 12th and 13th and don't forget we're adding a bunch of side stories dates to these shows so we are not

Not every city gets a little helper side story show, but we're about to announce a whole bunch. So keep your brains with us. We can't wait to see you out on the ice. And we will find you, won't we? We're coming for you fuckers. Hail Satan. Hail. C-words not dying. C-words. C-words. C-words. C-words. C-words not dying sounded like. cunts. You were just saying cunts. And may they live forever. You're right. Many do live very long lives. Yeah. The country you are, the healthier you are.

My country. The tears of thee, sweet land of liberty, of the I.T. P. VIP. I gotta go back. And vaginas. Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else.

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