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We've all heard the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. John Wilkes Booth sneaks into Ford's theater, shoots Lincoln, jumps from the balcony, and the rest is history. But that's just the version we're taught one day in history class. But what if I told you that the truth is more complicated? That John Wilkes Booth wasn't acting alone that night? Three coordinated attacks, three assassins moving at once, and one plan meant to decapitate the entire US government. While Booth fired the shot that we all remembered, his partners struck somewhere else. The Secretary of State left bleeding in his own bed. The Vice President marked for death, and an entire network of co conspirators hiding in plain sight. This wasn't a one man act. It was an organized plot. And the story that followed is far darker than the ones we're taught in history class. So if you are interested in American history in one of the most infamous assassinations ever done on our soil, this is the episode for you. This is the Lincoln Conspirators. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp.

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Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. Ms. Now is your source for news, opinion and the world. Our name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress and the truth that you've relied on for decades. We'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions and explore. Explain how it impacts you. Ms. Now. Same mission, new name. Learn more at Ms. Now.

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What's up, people? And welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all around the world, from all history ever that's ever happened. Yes, this is my attempt where I sit in this very tent and try to understand everything that's ever happened on this planet, on this entire earth, in this country, and in every country that's ever existed. It's a small task, but someone's got to do it. Pushing the rock up the hill. I am Sisyphus and the rock is everything ever. But as always, I can't do this alone. Of course, I need you people at home that are watching along, which I appreciate. And also I need my good friend Christos Bacadaporos the Greek free. Christos Yasos. All right, enough, okay? The audience is already getting bored. They don't like hearing you talk English. They definitely don't want you to hear hear you talk Greek. They made that Clear. They made that pretty clear. How was my Greek there, though? It was pretty good. I'm learning it just for you. But, guys, today we're not talking about anything Greek. We're talking about. We're talking about the one and only John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln, one of our best presidents ever. Now, we did a whole episode on, you know, American presidential assassinations. We went through the anthology of all the successful ones, the many, many, many attempted ones. I mean, basically every single US President has had a threat on their life. And the John Wilkes Booth Abraham Lincoln story is actually pretty deep. I'll be honest. This is not super, like, crazy conspiracy vibes. This is just the actual things that happen that never get talked about. And there are so many crazy things about this plot that I'm very excited to jump into today. But in order to understand this, we got to go back to the very beginning. I'm sure you guys know generally who Abraham Lincoln is, right? Four score, seven years ago, that whole thing. That's what it is. Four score and seven years. Yeah. Gettysburg Address. You know which one I'm talking about? All right, but today, we're talking about John Wilkes Booth. That's where our story begins. So John Wilkes Booth was born May 10, 1838, in Bel Air, Maryland. And now this is just already off. RIP where this gets so fascinating. He was born to a woman named Mary Ann Holmes, but also to a man named Junius Brutus Booth. That was his actual father's name. Now, if you don't know, this is just a little fun fact from history that I find fascinating. His father was literally named Junius Brutus Booth. Now, if you're familiar with who Junius Brutus is, he is literally the guy that kills Julius Caesar. Not only in Shakespeare's play, you know, Julius Caesar, but literally the actual Julius Caesar. Remember, when Caesar turns around and goes, et tu, Brute? He's talking about Junius Brutus. His dad was named after the man that killed the president of ancient Rome. Crazy little sidebar. It's almost as if he was, like, destined to, you know, assassinate the. I don't want to compare Abraham Lincoln with Julius Caesar, but just think of it like a head of state. You know what I mean? Man who, you know, was loved by the people generally that some people thought was a tyrant. And, oh, let me tell you, John Wilkes Booth thought that Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant. I mean, for the wrong reasons. I mean, Abraham Lincoln just freed the slaves and was, you know, unifying the entire nation. But John Wilkes Booth didn't like that because he was racist. We'll get into more of that later. But just a crazy thing off Rip that. He's literally born to the guy who's named after the dude who stabs Julius Caesar. Crazy. He is one of the youngest of 10. He's the ninth child out of 10. And for his time, he was a star. His dad, Junius, was one of the biggest Shakespearean actors of the early 1800s. But Junius was also pretty unstable. Okay, he was a heavy drinker. At one time, he even wrote a letter to Andrew Jackson threatening to assassinate him. Then he wrote an apology letter. It was a whole thing. So John, you know, he. He. He gets. He gets it pretty honestly from his dad, as you can imagine. Okay, so John is one of the younger siblings, and he was super jealous of his brother Edwin, who would go on to become basically like the Daniel Day Lewis of his time. There's actually a Booth theater in New York City still to this day named after Edwin Booth, John Wilkes Booth's brother, which is just another crazy thing. So by the time John Wilkes Booth hits his 20s, he's pulling in serious money. He's a very prominent actor. And between 1863 and 1864, John Wilkes Booth earns, like, almost a million dollars in today's money. It's around, like, $20,000 in that time. But keep in mind, like, President Lincoln's salary is $25,000. So he's almost making what the President makes just as an actor. Now he's starring in plays across the south where people basically worship him. I mean, he's walking around, women are throwing flowers at him. Critics are calling him the most handsome man in America. Other actors are describing him as impossible not to admire. Like. Like, he's basically just like the most beloved actor in. Specifically in the south at the John Wilkes Booth. The success and the money and the adulation isn't enough. He wanted Edwin's level of respect. And, you know, throughout his whole life, his brother was just slightly, you know, more sought after. He was more admired, more revered, more respected in the acting world. I mean, Edwin even forbid John from performing anywhere near his appearances, Worried about overloading the American theater with, you know, the Booth family. So to. To really understand John, you have to understand that he loved Shakespeare, he loved women, and he really loved the South. Now, Maryland, where he was born and basically where he lived, was technically the Union, but Booth saw himself as a Confederate. He smuggled medical supplies to Confederate troops during his travels. Like, he would literally go down south to do A show and bring in, like, quinine, like, to, you know, help, like, the troops in the south with malaria, all this stuff. And he even joined a Virginia company that helped capture and execute abolitionist John Brown after the raid, Harper's Ferry. I mean, the guy was, like, a committed ideologue. So as the Civil War is ramping up, John hates the north, and. And he's just growing in his hatred for the North. He even called Lincoln a tyrant. He called him the, you know, the black Republican who was destroying the Constitution. At parties, he would literally make toast saying, here's hoping that the tyrant dies. But his hatred wasn't just political. It was personal. So when Lincoln won reelection on a platform basically advocating the abolishment of slavery, Booth told his sister Asia. That man's appearance, his pedigree, his coarse, low jokes and anecdotes, his vulgar smiles, and his policy are a disgrace to the seat he holds. He genuinely believed that Lincoln was leading America towards, like, you know, just anarchy. He was. Hated these ideas of racial mixing and the destruction of white civilization. And again, like, these aren't just, like, drunken rants at the time, because in 1864, Booth was already cooking up plans to kidnap Lincoln and smuggle him to Richmond, Virginia. So you have to understand, like, John Wilkes Booth was a real racist Southern Confederate ideologue. He was like, you know, like, we need. We are a white nation. We got to protect this. We can't have racial mixing. And this guy, Abraham Lincoln, is trying to send our country into disarray by allowing equality. Like, he was really who he was. Now, what's crazy is that there's another coincidence here that makes the whole thing just sound fake. Okay? But it's not. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because you might need a little bit of help. All right? As we know, our society is very sexual, Right? It is in everything. We are constantly being marinated in sexual garbage. Memes, music videos, Instagram. You're just scrolling, and bang, there it is. And then that leads you down a little rabbit hole. You pop into the Hub. Yeah, yeah, you pop into the Hub, and it might be sucking the life out of you. And dudes everywhere. Yes. Killing your motivation, your relationships, your happiness from just, you know, gooning all the time. And that's why I want to tell you about something really important called Relay. Relay is the first app that actually helps you quit porn for good. It doesn't just tell you, like, oh, you know, do better. It give you, like, little affirmations every Day. It actually gives you tools that work, real accountability and actual encouragement and support to help you succeed. It's not about guilt or moralizing or telling you you're a bad person. It's about helping you grow to be the best person you can be. So if you're tired of feeling stuck, this is your sign to do something about it. So download relay, start your 7 day free trial with the code Gagnon and start building some real freedom. There are thousands of guys that are already doing this and getting their lives back through relay and you can too. So seriously, stop gooning. Stop being a gooner. All right? At least for like a couple, a couple of weeks, right? Maybe a month, right? To do your best. Okay? We're all in this journey together trying to be better men. So if you're Interested, go to JoinRelay App Camp and become the person that you know you can be. Now let's get back to the show. John Wilkes Booth's brother Edwin, you know, the guy that he admired and always wanted to be, he actually saved Abraham Lincoln's son's life. Just as a crazy little side note, Robert Todd Lincoln, who also has a bunch of crazy things in his own life, basically Robert Todd Lincoln fell onto train tracks in like crowded New New Jersey train station. And this is in like 1864, 1865. And Edwin Booth grabbed the 21 year old Robert Lincoln by the collar and pulled him back to safety. And Robert recognized the famous actor and was like, holy, did you just save my life? Like, thank you so much. And Edwin didn't even realize whose son that he had rescued until much later. So, yeah, one Booth literally saved a Lincoln and the other one killed a Lincoln, which is just another crazy thread in this whole thing, another crazy fun fact in this whole saga. The only time that all three Booths, like, you know, Junius, the father, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth all played and performed together, was in a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in November 1864. And John Wilkes Booth was playing Mark Antony, the character in the, in the play who avenges Caesar's assassination. So just as like, like the foreshadowing and like all the parallels are just insane. But anyway, basically, John Wilkes Booth created the first plan and this was a kidnapping. So by late 1864, the Confederacy is losing the war and Booth is spiraling. So he comes up with this plan and we're just going to kidnap Lincoln, we're going to blackmail the Union, convince them to exchange prisoners of war for his return, and we'll continue the Confederate effort And this is when everything begins to fall in place. He gathers a crew at a D.C. boarding house run by a lady named Mary Surrat. This was a widowed businesswoman who basically her house became, like, you know, the headquarters for, like, Confederate sympathizers and just, like, conspiracy headquarters, more or less. So Booth is then introduced to John Surratt. This is Mary's son and a Confederate courier. So literally a man who was like, like, delivering messages into the south, from the south, into the North. He became sort of like the conduit. And they met through a man named Dr. Samuel Mudd, who's going to become important later, but we'll get to him. Booth kept on asking Surratt about trails leading from Washington to the Potomac river without telling him why he wanted the information. But when Seurat finally demanded to know what Booth wanted after weeks of avoiding the questions, Booth basically reveals his plan to kidnap the President, take him to Richmond, and exchange him for thousands of Confederate prisoners. Now, the team for this whole operation consisted of a few people. David Harold, who was John Wilkes Booth's sidekick. He was, like, a 22 year old pharmacist assistant who basically followed him everywhere and, like, knew the back roads of Southern Maryland from, like, hunting trips. He had Lewis Powell, who at the time was going by Lewis Payne, who was an ex Confederate soldier who was just like a big, dumb meathead type guy. He was also a former member of Mosby's Rangers who was wounded at Gettysburg, and again, just kind of like a adult. And then you had George Atzerod, who was the getaway guy. Now, he was a German immigrant, basically, who was, like, repairing carriages as a job. And despite living in America most of his life, couldn't really speak English that well. So this is the squad. This is the crackpot team that's gonna be kidnapping Lincoln. Okay, so Booth basically rehearsed practice runs in the back roads of Maryland, and the conspirators basically were like, stocking ropes and chloroform and pistols, and they were putting all this stuff in the attic of the. The Surat attic, basically this woman and her son. But the issue was that they didn't know how to actually complete their plan. So they made a bunch of different scenarios. One insane idea was to kidnap him from the theater, tie him up, and then lower him from the balcony to the stage, and then take him from the stage out of the theater. But then that plan didn't really shape up for obvious reasons. So then they planned to ambush Lincoln's carriage as he was returning from A nearby play. But to their luck, he changed his schedule at the last minute and he stayed in Washington. So after weeks of failed attempts, Booth's plan was falling apart, and the Confederate effort was falling apart even more. And then came the final blow. April 9, 1865. Robert E. Lee surrenders to the General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatto Courthouse. And the south is done. It's. It's over. The, the, the Southern resistance is, is, is done for and the Union has won. And this causes Booth to basically freak out and change the plan from kidnapping because now he doesn't have any more leverage because the war is basically done and he wants to do something much darker. Assassination. So when they gathered for a second attempt in early April, Booth basically told them the new plan. And the goal was now to murder the President and at least three other Northern leaders. They wanted to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward, and Ulysses S. Grant. So fast forward five days. Now it's April 14, and Lincoln wants a night off. Lucky for him, the Ford Theater is having a play called Our American Cousin. This is like a British comedy. Now, originally, the Lincolns were supposed to be joined by Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia. But Julia and Mary Lincoln weren't really getting along at the time. So, of course, you know, Ulysses and his wife backed out. Fortunately for them, Lincoln then invites Major Henry Rathbone and his fiance, Clara Harris, who then accepted the invitation. That night, Mary developed a headache and wanted to stay home. But Lincoln said newspapers had already announced his attendance, so he couldn't miss it. He told his bodyguard, William Crook, it has been advertised that we will be there, and I cannot disappoint the people, otherwise I would not go. So, I mean, fellas, if your lady's complaining about a headache, doesn't want to go to something, just hear her out. It might be a gift from God, maybe a sign from the. From above. That's all I'm saying. Okay. Because what happens next, I think you basically already know. That afternoon, John Wil Booth stopped by Ford's theater to pick up his mail. Again. He's performing at the theater all the time. His mail is getting sent directly to the theater. And this is something that he did, you know, often, right? So while chatting with the staff, he learned that Lincoln and Grant were expected that evening, although at the time, he didn't know that Grant was backing out. So he met with his co conspirators around 8:45pm to finalize the plot. Booth would sneak in and assassinate Lincoln. Lewis Powell would Attack Secretary of State William Seward, and then George Atzerod would then kill Vice President Andrew Johnson at the Kirkwood Hotel. And David Herold was basically to guide Powell to the home of Seward. And then they would meet Booth at a, you know, a point in Maryland, and then they would all escape. And the goal was ultimately to decapitate the union government in one coordinated strike. Every major power player gone. The Lincolns arrived at the theater a little bit late. But despite that, when they entered their presidential box, the entire audience, roughly 1700 people, rise to their feet. And the orchestra starts playing Hail to the Chief. As Lincoln sat in his famous rocking chair. He sits down, and again, the energy in the theater is just electric. Everyone's like, we did it. The union won. The good guys triumphed. Like, equality in America is, like, finalized. Like, there's no more slate. Like, this is great. Everyone's feeling so good. Mary Lincoln held her husband's hand during the show, and it said that she asked him, what will Ms. Harris think? Think of my hanging on to you. So. And Lincoln smiled and said, she won't think anything about it. Those would be his last known words. Now, normally, Lincoln had strong protection, but again, this was prior to Secret Service. But typically, you know, large, you know, prominent heads of state would have some type of security. But that night, his security was a disaster. His regular bodyguard, this guy Ward Hill Lammon, was. Was away in Richmond, and William Crook had the day off again, everyone's like, dude, the war's over. The good guys won. Let's just move on. It's fine. The men in charge was Officer John Frederick Parker. But Parker had a reputation for being unreliable. He had a bunch of different disciplinary writeups even before ever being assigned to guard the President. And on this day, he arrived three hours late to his shift. And during intermission, he left the presidential box unguarded to go drink at the Star Saloon next door, which coincidentally, is the same bar Booth was hanging out before the assassination. At around 10:10pm Booth entered through the front door of the theater and made his way to the upper level and actually handed Lincoln's valet, this guy Charles Forbes, his calling card in order to access the box. And remember, he knew the layout of the theater perfectly. He had been there thousands of times. And another wild, fun fact, earlier that day, when he was getting his mail, John Wilkes Booth drilled the peephole into the door of the presidential box so that he could actually peep inside without actually going in, seeing if the President was really there. Booth then wedged a Wooden stick behind the outer door to block access from anyone entering. And he waited for the loudest laugh in the play when actor Harry Hawk said, don't know the manners of a good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal, you sock dozing old man. Trap. At that moment, the audience bursts into laughter. Lincoln himself is said to have been laughing. And at that exact moment, 10:15pm Booth stepped forward and fired his single shot off a.41 caliber derringer into the back of Abraham Lincoln's head. The bullet entered behind his left ear and lodged near the front of his skull. Lincoln then slumped forward and Major Rathbone turned to see Booth and lunged at him. But Booth pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the arm before leaping 12ft from the box to the stage. When Booth jumped, his spur actually caught the flag that was draped over the box. And then he landed and broke his leg. Despite this, he raised his knife and shouted, sic semper tyrannis, literally meaning thus always to tyrants in. In Latin. Some witnesses claim they heard him add, the south is avenged at the end. But others swore that he only said, sic semper tyrannis before running off stage. At first the audience thought that this was like a part of the show. They thought maybe this was like a crazy character, like an American guy during this British, you know, sort of comedy. They didn't understand what was happening until Mary Lincoln started to scream. As chaos erupted, an army officer named Major Joseph Stewart was sitting in the front row and jumped on stage and actually chased Booth during the commotion. Booth also slashed the orchestra leader, William Withers Jr. Now, it's also worth noting that at this exact show, it was actually full of a lot of different military personnel. Again, this was a popular theater in D.C. the war was basically over and a lot of people wanted to celebrate. So there's a ton of active military in the theater, all the high ranking generals, etc. So eventually, Booth makes it outside and he made his way to the stables to find the stable worker holding his horse. He pushes him out of the way, jumps on his horse and rides away into the night, heading for Maryland. Once everyone realizes what had happened, Charles Leal, a young Union army surgeon, made his way to the door of the presidential box. But he couldn't get it open until Rathbone noticed the wooden brace that Booth had actually used to jam the door shut, Went ins Leal and a bystander named William Kent cut away Lincoln's collar, unbuttoned his shirt, looking for what they thought was a stab wound. Once Leal located the gunshot wound behind his ear, he realized that the bullet was too deep to remove. Knowing Lincoln couldn't survive a bumpy carriage ride to the White House, Leal decided to move him to the nearest house on 10th Street. So seven men carefully carried the President outside in the pouring rain. When they made it outside, a man pointed them to the home of a local tailor and named William Peterson just across the street. Inside, there was only a small first floor bedroom and Lincoln, being too tall for the bed, was actually laid diagonally across it. And once the whole room was cleared even of Mrs. Lincoln, the doctors examined the President for other injuries and they found none. They applied like hot water bottles and cloths and blankets to warm up his body. But they all agreed that Lincoln would not survive. And the very next morning, April 15, Lincoln died at 7:22am but remember, Abraham Lincoln wasn't the only person that was involved in this plot. Booth wasn't the only one who was supposed to be attacking his partner. Lewis Powell was carrying out his part of the plan across town, killing the Secretary of State, William Seward, who was actually recovering from a almost deadly carriage ride incident nine days earlier and was just bedridden in his home on Lafayette Square. So at 10:10pm the same time that Booth entered Lincoln's box, Powell and David Herold arrived at the Seward house. Powell was carrying an 1858 Whitney revolver and a bowie knife. When he knocked on the door, Seward's servant, William Bell, answered. Powell claimed that he was delivering medicine from a doctor and had to show Secretary Seward personally how to take it. The servant sort of, kind of hesitated, but then eventually let him inside. At the top of the stairs, Powell was stopped again by Seward's son, Assistant Secretary Frederick Seward, asking what he was doing in their house. He then repeated the medicine story, but Frederick told him that his father was asleep. And just at that moment, Seward's daughter Fanny poked her head out of the door and said, fred, father's awake now. Powell then turned as if to leave, then suddenly swung back, drawing his revolver aimed at Frederick's forehead, and pulled the trigger. But the crazy thing is that the gun misfired. Powell then smashed the pistol into Frederick's skull, knocked him unconscious and charged into Seward's bedroom. Fanny screamed as Powell attacked the secretary, slashing him across the face and the neck. But miraculously, a jaw splint saved Seward's life by blocking the blade from actually reaching his jugular vein. Still, the wounds were gruesome, and his face would be scarred for life. Hearing the screams, Seward's other son, Augustus, and Sergeant George Robinson, burst into the room, and both were stabbed while trying to protect the Secretary of State. As Augustus went for the pistol, Powell fled downstairs, stabbing a State Department messenger, Emmerich Hansel, on the way out. When he made it outside, he allegedly shouted, I'm mad, I'm mad. And he vanished into the dark. Now, remember that guy, Harold, that I told you about? Like the getaway guy? He was basically tasked with taking Powell to Seward's location. Well, he was terrified by the noise and all the screaming and thought that he would get caught, so he just bolted and basically left Powell completely alone. But while Booth was fleeing the theater and Powell's knife was basically slashing in the Seward residence, another man was supposed to strike, but never did. Now, this guy, George Atzerodt, was assigned to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. Johnson was staying at the Kirkwood House Hotel in Washington. And Booth's plan was basically for Atzerod to knock on Johnson's door, stab him, and then leave. Pretty straightforward. But Atzerod, as we probably can tell, was not really built for murder. Right? Yeah, this is like a German immigrant. It doesn't really speak a ton of English and was maybe not as much of an ideologue. He was kind of entranced by John Wilkes Booth's fame. So earlier that day, he checked into a room directly above Johnson's. But by night time, he was getting nervous, and he was getting so nervous that instead of approaching Johnson's room, he went downstairs to the bar, pistol and knife tucked into his coat, and just wanted to have a drink, just to kind of, you know, take the edge off. And then he does maybe the dumbest thing ever done in assassination attempt history. He starts to ask the bartender questions about the Vice President, Johnson, and just asking about his character, his habits, what kind of guy he was almost like he was trying to convince himself to like. Like the Vice President deserved it. But the alcohol didn't make him brave. It just sort of made him sloppy. And he ended up getting so drunk and walking the streets, and somewhere along the way, he threw his knife into a gutter and then ended up renting another hotel room and fell asleep. Now, what's crazy is that John Wilkes Booth actually stopped by the Kirkland Hotel himself and left a cryptic note at the front desk intended for Vice President Johnson. And it literally read, don't wish to disturb you. Are you at home? J. Wilkes Booth Historians still debate to this day why he did this, but some think that Booth was checking if Johnson would actually be there that night, while others believed that maybe he wanted to frame the vice president, essentially planting, like, a breadcrumb that would make people suspicious as to why the vice president was in contact with, you know, Southern, you know, sympathizers and conspirators, maybe making it look like the vice president was the one that wanted Abraham Lincoln to die so that he could become president. But even though we don't know the actual motive, one thing is certain. That night changed America forever. So about half an hour after shooting Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, Booth was crossing the Navy Yard Bridge into Maryland when a Union soldier named Silas Cobb stopped him for traveling after curfew. But Booth said that he was heading home to Charles county, so Cobb just let him go. And about an hour later, David Herold crossed the same bridge, giving basically the same excuse. The two men met up, and they stopped by Mary Surratt's Tavern in Surrattsville. There, they collected their guns and their supplies that they cached there earlier that they could take them while they're on the run. From there, they rode through the night to Dr. Samuel Mudd's farm. Now, this is the man that Booth had actually met, John Surratt. This is the guy that actually connected them. Now, remember, Booth's leg is broken this entire time since he jumped off the balcony onto the stage at ford's Theater. So Dr. Mudd actually fixed the fracture, made him some crutches, and let him rest there until the following day. Now, after leaving the Muds, Booth and Harold were guided to the homes of Samuel Cox and Thomas Jones, both Confederate sympathizers. Jones hid them for five days in the Zakaya Swamp, and he brought them food and newspapers the whole time while they were hiding out. And Booth was actually surprised to read the newspapers because he was expecting that people would love him, they would adore him. They. They. He thought that they would see him as a guy that saved America. But instead, the general public, both in the north and even in the south, saw him as a criminal. And in his mind, he was a hero. He was embodying Brutus, and he felt as if, you know, he was saving the Confederacy and saving America the same way that, you know, Brutus saved Rome from Julius Caesar, the tyrant. He wrote for doing what Brutus was honored for. And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cutthroat. He couldn't believe it. He. He literally thought, like, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to be revered as a hero. I'm going to be beloved even greater than my brother Edwin, more than my father. I will be seen as the man that took down the greatest tyrant America ever saw. That's how much of a committed, sort of racist ideologue John Wilkes Booth was. So by April 24, John Wilkes Booth had been a fugitive for 10 days. His broken leg had been splinted and kind of prepared and healed up by Dr. Mudd. But all the walking through the swamps and getting dirty made his leg way worse, and it actually caused them to stop consistently along the way. And after spending several nights in the woods, the two finally crossed the Potomac river into Virginia and arrived at the farm of Richard Garrett near Port Royal. Now, Booth introduced himself under the alias Boyd, claiming to be a wounded Confederate soldier returning home. Now, Garrett's sons believed his story and actually offered them shelter in their tobacco barn on the back part of their property. Now, Booth reportedly bragged about his time in the Confederate army, claiming that his wound was from being shot by Union soldiers. But two days later, on April 26, the Garrett started to get a little bit suspicious, and for the right reasons. Around 2am Union cavalry surrounded the Garrett farm, and they entered the home and they pulled John Garrett from his bed at gunpoint. And they asked him, who is in their barn? Who do they hide there? And John told them that it was just two strangers. But the soldiers then forced the entire family outside to question them. Harold saw from the barn and started begging Booth to let him leave, saying that he didn't want to die. Booth then told him to just leave and called him a coward. When Harold surrendered, he was immediately taken into custody. But Booth wanted to stay in the barn. He wanted a shootout. He stayed there with his carbine and a pistol and refused to leave. After several warnings, the soldiers surrounded the barn and. And they actually set fire to it to basically get him to. To run out. They wanted him to surrender, to leave, and they were going to capture him. But Booth never ran. So as the fire grew, Sergeant Boston Corbett fired a single shot through the gap in the wall, and it hit Booth in the neck. It shattered his spine, and it paralyzed him. He was then pulled from the burning barn and laid in the grass. He reportedly asked a soldier to raise his hand so that he could see them. When the soldier did, Booth said, useless, useless. He died a few hours later, around 7am at the age of 26. His body was carried back to Washington, D.C. and identified by several people, including his doctor and a photographer who had known him for years. Booth's remains were initially buried at a secret grave at the old penitentiary in the Washington Arsenal. But years later, his family was allowed to move him to Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where he is to this day. So they got John Wilkes Booth. The bad guy is gone, but there are all the other accomplices. So there was an investigation that was led forward by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who made it very clear anyone connected to Booth would be found and punished. And within days, dozens of people were arrested, but five names stood out. Lewis Powell, George Atzerod, David Herold, and, oddly enough, Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Muddy. Now, after Powell's attack on Seward, he ran away, leaving his horse behind, and for three days, he hid in the woods outside Washington. But he eventually made his way back to Mary Surratt's boarding house, the same place where the assassination plot had actually been planned and the same woman and son that actually facilitated their escape. Inside, Mary was already being questioned by Union soldiers on the whereabouts of the other accomplices, but she claimed that she had no part in anything, and she didn't know anyone, and she had no involvement at all. But just at that moment, Powell arrived at the door, still covered in Seward's blood, and walked inside. The soldiers grabbed him. They start questioning him about where he'd been, and he basically said that Mrs. Surratt sent him to go dig a ditch. But that's when the detectives noticed his bloody hands, and they asked who he was. At that moment, Powell froze, and Mrs. Surratt panicked, and they both sealed their fates. Powell and Mary were then tackled to the ground and arrested on the spot. The Atzerod is the one who never followed through. He sort of just got too drunk and nervous and, you know, ditched his knife. And investigators basically learned that Atzerod had rented a room at the Kirkwood and left behind a revolver, a Bowie knife, and a map of Virginia. All the evidence you really need. From there, they traced him to his cousin's home, Hartman Richter, and his farm at Germantown, about 20 miles away. And there, soldiers surrounded the property. Atzerod tried to hide in the attic, but a search party found him under a pile of strawberries. When confronted, he broke down immediately and confessed that he was a part of, you know, the Booth group and that basically, you know, he said that, you know, he was too big of a coward to do his job. He was then arrested and taken Back to Washington. Now, Harold's story ended at Garrett's farm, but after being captured, he was kept aboard the USS Montauk, where he was interrogated for days. He tried to portray himself as, like, an innocent follower. He didn't really know what he was doing. He was a boy who had simply done what Booth told him to do. But that didn't work out for him clearly. Now, Dr. Samuel Mudd's involvement may be the weirdest. His connection became obvious once detectives started to retrace, you know, Booth's steps and learned that locals had mentioned a wounded man who had stopped at the home of a country doctor. When troops arrived at Mudd's farm near Briantown, Maryland, they began interrogating him. Mudd claimed that he had treated an injured stranger who gave the name Booth, but insisted he didn't recognize the famous actor. But the lie didn't hold up. When investigators began searching Mudd's home, they found a pair of men's riding boots with J. Wilkes carved inside the leather. And when showed the evidence, Mudd basically broke down and admitted to having lied about Booth's identity. He was then arrested and transported to Washington to join the other prisoners. And then by early May, all of the major conspirators were in custody, and Stanton ordered that they be tried before a military commission, not a civilian court. And they argued that Lincoln's assassination was an act of war. So the trial began on May 9, 1865, and lasted for several weeks, with more than 360 witnesses testifying. And on July 6, the tribunal sentenced Powell, Harold Atzerodt and Mary Surratt to death. The executions took place at 1:26pm the very next day in the courtyard of the Washington Arsenal prison, with roughly 1,000 people lined up to watch. Mary Surratt was brought out first, wearing a black dress and a veil. And it said that she whispered to the guards and said her final words, Please don't let me fall. Lewis Powell stood by her. His priest told him he was going to a better life. And witnesses even noted. Noted that he adjusted the noose on himself before the hood went on. David Herold was next. He was terrified and had to be helped up the steps. When the hood was placed over his head, he simply just said goodbye. George Atzerod was the last on the scaffold. He was visibly terrified and reciting prayers. His final words spoken just before the drop. Where may we meet? In another world. God take me now. At precisely 1:26pm the executioner, Captain Wrath, clapped his hands and a Single lever dropped all four conspirators at once. Surat died almost immediately, but the men struggled for several minutes before going still. The officer noted in his log that the drop was 6ft. Death by strangulation certain. The bodies hung for about 25 minutes before being cut down. The army surgeons officially declared them dead. They were placed in plain pine coffins labeled only with their initials. They were then buried in shallow graves along the prison wall. Major Thomas Eckert, who was present that day, wrote in his report, it was a solemn scene, but the work was done quickly and with order. No exaltation, only the feeling that justice had been met. Now, of course, we can't Forget about old Dr. Mudd. Now, instead of death, he was sentenced to life at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, but he was later pardoned after helping during a yellow fever outbreak. Now, fun fact. The yellow fever ended up killing the only physician at the prison. Now, Dry Tortugas, if you don't know that's off the coast of Florida. It's kind of an insane thing. It's like an army fort that's near the coast. You can go visit it still to this day. But basically, yellow fever swept through, and the prisons were hit particularly bad. And at the prison at Dry Tortugas, the physician dies, and then Dr. Mudd steps up to basically help the sick. The surviving soldiers actually wrote to President Andrew Johnson. Yes, the same man that Booth tried having killed, and described how Mudd had risked his life to care for, you know, both prisoners, but also officers. And President Johnson then issued Mudd a full pardon in 1869. Oh, and if you're wondering about John Surratt, this is Mary Surratt's, you know, Confederate sympathizing son. Well, he escaped, kind of. John managed to escape the country using a network of former Confederate contacts. First he went to Canada and then across the Atlantic to Europe, where he served in the Papal Zouaves. This is basically like an army that was used to defend the Vatican. So picture that he escapes from America, goes to Canada, goes to Europe, becomes a part of the people that are in charge of protecting the Pope and the entire Vatican. And then he eventually gets captured in Egypt in 1866 and brought back to the United States for trial. But despite overwhelming evidence linking him to Booth, the jury failed to reach a verdict, and he was. He was released, which maybe is just like one of the more insane stories of anyone in American history. I mean, crazy life. Ultimately, Edwin Stanton declared the case closed, and the country turned its attention to the monumental task of reconstruction, which would have been difficult with Lincoln and infinitely more difficult without him. But even after closure and after the hangings, questions still lingered about who truly pulled the strings and how deep this web of conspiracy really goes. And that, my friend, is the full story of the Lincoln conspirators. I mean, pretty crazy. Like, there's so many other, like, little connections. Like, there's one little thread that I'm trying to remember off top of my head. Like, it's been a minute since I looked in this, but Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son, who was actually saved by Edwin Booth. That guy was present for three different presidents assassinations in some way, shape, or form. I think he saw his father before he officially died, when he was just, like a young boy. I mean, he was like, in his 20s, I think. And then he saw James Garfield, and then he saw McKinley. So Garfield got assassinated on the train tracks of, I think, D.C. and he was shot by this guy. I think it was Guiteau. Charles Guiteau. Charles Guiteau. And he got shot by him because he was, like, a crazy guy. And then they hired a doctor, and it was actually Robert Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son, that called the doctor to go and put his fingers inside the bullet holes. And he got infected and basically died like, 100 days later. And then Robert Lincoln, being the son of, you know, Abraham Lincoln become basically gets, like, a cabinet position working for William McKinley. And then William McKinley at the world's Fair in Buffalo, gets shot by this guy Kolgosz, who was like, a socialist. And he's like, you know, big, like, anarchist socialist vibes, and shoots McKinley during, like, a meet and greet. And Robert Lincoln hears the bullet go off. And he's in the other room and he's like, did another president get assassinated? And he was there for three of them. Crazy. And actually, Robert Lincoln's whole life is actually sort of sad. Like, he has quotes later on. Like, I think he wrote a book or, like, a memoir. And he basically is like, everyone knows me as Abraham Lincoln's son, but no one truly knows Robert Lincoln, not even me, or something like that. It's like, sort of heartbreaking. Like, his father gets assassinated. He starts working for these two other presidents, they get assassinated, and he just kind of floats around just being like, the son of, like, this American hero, but never really, like, known in his own right. It's kind of a bizarro good luck Chuck, kind of, kind of. He's like, bad luck Rob. Like, that's him, dude. It's crazy. I mean, did you know anything about the other Lincoln conspirators or like the, the whole web of how deep this goes? This is all crazy to me. I've never heard of it. But also they tried to take out the President, the Vice President and the secretary of something at the same time. And they got close. They got basically, like, I would say one and a quarters way there, you know. And then of course, do you know the Lincoln Kennedy with synchronicities?