Final Days of Abraham Lincoln

Summary

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

Episode: Final Days of Abraham Lincoln
Release Date: May 22, 2025
Hosts: Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling

In this compelling episode, historians Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling explore the intricate and dramatic final days of Abraham Lincoln, delving into the circumstances leading up to his assassination, the event itself, and its profound impact on American history.

Historical Context: Lincoln’s Presidency

The episode opens with a detailed backdrop of Lincoln's presidency during the closing stages of the American Civil War. Anthony Delaney sets the stage by discussing the strategic shifts as the Confederate states teetered on the brink of collapse.

Anthony Delaney [07:17]: "We are at the end of, or towards the end of, the Civil War... Union forces have captured Richmond, and Robert E. Lee has surrendered on April 9, 1865."

Maddy Pelling adds context about the economic and social upheavals, particularly the abolition of slavery and its ramifications on the U.S. economy.

Maddy Pelling [08:38]: "Isn't it? Because it's been based for many decades, if not centuries, on enslaved labor."

The hosts discuss Lincoln's 10% Plan, which aimed to offer amnesty to Confederate states pledging loyalty to the Union and recognizing the end of slavery.

The Path to Assassination

Anthony Delaney recounts key events leading up to Lincoln’s assassination, including Lincoln’s final public speech and the growing tensions among Confederate sympathizers.

Anthony Delaney [15:30]: "There's a lot of confusion, a lot of rhetoric, heated argument, debate... a fractious time and a confusing time for people on the ground."

The discussion highlights the brewing resentment and desperation among Confederate supporters, setting the stage for Booth's drastic actions.

The Assassination at Ford’s Theatre

The narrative intensifies as the hosts describe the assassination night with vivid detail. Anthony Delaney provides a minute-by-minute account of the events.

Anthony Delaney [22:14]: "This all happens now. This happens at 10:15 during Act Three, Scene Two."

John Wilkes Booth, an actor familiar with the theater’s layout, leverages his knowledge to execute the plan seamlessly.

Anthony Delaney [23:26]: "He uses a pivotal point in the show where there's a huge roar of laughter... to mask the sound of the gunshot."

Maddy Pelling reflects on the surreal nature of the event, juxtaposing the comedic atmosphere of the play with the sudden violence.

Maddy Pelling [28:40]: "This juxtaposition of the laughter and the screaming... it must have been so confusing."

Booth’s theatrical approach, including his dramatic leap onto the stage, underscores the calculated nature of the assassination.

Anthony Delaney [26:42]: "He understands the geography of theaters... he knows where he's going."

Immediate Aftermath and Lincoln’s Final Moments

Post-assassination, Lincoln is swiftly moved to William Peterson's house. The hosts provide an emotional recount of his deteriorating condition.

Anthony Delaney [02:52]: “At 6:40 AM his pulse could not be counted... At 7:20 AM he breathed his last and the spirit fled to God who gave it.”

A poignant moment is highlighted when Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, solemnly declares:

Edwin Stanton [02:52]: "Now he belongs to the ages."

The hosts discuss the immediate security concerns and the swift response to Booth’s attack, including Booth's escape and subsequent death.

Anthony Delaney [38:32]: "Eight of them were arrested and tried by military tribunal... Mary Surratt is the first woman executed by the US Federal government."

Lincoln’s Legacy and the Impact on Reconstruction

The assassination left a vacuum in leadership, with Vice President Andrew Johnson stepping in under vastly different ideologies. The hosts analyze how Johnson's approach hindered Lincoln's vision for Reconstruction.

Maddy Pelling [40:32]: "Lincoln was the glue holding it all together."

Anthony Delaney [41:38]: "Johnson... pardons thousands of Confederates and returns land to ex-slaveholders... he opposes certain protections that Lincoln would have offered."

This shift led to increased violence and confusion in the post-war South, derailing efforts to ensure equality and safety for freed enslaved individuals.

Reflections on Historical Assassinations

Towards the episode's conclusion, Delaney and Pelling delve into the broader fascination with historical assassinations, exploring their narrative power and the dramatic intersection of individual motives with national consequences.

Anthony Delaney [44:54]: "Assassinations... are calculated, deliberate, targeted... utterly fascinating."

Maddy Pelling emphasizes the storytelling allure of assassinations, highlighting the dramatic convergence of separate life paths into a pivotal historical moment.

Maddy Pelling [47:18]: "It's the meeting of two people in a place who otherwise wouldn't come into contact... so compelling."

Concluding Thoughts

The episode wraps up by contemplating the fragility of historical trajectories, underscored by singular, violent acts that reshape nations. Lincoln's martyrdom not only secured his legacy but also left an indelible mark on the course of American history.

Anthony Delaney [47:27]: "One split second, one individual can upturn an entire nation."

Listeners are encouraged to reflect on how Lincoln's untimely death altered the path of Reconstruction and the enduring legacy of his leadership.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and emotional nuances presented by Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling, offering a comprehensive overview for those unfamiliar with the episode.

Transcript

[Anthony Delaney]

Hi, we're your hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling and if you would like After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal ad free and get early access.

[Maddy Pelling]

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[Anthony Delaney]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Unknown]

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[Maddy Pelling]

Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie. And I'm Anthony and in today's episode we are talking about the assassination of the 16th President of the United States. Abraham Lincoln. His presidency happened at a time of huge change in America. And take us to this story. His here's Anthony.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's April 14, 1865, not long after 10:00pm on a spring evening in Washington D.C. just across the road in Ford's Theatre, the play Our American Cousin has been interrupted by a gunshot. It quickly emerges that in the presidential box, Abraham Lincoln has been shot at point blank range. He sits slumped, unconscious, paralyzed, his wife Mary pleading for help. Guards clear the crowds as he's urgently carried across the street here to William Peterson's house. The first doctor on the scene, Charles A. Leal, recounts his. As soon as we arrived in the room offered to us, we placed the President in bed in a diagonal position. As the bed was too short, a part of the foot was removed to enable us to place him in a comfortable position. As soon as we placed him in bed, we removed his clothes and covered him with blankets. While covering him, I found his lower extremities very cold from his feet to a distance several inches above his knees. At 1am his pulse suddenly increased in frequency to 100 per minute, but soon diminished gradually becoming less feeble until 2:54am when it was 48 and hardly perceptible. At 6:40am his pulse could not be counted. The inspirations now became very short and the expirations very prolonged and labored, accompanied by a guttural sound. 6:50am The Surgeon General now held his finger to the carotid artery. Colonel Crane held his head. Dr. Stone, who was sitting on the bed, held his left pulse and his right pulse was held by myself. At 7:20am he breathed his last and the spirit fled to God who gave it. With that, Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton declared, now he belongs to the ages. These are the final days of. Of Abraham Lincoln.

[Maddy Pelling]

Well, that was an emotive opening to an episode. Wow, there's so much to unpack here. There's the historic moment itself. There's the man, his death, the way his body is treated in this medical moment of emergency. And at the point of death itself, there's the ramifications, there's the assassin. There's just so much to get into here. What do you know of Abraham Lincoln? What's the version that you have of him? Because, I mean, obviously there's the image of him with the top hat. He's incredibly tall. We heard there in the opening that the bottom of the bed has to be taken off because he is that long. He is, in my mind, something of an emancipator. He is someone who leads the Union and the American Civil War and he promises emancipation to enslaved African Americans. He is fighting for liberty and justice. Is this the version that you have of him? What do you know of him?

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, I suppose it would have been, yeah. Initially, someone very fatherly probably had a very similar vibe to George III in some ways. But I think more recently some historical work has helped to nuance to complicate it and to complicate that a little bit, especially in terms of his role when it comes to enslaved people and the emancipation of enslaved people. But he's complex even now, I think.

[Maddy Pelling]

The other thing I think I know about him, and I did hear this on another podcast, no such things as a fish. So credit where credit's due. But apparently he had a really high pitched voice.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, how do we know?

[Maddy Pelling]

Don't ask me that. That's as far as this piece of information is able to go. But apparently he had a really high pitched voice. So there we go. Okay, let's dive in with some context because we've heard those dramatic beats of his death already. Let's put him into his historical moment, please.

[Anthony Delaney]

Okay, so we are at. In 1865, we're at the end of or towards the end of the Civil War. The Confederate states are on the brink of collapse, really. Union forces have captured Richmond and Robert E. Lee, who is towards the end of this period in the Civil War, he has kind of become the general over the Confederate states and he has been captured. Well, he surrendered on 4-9-65.

[Maddy Pelling]

So things are really changing.

[Anthony Delaney]

Things are changing and they're wrapping up after a pretty tumultuous few years in terms of the Civil War. Things are starting to. We're not quite sure how they're going to iron out, by the way. That's all still to play for and that's important in this history. But certainly there's a shift towards an end in the Civil War here. And then there's, as I'm saying, like trying to iron out what this end is going to look like. We're talking about Reconstruction here and that is how to reintegrate those Confederate states into an idea, a new idea in many ways of the United States. And. And Lincoln is looking at shaping what is known as the 10% plan, which is offering amnesty to those Confederate states and as long as they will pledge loyalty to the Union and recognizing that there is now an end to slavery. And we'll talk about that in a little bit later. But we're reshaping what America is going.

[Maddy Pelling]

To look like and also what its economy is going to look like. Right. Because it's been based for many decades at this point, if not centuries, on enslaved labour.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, absolutely. And this is one of those kind of complexities that we've been talking about in terms of Lincoln's legacy, where we talk about the 13th Amendment, which is supposedly to abolish slavery, and that's what Lincoln is advocating for and what the Confederates are against, which their argument is that it will upend America's economy. However, within that, we have to be aware that there is not necessarily a clarity on what the rights of freed people will be if there is the abolishment of slavery and what their rights are going to be, what their employment opportunities are going to be like and what their safety is going to be like. And that's been highlighted in the Confederate States.

[Maddy Pelling]

And also all these decisions being made by a white man in the White House.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes, he is the man in the White House. He was elected in November 1860. The Union, as it was known, was unraveling. It was not the same. The Southern states had left at this point. And this idea of slavery is at the very centre of national identity and how.

[Maddy Pelling]

That's the great debate at this moment. Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

And you know, in one sense, it's very difficult for us to try and place ourselves within the context of those conversations. But their legacy is absolutely present and plain to see even today. So you can see how it fractured America and I think it's plain to see how it fractured even now. The Civil war began on 12th April 1861 and it ended in April 65. So you're looking at a four year time span there.

[Maddy Pelling]

And a bloody period. Right.

[Anthony Delaney]

A bloody and transformative period. Just to give you some of the kind of landmarks in that conflict. The Gettysburg address was in 63, November 63. And this was when the term of government of the people, by the people and for the people was first put into parlance.

[Maddy Pelling]

And these are Abraham Lincoln's words. Yeah. This is an incredibly famous moment of his performance, really, in front of those people.

[Anthony Delaney]

And performance is key here. I mean, that's no surprise when we're talking about heads of state and presidents in America specifically.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And I think with Abraham Lincoln, he's such a striking individual, isn't he, that he's so tall, he wears the top hat to make himself taller. Like he's quite sort of conscious of that branding almost.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, absolutely. And it is branding and that fatherly branding actually and it's really interesting because the conversation around fatherhood is very pivotal to this idea of whether or not to abolish slavery. So for instance, there is a conversation around our family, black and white, in the Southern states and the Confederate states, where they see their roles as slave owners in a fatherly way, which of course is complete tosh. But this is one of the ways in which slavery is being defended at this time. So his idea of fatherhood is an emancipatory.

[Maddy Pelling]

So he's co opting that language that's used by the other side and so.

[Anthony Delaney]

Embodying it kind of, as you say. But he's reelected and this is kind of important, I guess. He's reelected in 64.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. So he's elected initially in 1860. Obviously presidents only serve four years, but he gets a second term.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes. And that is when it's really seen that he has a mandate to end slavery because of that re election. So that kind of brings us up to term with his presidential journey.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. Talk to me more about his relationship with slavery then.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. So before the Civil War, Lincoln was focused on preventing slavery, the spread of slavery, not necessarily abolishing it outright. This wasn't always his goal, but it became a gradual point on which he rested his political ambitions. He wanted to preserve the Union at all costs. And so initially he didn't want to be seen as being too radical in his approach to slavery. But the Emancipation Proclamation was given on the 1st of January 1863 and this then declared all enslaved people in Confederate held territories to be freed. That was not honoured. It's really important to kind of highlight that that was not understood by Confederate.

[Maddy Pelling]

States on the ground.

[Anthony Delaney]

That's not the experience of enslaved black people. It's all well and good to make these proclamations, but the lived reality is very.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And the other thing of course that that proclamation did was it allowed black men to enlist in the Union army. So it's a pretty clever, savvy move as well.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. If you look at what's going. If you look at the ploy, if you look at it as a tactic, a war tactic, which essentially it as then it's not necessarily this very people focused, very freedom focused thing. It's a way in which to get more bodies into.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And you see this throughout history as well. I can think about in the 1780s in Britain you get legislation ending restrictions on Catholics in the country so they can join the army to go and fight the Americans during the American Revolution. So we have a complicated. This isn't a black and white issue, really. This is. I mean, it is.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah. You know, this is at the time on the ground.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. There's a sort of a nuanced gray area in between. Really.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. And I think a lot of confusion. You know, you're talking about that experience of people there at the time. I think there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of rhetoric, There's a lot of heated argument, debate. And at the center of this is a huge population of enslaved black people who, to a certain extent, can't even determine their own futures because these conversations are being had about them, not necessarily with them. So it's a fractious time and a confusing time for people on the ground, as we kind of keep saying.

[Maddy Pelling]

Bring me to the days leading up to his death, then.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. So these are the final days. So we go. Let's start at April 9, when Robert E. Lee, who was the Confederate general. So he surrenders then. So that's the kind of beginning there's.

[Maddy Pelling]

That's a huge turning point.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes. And if you are on the Confederate side, you are seeing that things are not going your way now. So maybe there's feelings of desperation starting to creep in there. April 11th is Lincoln's final. What turns out to be Lincoln's final public speech. And he gives this from the balcony of the White House, hinting at citizenship for black Americans. Now, remember I said to you about things not being quite clear, there being a bit of confusion, but he says that there might be some kind of elective rights giving given to. He uses the word like very intelligent black people who are very intelligent and who serve. I'm paraphrasing. And who serve the cause. So to a certain extent, it feels like it's not a widespread.

[Maddy Pelling]

If you're loyal to me.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. Very intelligent. What does that mean? Yeah, exactly. Anyway, look, it's problematic. Yes. However, if you're on the Confederate side, this is a huge warning and this is a huge. You absolutely do not want to hear this because it's a threat to your way of life. And a man called John Wilkes Booth happened to be.

[Maddy Pelling]

Never heard of him.

[Anthony Delaney]

Never heard of that man. He happens to be in the crowd that day and he heard this speech. And he is alleged to have said, now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make. So he is obviously on the Confederate side.

[Maddy Pelling]

So there are just people in the crowd who heard this. And what was that?

[Anthony Delaney]

John?

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, let me just write this down. Can I Just get your name as well.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, I feel like this could be important. Yeah. So it's, you know, bit of story there.

[Maddy Pelling]

Oh, I'm gonna make so much money in the papers in the next few days.

[Anthony Delaney]

I know nobody. Actually, I was gonna say, I know nobody knows who you are. But, you know, he's an actor. He has a bit of a profile. He's not famous.

[Maddy Pelling]

Famous actor. So he delivered that line perfectly and importantly, audibly.

[Anthony Delaney]

He may have made that up himself afterwards as a bit of, like, playfulness, but, yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

So that's the 11th of April.

[Anthony Delaney]

That's the go to the 14th. Then Lincoln meets with his Cabinet to discuss reintegrating the south and rebuilding the country. So there is this idea that we're moving forward. But what we kind of have to keep in the back of our minds is that men like Booth don't necessarily like the idea of what they're moving forward with.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes. There's huge resentment and frustration and anger. Okay, so what do you do in the evening after you've had a long, hard day of discussing the future of your nation with your government?

[Anthony Delaney]

You go to the theatre to see a comedy. And actually, that doesn't sound like too bad an idea. Sometimes that is a good way to just let a bit of steam. So he and his wife Mary. And by the way, talking about theatre and Mary, there's a play called oh, Mary on Broadway right now. And it is about Mary Todd Lincoln. And it is in no way. It's a comedy. It's in no way based on any historical fact whatsoever. And it is just. I haven't seen it, but I'm planning to go to New York in autumn. And if it's still on, I am definitely gonna go and see it. But it's based on no photo.

[Maddy Pelling]

Fishing for some free tickets.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes. By the way. Oh, Mary, you're watching this. I'm a historian. I'd like to come and see your play. They both head off to American Cousin.

[Maddy Pelling]

Which is not Omeric.

[Anthony Delaney]

Not Omerican Cousin. Oh, God, that would have been amazing. But it's playing at Ford's theater in Washington, D.C. and it's a comedy of manners. It's basically about this kind of rough American visiting aristocratic English relatives and how he is kind of. His rough manners don't fit in with the proper English way of things.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's interesting that it's a play about. I suppose it's highly obvious that it would be a play that the zeitgeist at the time would be concerned with. What is America? What Is it to be an American? But it's interesting that the President is sitting and watching something that's about the definition of America against its forefather, great enemy Britain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really, really interesting.

[Anthony Delaney]

And how this roughness is appealing as well. How this, you know, yes, it's a form of comedy, but actually what it's. We're laughing together and we're in on the joke.

[Maddy Pelling]

I always wonder though, in that moment when the curtain goes up and the play begins, how much Abraham Lincoln is actually taking in of the story. Is he sat there just going through what's happened during the day, you know, and you're absolutely just been focused on something so much and then you sit down to watch Netflix and you're not taking it in.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, well, I'm usually on my phone scrolling.

[Maddy Pelling]

Shame on you.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes, terrible. Yeah, it's a good question actually. I hadn't really thought about that because.

[Maddy Pelling]

Like, is he laughing along? Is he?

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, yes, we know that he is actually. And Mary is as well, are enjoying it. But it is a good. Here's why I think it's a good question. Because you talk about this self fashioning and he has cultivated this idea of kind of a fatherly figure, whatever. But at this moment in time there is a self fashioning also in heading to the theater that night because, yes, the country is fractured. There is all these tensions. Oh, look, I'm just going to the theater. Actually, there's normalcy here.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's a public appearance as well. Right. He's like, father is here, everything is okay.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, we can laugh like, oh, there's a break in the tension. Like, we're moving on. He did genuinely love theater. So like, he probably is enjoying it and this is probably something that he is happy to be able to go and do. Little does he know that things are not necessary.

[Maddy Pelling]

He will become the main attraction, the main act. But who else is in the box with them? It's Abraham and Mary.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. And then we also have Major Henry Rathbone and his fiance Clara Harris. And they are in the Presidential box.

[Maddy Pelling]

Absolutely regretted taking that invitation.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. That brings them into history forever, doesn't it? Sitting with the President one night is one thing, but sitting with him on the night he, spoiler gets assassinated, well, that's cementing your place in history then.

[Holly Fry]

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[Unknown]

Our Skin Tells a story. Join me, Holly Fry and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maddy Pelling]

Let's talk about the assassination.

[Anthony Delaney]

Let's. That's what we're here to do. We probably should.

[Maddy Pelling]

Taken long enough to get through it.

[Anthony Delaney]

So this is. This all happens now. This happens at 10:15 during act three, scene two. I'm gonna say this. If I was still in Act 3, Scene 2. I know we're in the third act, but it's still Scene 2. I'd be like, guys, I need to get home. This is late. Yeah, I want to be home. I want to be done. I want to be out of the theatre by 10 at the very latest. I like an hour and a half through.

[Maddy Pelling]

Do you know what I thought you were gonna say? As an actor who's done a lot of stage work, I thought you were gonna say if someone got assassinated only in Act 3, Scene 2, I'd be.

[Anthony Delaney]

So annoyed I'd done the whole thing.

[Maddy Pelling]

I'd be like, you've taken the limelight.

[Anthony Delaney]

Excuse me?

[Holly Fry]

Oh, yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

Well, that's the rest of the play together.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, yeah, so it happens at 10:15 and it's very late. Like, it is quite late in the thing. And it's John Wilkes Booth, of course, who is in his home territory as an actor. Like, he's familiar with this space and he knows exactly what he's doing and how to move around it.

[Maddy Pelling]

So where is in the theatre?

[Anthony Delaney]

We don't know exactly where he's come from. I mean, he's concealed himself or he's probably. I would imagine he was just in the general rabble, but has now made his way up behind the presidential box. Okay. So he's gonna enter into the great.

[Maddy Pelling]

19Th century security there. President.

[Anthony Delaney]

This is where his thing as an actor and where the popularity of this show comes into play. Because he uses a pivotal point in the show where there's a huge roar of laughter, and it's a guaranteed roar of laughter every night. And he uses that to mask the sound of the gunshot.

[Maddy Pelling]

So he has absolutely done his research. He's seen this play before at least once. He understands how the theatre works as a space, as a performance, the role that the audience has within that, how people behave. He understands human behavior. He's able to predict it.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, it's definitely calculated. I mean, and it just gets more. So he creeps up behind Lincoln. Right. So that's dramatic in itself. That's almost theatrical. Imagining this figure coming up behind the President. He shoots him with a.44 caliber De Ringer pistol, point blank. And the bullet enters through Lincoln's left ear and it gets lodged behind his right eye. And so instantly, because it's a brain injury, instantly, he is slumped, he's unconscious, and he's paralyzed straight away. So that happens very, very quickly. So we talked about earlier, didn't we, Rathbone being in the presidential box with him and securing his place in history. Yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

A military man, no less.

[Anthony Delaney]

Military man. He reacts really quick. So despite the laughter, he's obviously gonna hear this because he's sitting in the box with them.

[Maddy Pelling]

He jumps probably as well, not to put too fine on point, but there's probably some blood splatter and the presence slumped, like. Yeah, if you're in the box, you're.

[Anthony Delaney]

Very aware of it. You've gotta see it. So he jumps up to kind of intervene and to try and protect him, but Wilkes Booth slashes him with a dagger and he runs, which cuts him from his elbow to his shoulder. But he survives. But it's a pretty, pretty, you know, gory gash. Yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

And interesting that Wilkes Booth has brought not only the pistol, but a knife as well. He is armed to the teeth. He is getting this job done.

[Anthony Delaney]

And anticipates that there's going to be somebody around the President, of course, who is going to try and get him afterwards. He's not doing this initially. It would appear as a form of self sacrifice, though he's not willing to sacrifice himself because he's in the presidential box.

[Maddy Pelling]

This is the famous moment, right?

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

Other than the President getting.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well. Yeah. So he jumps 12ft from the presidential box down onto the stage.

[Maddy Pelling]

Cue crunching and snapping.

[Anthony Delaney]

Cue crunching and snapping. The spur on his shoe gets caught in an American flag, breaks his leg.

[Maddy Pelling]

The symbolism.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, my God. And he still gets up and flees and still gets away. Like, how is a man with a broken. I guess all of the attention is now adrenaline on the president. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

Adrenaline. And yes, the fact that everyone is.

[Anthony Delaney]

Looking at the box, the combination of all of those things. There's a horse waiting for him at stage door. Like this is planned, Maddie. Well, of course it's planned. It's very obvious.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's so theatrical. Literally.

[Anthony Delaney]

Stage door. There's a horse at stage door. Like, that's crazy.

[Maddy Pelling]

Is it stage door on a horse?

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. No, it is. Like, it's.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, it's too good to be true. It's perfect.

[Anthony Delaney]

You can see his theatricality in this execution.

[Maddy Pelling]

I love that he literally gets on the stage.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. He's like, by the way, I'm definitely gonna get on stage after I do this. I'm not gonna just run back down the way I've come. No, no, no. On I get onto stage.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And you know, also, that speaks to his knowledge of the geography of theaters, Right. Cause that's probably the best way to get out, is to get onto the stage and then go out of the stage door, right?

[Anthony Delaney]

Absolutely true. Absolutely. Because there will be an.

[Maddy Pelling]

Understands how those buildings work. He knows where he's going. Even if he's never been behind stage in that particular theater, which you probably had. He understands the root out of there. I mean, you sort of half expect him to take a bow.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, is that partially what he's doing by taking to the stage? In many ways, like taking his moment. But. Yeah, it does. It feels very like that. But it's. And you know, I said that the laughter is masking the gunshot. People do hear it because it's not that masked totally, but they think it's part of the play. But very quickly, Mrs. Lincoln is screaming. And can you imagine the desperation of that scream?

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And it's just really horrible, isn't it? This juxtaposition of the laughter and the screaming. And it's very cinematic, that kind of flipping, that reversal of what's happening. And something there about the way that the audience is reacting to the scene on stage and then they're reacting to this scene. I wonder if it would have been almost a little bit difficult to perceive what was going on. If you're just sat in the stalls watching the show and you're laughing along and you're in a sort of a communal emotional space that is safe. You're experiencing something that everyone else is. And then suddenly it's like, what's happening up there? Oh, okay, now this guy's jumped. Oh, he's broken his leg. Is that real? Is that part of the act? He's on the stage. So you're probably thinking, where's he come from? If you didn't see him in the box, he's just fallen onto the stage. You're probably thinking, is he a character in this? Is this funny? I don't know what's going on. And then there's some kind of kerfuffle going on in the box up above you. It must have been so confusing. One thing that I find so interesting about this is that on the same night there is another assassination attempt taking place elsewhere. Right. Like, this isn't the only attack that evening.

[Anthony Delaney]

The Confederates are unhappy. So Lewis Powell is one of the associates of John Wilkes Booth, and he has made an assassination attempt on the Secretary of State, William Seward. So there are a group of people involved in this, as you can imagine, because there's not just a horse waiting outside the back door. Somebody has to arrange all of these things. So Wilkes Booth is not acting alone.

[Maddy Pelling]

Wilkes Booth isn't. He's not. Yeah. He's not an isolated figure.

[Anthony Delaney]

Exactly.

[Maddy Pelling]

Which is interesting because so often with assassination attempts, it is. The narrative, at least, is that it is a single person.

[Anthony Delaney]

I guess that speaks to the idea that this is kind of some hangover from the Civil War. Right. This is the final remnants of that bubbling along the edges of it, so that there still is some bit of collect action happening from the Confederate side. But you were talking there about the kind of idea of what the experience was like in the theater. So we do have renderings of this and there's quite a few. But I want you to describe this one here. We have a coloured image called the Martyr of Liberty.

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay. So I'm looking at this image. It is of the presidential box. There are five figures in it. We have Lincoln himself center stage. He's sat on a sort of throne, like very big red and gold chair. He is falling forward. His hands have fallen onto the rail at the front of the box. We've Got Mary next to him. Her hand is shot up in the air. She's looking at him, her eyes are wide open. She's absolutely shocked. And then to the right of her, we've got Clara, who is the fiance of Major Rathbone, who is on the other side of the scene. And behind the four of them, seated down, of course, standing behind them is Wilkes Booth himself. And he's holding the pistol up. It's a really little weapon, actually. It's not a big gun. And there's smoke rising from the shot that's just been fired. What strikes me about this, and looking at the title of this work, the Martyr of Liberty, as one would expect, in the presidential box there is a red theater like curtain with gold tassels that frames this scene. And it is like a mini theatre in and of itself. And what you just said there about the fact that there are thousands of people who witnessed this, this is a moment of theatre that is to a large extent choreographed not by Lincoln, but it is done in the theatre because it is meant to be seen by people. This is the way to express the anger of the confederates in public, to show the consequences of going against them. It is an act of rebellion, of resistance in that way. And also it will spread the word that the President's dead. If you kill the President in front of a bunch of people, people can't go around saying, oh, it's a rumor. Don't worry, it's fine, he's okay, he's okay. That news is going to leak out of that theater as people start to run out into the street.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

There's no controlling that narrative for people.

[Anthony Delaney]

There's potential people, a power vacuum straight away. I mean, there's obviously a system and we'll talk about that, but it's to create panic. Yeah. For those few minutes there's going to be panic. And if you look underneath, there's a little piece of text which comes from Act 1, Scene 7 of the Scottish play, which is apparently Lincoln's favourite. And it said that he hath borne his faculties so meek, has been so clear in his great office that his virtues shall plead trump tongued against the deep damnation of his taking off. So it doesn't matter that he's dead. He was so incredible, he was so virtuous that we can't help but lament and shout from the rooftops how amazing he was despite the fact that he is martyred, basically.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it, isn't it? That this, you know, Lincoln wasn't given the opportunity to live out the rest of his presidency. And, you know, we talked about some of those nuances and complications that were happening. Is there a world in which he would have become less popular? Is there a world in which he ends his presidency? Not with the legacy that he is now guaranteed to have. He's been made a martyr.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, absolutely. And in some ways he becomes, as you say. We don't know what would have happened had he been there, because he would have had to oversee such a tumultuous time that maybe he would have fallen out of favour or whatever. But now he is secure in his martyrdom, essentially. So we know then that he is taken across the road. He is attended to by Dr. Charles Leal, as you said, and other people too. Like, there's loads of military people coming in. There's people from his cabinet coming in. You know, there's a lot going on.

[Maddy Pelling]

And it's important to say at this point he is not dead.

[Anthony Delaney]

No, no, no. He has nine hours of being attended to by several people just to let you know what's happening in his body during this time. There is external and internal hemorrhaging. He's losing a lot of blood. This continues throughout the night. The guards are patrolling not just the room, well, outside the room, but outside the house as well. We don't want another attack. Of course, he does not regain consciousness. However, the theater was the last thing that he was alive for. And he does die then, as we said at the very beginning, at 7:22am on the 15th of April, 1865. He's only 56, actually. He always appears older to me in renderings that we see. But, yeah, he's only 56.

[Maddy Pelling]

Younger than recent presidents, anyway.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But come here to me. I have another image for you, which is apparently what's going on in the room right as he's dying. Just describe it to us. It's not that complex. Just see what the setting is. And then we'll just see how this is also feeding into this kind of idea of martyrdom.

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay, so we're looking at the bedroom scene essentially of Lincoln's death. And he is at the center of it, as you might expect. He is in the bed with his eyes closed. Is this the moment of death itself? Or maybe just before? All around him are figures. We've got men in black evening suits, all weeping, looking on at him, all in a state of mourning already. And then off to the side of the bed, we've got Mary Lincoln still in her finery from the theatre. And behind another woman, who I assume is Clara from the presidential box, who's witnessed all potentially and weeping onto Mary's lap into her skirts is her son with Lincoln just a small infant really. What I think's so interesting about this is that all the figures bar Mary and her husband in the bed are all in black. And so Lincoln himself, he's been stripped down to his white undershirt, which has been loosened around the neck and he's in this very white crisp bedding and he looks saint like he is. And again, thinking about this idea of him as the martyr president, right, that he's sort of illuminated, he's quite Christ like almost.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. There's a few interesting things, right, everything that you just described, but also the fact that this, this room is a depiction of a room that didn't exist, even though it's supposed to be in the Peterson's house. But the Peterson room was nowhere near this big. It could not possibly have fit all those people in.

[Maddy Pelling]

And also I will say that in the account we heard at the beginning, they talked about how they took the bottom of the bed away. And in this there's a very heavy, very American 19th century looking carved bed and it has a bed head but also the bottom of the bed is still there.

[Anthony Delaney]

So the room definitely has more dignity than the description gives. Right. Because this seems like he almost plan. And one of the things which is in the other image and this image, there is no blood anywhere near Abraham Lincoln. It's very deliberate that they've kept that out of all the images.

[Maddy Pelling]

He does not look like a man who's been shot in the head at all. There's no blood, there's no injury even depicted. Yeah, I mean this is the thing that we have to remember. He's just taken into a random house opposite the theatre. Like it just happens to be there. And this version, I mean there's, you know, nice art hung on the walls. There's this very elaborate, beautiful, I suppose maybe woollen carpet on the floor. There are these nice fixtures and fittings. We've carved bed. There's a side table off to one side that's got beautiful lace covering hung on it with a jug and a cup of some water. Like this is depicted as a sort of at least a middle class, nicely appointed space, not someone's random house opposite a theatre.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah. So it's a totally made up thing in order to facilitate his martyrdom. And of course it says that under the picture, doesn't It. It says the deathbed of the martyr President Abraham Lincoln. So he is now the martyr president.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And. And it's interesting as well that we talk about the theatre space itself and then the presidential box being its own sort of miniature theatre. And here, again, this is like another scene from a play. This is another sort of theatrical space, if you like. It's an arena in which this narrative is going to be played out again and again. The space is going to be reimagined and it becomes sort of symbolic as much as a literal site.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, no, it's a real deliberate rendering. But of course, and we said this, one of the things that America has and most infrastructures of power have is a very clear lineage of where that power goes, should that power structure be disrupted. And, of course, Vice President Andrew Johnson is sworn in on the very same day that Lincoln dies. He will have been waiting in the wings, of course, just so, you know, just so we have kind of wrapping up the whole narrative. Booth himself is located in Virginia. Two weeks later, he is shot in a barn by one of the Union soldiers, Sergeant Boston Corbett. That is the most American name I've ever heard in my entire life. Boston Corbett. And he dies within three hours being shot.

[Maddy Pelling]

Sorry, Sergeant Corbett. Not a very good shot if the person you shoot in a barn, presumably at close range, takes three hours.

[Anthony Delaney]

But I wonder if. And I don't know, but I wonder if it was a case that, like, they didn't necessarily want him to die, that they wanted to have some kind of a public hearing or something. And maybe it wasn't a shoot kill instruction or something. I don't know, but I'm just.

[Maddy Pelling]

That's interesting.

[Anthony Delaney]

Maybe it's that.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, I suppose it speaks as well to just, you know, this is a landscape in America that has been so saturated with violence and bloodshed during the Civil War, and that Booth kind of flees out into the country and then is shot in a barn. It just seems like a sort of extension of that cross country, back and forth, the fighting over boundaries. You know, it feels very sort of suitable that that would be his end. Tell me this, are the other co. Conspirators caught? Because we know, obviously there's the other assassination attempt that night. There are presumably more people involved in this than those two men.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. Eight of them were arrested and tried by military tribunal. Cause, remember, we are in wartime, essentially, still here. And four of those eight are hanged, including, by the way, Mary Surratt, who is the first woman executed by the US Federal government.

[Maddy Pelling]

I didn't know that.

[Anthony Delaney]

No, neither did I. I need to.

[Maddy Pelling]

Know everything about her.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, we should do an episode on Mary.

[Maddy Pelling]

We should. That is absolutely fascinating.

[Anthony Delaney]

Interesting one.

[Maddy Pelling]

So what is. That's Lincoln's legacy in the years afterwards because he's fought for the reunification of the states. He leaves, he's made a depart his presidency in a way that makes him into a martyr. That elevates him, that elevates the cause he was fighting for. That maybe glosses over some of the nuances that we've kind of highlighted and that in the centuries since, people have done a lot of work to kind of look at, for example, his relationship to slavery. But what happens to the efforts to reunify?

[Anthony Delaney]

You might think that because he's made this martyr, things might absolutely flow down the alleyway that he would have wanted it to go and that actually his wishes then become almost impossible to ignore. But that's not really what happens. They lose that unifying figure and his vision becomes derailed, I suppose.

[Maddy Pelling]

So he was the glue holding it all together.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, certainly he was somebody who was. And because he had been, I think, you know, the way you all said like that that election victory is a mandate, and now nobody else has that mandate. I know there is a vice president, but it's not quite the same thing. And of course, to keep in mind that Johnson, the now president, is, yes, he's a Democrat, but he's a Southern Democrat. And it's often the Confederate states are in the south. And so he is more hostile to black equality than Lincoln was. So if Lincoln was nuanced disguise.

[Maddy Pelling]

And Lincoln was also quite vague in terms of what he was offering post war to freed enslaved people.

[Anthony Delaney]

Whereas Johnson just goes ahead and pardons thousands of Confederates and he returns land to ex slaveholders. So he's very much courting the Confederate vote and the Confederate states. And then in terms of the freed enslaved people, he opposes certain protections that Lincoln would have offered them. So it really is an about trust turn in terms of what Lincoln would have done.

[Maddy Pelling]

Removing some of those safety nets then, that Lincoln wanted to put in place to ensure not only equality, but safety of people who've been freed from slavery.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. And as a result, there is further confusion. And in that confusion, violence just surges in the south particularly. So this kind of derails what Lincoln in many ways, and it's probably difficult to say this in some ways, but Wilkes, John Wilkes Booth achieved what he set out to do in many ways. Okay. Not ultimately, but in that immediate time period.

[Holly Fry]

This podcast is brought to you by Aura. By the time you hear about a data breach, your information has already been exposed for months. On average, companies take 277 days to report a breach. That's nine months where hackers have access to your personal data. That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Aura is an all in one digital safety solution that monitors the dark web for your phone number, email and Social Security number, sending real time alerts if your info is found. It also includes a vpn, password manager and data broker removal to help keep you safe for a limited time. Aura is offering a 14 day free trial plus a dark web scan to check if your personal information has been leaked. All for [e-mail] safety that's aura.com safety to sign up and protect your loved ones. That's a u r a.com safety terms apply. Check the site for details.

[Unknown]

Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with Soraya. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Maddy Pelling]

As we mentioned at the top, we've done a lot of the final days of series now, and often the people that we look at are, as happened so much throughout history and certainly in British history, are usually being executed by the state, if not murdered by political enemies. But we haven't done many assassinations. I'm very, very interested in assassinations. I'm interested in the people who carry them out, the people who are the victims of them, the aftermath, the conspiracies that rush into that void of confusion. All of that, all the sort of discourse around them absolutely fascinates me. Why do you think we are interested in historical assassinations? Is that something that you're drawn to?

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, I think there might be something in it about proximity of two individuals.

[Maddy Pelling]

Who otherwise wouldn't meet.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. And it's also the thought of an assassination is not murdering someone in cold blood. And by that I mean it's not a crime of passion. It's not something that's done on a whim. It is calculated, it is deliberate, it is Targeted and often, as you were kind of saying, by an individual. There's usually an individual behind this, although we know that there are eight other people who are arrested and very much in on this plot. But that brings two human beings together in a very violent and deliberate interaction. And it is the. There's something, thankfully, intangible about being that close to somebody and deliberately ending their life in such a violent and calculated way. That is utterly fascinating. And assassinations so often then go on to dictate the course of history in so many different ways.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, I'm interested in the ones that worked and the ones that didn't, because it's a crossroads, that moment. And it can go one of two ways, often if it succeeds, if it fails. And the ramifications of both of those actually are huge. I think what interests me as well, and I think, you know, we talk so much about how history is, the practice of history, the discipline of history is often storytelling. And I think these offer us a way to tell stories. They're such fascinating stories because you have these moving parts, these two, until that moment, separate storylines. These two people who are just moving through the world and they're coming closer and closer together, but at least one of them does not know that that's gonna happen, happen. And then you have this moment, this spark, this big explosive point in history, and then you have the sort of the. You know, the debris falling, as it were, and this aftermath and working out the lay of the land beyond that point. Yeah, I think there's real power in them. And I think, as well, as you say, it's the meeting of two people in a place who otherwise wouldn't come into contact. Often someone in a position of power and someone who is from quite regularly, the lowest ranks of the society who has some kind of gripe or grievance to air, a political point to make. And that is just so compelling.

[Anthony Delaney]

It also highlights the fragility of humanity, doesn't it? Where in one split second, one individual can upturn an entire nation.

[Maddy Pelling]

I think particularly with Lincoln, actually, because he was. Was symbolically and physically such a giant, you know, and he's seen as this father figure. He's got a big hat on. He's a presence in the world, giving these speeches. You know, even when he. When he steps out to give some of his famous speeches, he's so tall in the crowd, everyone can see him. He is this something that, you know, everyone's eyes are drawn to him. And yet when we talk about the injuries in the aftermath of the Gun being fired. He seems so small and so vulnerable and it's hard not to feel sort of terror for him and to feel traumatized by the details of those injuries and the suffering that he would have gone through. I mean, you mentioned that he's unconscious, but you know, presumably he was aware of what had happened to him to a certain extent. I don't know. But there's something so vulnerable about that.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, absolutely. And that's that spark going out. And I think this is an unusual recommendation to maybe take us out on. But if you are interested in coming kind of reliving some of this to a certain extent. There is a musical by Stephen Sondheim called Assassins and it's about all the assassination attempts on, well, not just presidents in America, but various American people in history. And Abraham Lincoln is featured and John Wilkes Booth sings a song about it. And it's really good. It's really, really good. Go and listen to the assassin's soundtrack.

[Maddy Pelling]

You're not gonna sing it right now.

[Anthony Delaney]

I was in that musical a long time ago, so I played David Herod who was one of the co conspirators.

[Maddy Pelling]

Sing us out, please.

[Anthony Delaney]

I can't remember what it was. I genuinely can't remember one single song from it. But it's good. I remember it was very difficult cause somet hard to sing. But anyway it was there. But yeah, so you can do. I'm not singing. You go and do some work now. You tell everyone goodbye. You sing.

[Maddy Pelling]

No, Anthony's refusing to sing. So there we are. We are at the end of the episode. Thank you so much for joining us. If you want to leave us a five star review, we would be very, very grateful. It helps other people to find us. If you're watching this on YouTube, do like and subscribe. We are adding to the list of videos there constantly. So do do that. If you want to suggest an episode on a different different historical assassination or indeed any other topic, you can get in touch at after [e-mail].

[Holly Fry]

This podcast is brought to you by Aura. By the time you hear about a data breach, your information has already been exposed for months. On average, companies take 277 days to report a breach. That's nine months where hackers have access to your personal data. That's why we're thrilled to partner with Aura. Aura is an all in one digital safety solution that monitors the dark web for your phone number, email and Social Security number, sending real time alerts if your info is found. It also includes a vpn, password manager and data broker removal. To help keep you safe for a limited time, Aura is offering a 14 day free trial plus a dark web scan to check if your personal information has been leaked, all for [e-mail] safety that's aura.com safety to sign up and protect your loved one ones, that's aura.com safety terms apply. Check the site for details.

[Unknown]

Our Skin Tells a Story Join me, Holly Fry and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin, you'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.