Episode 622: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part II - Death Wish

Summary

Last Podcast On The Left Episode 622: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part II - Death Wish Release Date: June 6, 2025

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Introduction

In Part II of their deep dive into the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the hosts of The Last Podcast on the Left—Marcus Parks, Henry Zabrowski, and Ed Larson—continue unraveling the intricate web of conspiracies leading up to one of America's most pivotal moments. This episode, titled "Death Wish," delves into the motivations, plans, and personal dynamics that culminated in Lincoln's tragic end.

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John Wilkes Booth: From Actor to Assassin

[05:07] Marcus Parks:
“Abraham Lincoln. Like, who was he? Was he some kind of ex gamer?”

Booth, initially a celebrated actor, transitions into a driven assassin motivated by a blend of personal grievances and ideological fanaticism. The discussion highlights Booth's shift from performing on stage to plotting against the President, emphasizing his complex character and deteriorating mental state.

[26:19] Henry Zabrowski:
"People say this, right, that he was fatalistic. They kind of blame it on his... he was a depressive."

The hosts explore Booth's psychological decline, portraying him as someone who perhaps entertained a death wish, drastically altering his life's trajectory from acting to assassination.

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Lincoln's Security and Personal Struggles

[19:04] Marcus Parks:
“Lincoln, for example, he was constantly opposed to the idea of having a personal bodyguard.”

Lincoln's minimal security arrangements are scrutinized, suggesting that his reluctance to maintain a strong protective detail may have inadvertently facilitated Booth's successful assassination. The conversation touches on Lincoln's personal life, including his relationship with Mary Todd and his possible struggles with depression.

[27:22] Henry Zabrowski:
"This is my favorite because we get to just speculate. We don't."

In a controversial segment, the hosts speculate about Abraham Lincoln's sexuality, citing historical correspondences and personal relationships as evidence. While this theory is debated among historians, the podcast uses it to provide a unique perspective on Lincoln's personal vulnerabilities.

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The Confederacy's Involvement and Booth's Conspirators

[41:58] Henry Zabrowski:
"Yeah, you guys are a part of our too. Yes. Yeah, you pieces of."

The episode details the Confederate support behind Booth's plot, including the significant role of conspiracy theorist and Confederate sympathizers operating out of Montreal, dubbed "Little Richmond." The discussion reveals how Booth aligned with like-minded individuals to form a robust network aimed at destabilizing the Union by targeting its leadership.

[47:19] Ed Larson:
"Sounds unreal."

Key conspirators, such as Dr. Samuel Mudd and George Atzerodt, are introduced, illustrating the diverse motivations—from ideological commitment to financial desperation—that brought them into Booth's scheme. The podcast highlights how Booth's manipulative tactics, akin to modern phishing scams, coerced individuals into participation through threats and blackmail.

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The Failed Kidnapping Attempt

[80:57] Henry Zabrowski:
"When he has very long clothes on, he'll strip him down to the very bottom of his nudeness."

Booth's original plan to kidnap Lincoln from Ford's Theater is dissected, revealing its inherent flaws and the crew's skepticism. The hosts humorously imagine alternative scenarios where the kidnapping might have unfolded, emphasizing the plan's unrealistic nature.

[86:42] Ed Larson:
"Dick."

The podcast narrates how Booth's convoluted plans were consistently thwarted by changing circumstances, including Lincoln's unexpected schedule changes and the Confederacy's waning influence as the Civil War neared its end.

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Transition to Assassination

[91:07] Ed Larson:
"Wasn't he the money man, too?"

As the Confederacy's defeat became imminent, Booth's desperation intensified, shifting his focus from kidnapping to outright assassination. The episode explores how Booth's admiration for literary and mythological heroes, particularly Shakespearean figures like Caesar, fueled his resolve to eliminate Lincoln and preserve Southern honor.

[99:14] Henry Zabrowski:
"Would you let an Ottoman vote? Would you let a shovel vote?"

Booth misconstrued Lincoln's policies on Reconstruction and civil rights as tyrannical moves against the South, solidifying his belief that assassination was the only recourse. This misinterpretation of Lincoln's intentions underscores the tragic misalignment between Booth's perception and Lincoln's actual goals for national reconciliation.

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Personal Dynamics and Final Preparations

[93:37] Marcus Parks:
“He's getting into that cycle that a lot of these people get into. James Woods, where they're...”

The interaction between Booth and his brother Edwin is highlighted, showcasing Booth's increasing isolation and radicalization. The podcast discusses Booth's maneuvers to consolidate his conspiratorial team, including leveraging personal relationships and financial resources to support his assassination plot.

[99:58] Henry Zabrowski:
"I'm a wrestler. I'm a big old gaggly wrestler. Can you imagine what my fucking chest... What my chest smells like?"

Amidst historical analysis, the hosts interject with their trademark humor and tangents, maintaining an engaging yet irreverent tone throughout the episode.

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Conclusion and Teasers for Next Episode

[101:52] Marcus Parks:
"Now, much to Booth's chagrin, Robert E. Lee effectively ended the Civil War when he surrendered his forces..."

As the Civil War concludes with the Confederate surrender, Booth accelerates his plans, culminating in the fatal night at Ford's Theater. The hosts promise to continue the story in the next episode, focusing on the assassination itself and the ensuing manhunt, adding anticipation for further revelations and discussions.

[105:35] Henry Zabrowski:
"Hail Satan, everyone."

The episode wraps up with the hosts promoting upcoming events, live shows, and their YouTube channels, blending historical content with playful banter and humor.

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Notable Quotes

• Marcus Parks [05:07]:
  “Abraham Lincoln. Like, who was he? Was he some kind of ex gamer?”

• Henry Zabrowski [26:19]:
  "People say this, right, that he was fatalistic. They kind of blame it on his... he was a depressive."

• Ed Larson [47:19]:
  "Sounds unreal."

• Henry Zabrowski [80:57]:
  "When he has very long clothes on, he'll strip him down to the very bottom of his nudeness."

• Marcus Parks [91:07]:
  “He's getting into that cycle that a lot of these people get into. James Woods, where they're...”

• Henry Zabrowski [99:14]:
  "Would you let an Ottoman vote? Would you let a shovel vote?"

• Henry Zabrowski [105:35]:
  "Hail Satan, everyone."

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Final Thoughts

The Last Podcast on the Left masterfully intertwines historical analysis with humor, providing a captivating narrative that dissects the complex factors leading to Abraham Lincoln's assassination. By blending factual storytelling with engaging banter, the hosts create an accessible and entertaining exploration of this dark chapter in American history. Stay tuned for Part III, where the assassination unfolds, and the aftermath leads to one of the most infamous manhunts in U.S. history.

Transcript

[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

Has the ideal home for you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Learn more at Dr. Horton.com Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder.

[Marcus Parks]

There's no place to escape to.

[Ed Larson]

This is the last podcast on the left.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's when the cannibalism started. What was that?

[Marcus Parks]

Got a tight face today. You ever have that?

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's why I got a tight face. We used to do in acting school, we used to do turny face, big.

[Ed Larson]

Face tournament foos big base and stretches you out, right?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Gets you gaped.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Ready to perform.

[Marcus Parks]

That's what I need.

[Henry Zabrowski]

From the neck up. From the bottom down. Tight as hell.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, you are.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I hold. I'm. I'm. Right now I'm holding my butthole together just for the sake of making sure my organs know to stay up.

[Ed Larson]

Stay up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep. Because apparently, if not, they'll just slide right out of here if you forget.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Even for a second.

[Ed Larson]

And if it goes to sleep and you're feeling pins and needles, that's the only thing that can actually get in your butthole.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Apparently. Apparently that's it. But that sound was important. Now, Eddie.

[Ed Larson]

No. What's important?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Tell him, Henry. That the country is not what it was.

[Ed Larson]

Did you just tell yourself to tell them?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just talk.

[Ed Larson]

You don't have to tell yourself to talk.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That country will never be the hope that it was. That the nation will never be healed. That the surrenders are forever. That's the Booth song from Assassins. And the problem is that he really hits the nword really hard a couple of times towards the end. So I can't finish the song, but the song was written by a white man, Stephen Sondheim, who may as well have been some something else. But he's Stephen Sondheim and he Put a lot of nwords in there, but.

[Ed Larson]

That was just because Tarantino of musical.

[Marcus Parks]

On the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with this Soddenberg apologist, Henry Zabrowski.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's not an apology. It's just he's accurate to the way Booth wasn't a nice guy. He said the N word a lot. I'm not saying nurse. I'm saying he said it quite a bit. And it's. I'm did put it through the songs. I just wish I could sing more of the songs.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure. Can you sing the Lee Harvey Oswald songs?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Everybody's got the right to some sunshine. Not the sun. But maybe one of its be. It's a great musical, dude.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah. I'm sad I can't sing dmx. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Again, replace the nword with fella.

[Ed Larson]

You should try it with your assassins.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let me work on it.

[Marcus Parks]

He'll work on it. We have Ed Larson with us as well. Trying to get Henry to get his Sonberg love out there.

[Ed Larson]

There you go. I want you to feel free, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you like Sondheim?

[Ed Larson]

I don't care.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, Sondheim. Sondheim. Yes. Steven Sodenberg. Traffic. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Great director.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Steven Soderbergh. Sonderberg is some man. You got cookies from that. Sounds like a baker of some sort that you knew back in New York.

[Marcus Parks]

Steve Sonderberg.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Steve Sonderberg, that's me. I'll be the one. Your wife.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

How you doing? They call me Dr. Cookenstein online, but to you, I'm Dr. Steven Sunderburg.

[Marcus Parks]

And we are here at part two, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And this one really puts the ass in assassination twice.

[Ed Larson]

Now in this episode, are you actually going to explain who this Lincoln fella is?

[Henry Zabrowski]

We just keep saying this.

[Marcus Parks]

Abraham Lincoln.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Abraham Lincoln. Like, who was he? Was he some kind of ex gamer?

[Marcus Parks]

I forgot you didn't go to college.

[Ed Larson]

I really didn't. I wrote for the paper.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, he wrote for the newspaper and he took writing classes at Tallahassee Community College, so. Yes. It's like you didn't.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, no, I used to learn math and I was like, you know what? I'm just not going to graduate.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, I can't say much. I have a creative writing degree from Texas Technical University, so I did not make great choices either.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, most of those degrees were used to write manifestos about killing women. So just remember that. Know that you're past that.

[Marcus Parks]

Actually, no, we did have. Was that John Hinkley was Also a student at Texas Tech University, except he studied history.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Super creative, though.

[Marcus Parks]

Also presidential assassin. So when we last left John Wil's Booth, Booth was in the early stages of winding down his acting career with the explicit purpose of devoting more time to a conspiracy to kidnap Abraham Lincoln so the Confederacy could ransom the President in Exchange for Confederate POWs.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why did you do it, Johnny? Nobody agrees. You who had everything. Why did you bring a nation to its knees?

[Marcus Parks]

See, by this point, by this point in the American Civil War, 1864, the Confederacy was on a near irreversible downward slide. And John Wilkes Booth had done absolutely nothing in service of defending his beloved institution of slavery. Aside from talking a lot of shit. From what it seems like to me, Booth had more or less convinced himself that he was simply waiting in the wings for his moment to step into history, as if his part in the war was simply another stage role. John Wilkes Booth had been greatly inspired by the pre war raid on Harper's Ferry led by the abolitionist John Brown, but only in the sense that John Brown had taken matters into his own hands and had fought and died for a cause.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I want to be John Brown but on opposite day, call me John Blue.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, Gray, Gray.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let'S just stick with John White.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, if you'll remember, John Wilkes Booth had wanted to inspire people, just as John Brown had, in the sense that Brown had gathered a small crew to fight against impossible odds. The difference though, is that John Wilkes Booth wanted to inspire people to defend slavery, not abolish it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Super hard.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, not for half of the country. Time, however, was running out for Booth to make his move. 1864 was an election year, so Lincoln was determined to show America that an end to the war was in sight. General Ulysses S. Grant was getting more aggressive in his southern campaign by burning down cities amongst many other brutal tactics. And a raid on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, while unsuccessful, had damn near resulted in the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. So sorry, it's like Confederate noises.

[Ed Larson]

I don't know how to do a goddamn liquor work.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Honestly, I just thought cotton came that way.

[Marcus Parks]

So perhaps seeing that 1864 was do or die time, John Wilkes Booth began having serious discussions with other Confederates to formulate a solid plan for kidnapping Abraham Lincoln in order to trade him for Confederate POWs, thus shifting the momentum of the war.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you think it would have helped Abraham Lincoln if he played saxophone on a, like, big public scale, like Bill Clinton?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, I mean, it was great. And he went to McDonald's all the time. He's very likable.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you think he's too. It would make him too funky.

[Ed Larson]

I don't think there were saxophones.

[Marcus Parks]

No, I don't think so.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. When was the saxophone?

[Ed Larson]

That's a whole different show.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm not looking up.

[Ed Larson]

I just find it crazy to, like, think about Confederacy in general. It's just like, they're so lazy that they want slaves, but they're so lazy to protect that laziness, they're willing to die in war.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, man. Just work. I'll kill. Just work. I will literally kill for my Roomba. I will kill for my Roomba. I don't know how to clean the floor.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, there's nothing romantic in work, you know, there's no glory to be had in work. And just being a fucking. You know, and just being a guy who's out in a field somewhere. There is glory in going to fight and defend your homeland. Or at least there's glory in the idea of it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What about that song? That's the sound of the man working on the chain.

[Ed Larson]

Pretty sure they're all prisoners.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's also sung by black men, which the Confederates do not enjoy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Unbelievable.

[Marcus Parks]

It is now. The plan to kidnap Lincoln first appeared in August of 1864. That's when Booth began discussing kidnapping plans with two childhood friends from Baltimore. These two men, unlike Booth, had actually fought in the Confederate Army. That meant that Booth had begun his plot against Lincoln. Whatever. It was going to be a full eight months before the assassination took place and three months before Lincoln was elected to a second term.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Then I can possibly kidnap Lincoln after the summer musical.

[Marcus Parks]

Lincoln's second term, however, had not been a lock. Projections said that Lincoln would probably lose. But when the absentee ballots rolled in from the Union soldiers, Lincoln became the first president since Andrew Jackson to win a second term.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Absentee ballots? I thought those were new.

[Marcus Parks]

No, it's been in use for quite a long time.

[Ed Larson]

Lincoln needed the win.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Lincoln had to win. I guess.

[Ed Larson]

Yes, yes, you guessed correctly.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Also, it was really hard for him.

[Ed Larson]

Because he wasn't really campaigning that much because he was, like, in the middle of a war.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, it was very difficult.

[Marcus Parks]

Him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah. He's so tall as well. Very difficult.

[Ed Larson]

Your facts are on point today.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you.

[Ed Larson]

I can't even.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why did you do it, Johnny? Nobody agrees.

[Ed Larson]

He's actually five' eight, but the hat put him over.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Daughter.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He actually was mostly skull, and people don't want to talk about it, which is why he was so easy to guilt let's continue.

[Marcus Parks]

Confederate media, however, reported that because the soldiers had put Lincoln over, Lincoln had used his tyrannical powers to rig the results and reelect himself. As such, a bevy of newspapers began floating the idea of assassination. Just put it out there. While others called outright for some brave soul to commit what they called tyrannicide. Murdering Abraham Lincoln was actually a fairly popular view during and even before the Civil War. But while today we're totally used to the idea that there's at least one guy trying to kill the President at all times, no matter who the something.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You can set your watch to.

[Marcus Parks]

The concept of presidential assassination was fairly new to America in the 19th century. See, before Lincoln, the only threat against a sitting president had occurred 25 years previously, again with Andrew Jackson, when a mentally ill house painter had tried shooting Jackson with a pair of pistols.

[Ed Larson]

What happened?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Got him.

[Marcus Parks]

Tried?

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Apparently the assassin had been on a long downward slide with his mental health. And on the day of the attempt.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Honestly, I just want to say it's more like a maniacal pogo stick. I do believe the ups and downs are very subtle. Pogo stick.

[Marcus Parks]

On the day of the attempt, the house painter had been sitting in his paint shop with a book in his hand, laughing, when out of nowhere he exclaimed, quote, I'll be damned if I don't do it. The painter then left the shop and easily found the President leaving a funeral where he tried shooting Jackson in the back, but both pistols misfired due to damp weather. So President Jackson beat the guy half to death with his cane, and the would be assassin was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to an asylum for life.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thanks, everybody.

[Marcus Parks]

See you soon.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And by suit, I mean never. I'm going to the loony bit. That's where I belong. Enjoy yourselves, everyone. Have a pleasant fall.

[Ed Larson]

Sounds pretty sane to me. Trying to kill our most genocidal president.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah, he was the worst one.

[Marcus Parks]

But by the time of Abraham Lincoln, the tenor of the country had changed considerably. Lincoln began receiving death threats at the Illinois State House before he was even elected president, along with a continual stream of packages containing garbage and poisoned food, as well as what I'm sure was a fair amount of feces.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Quite a large hill of asses, but.

[Ed Larson]

He ordered the feces.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're seeing the state of the country.

[Marcus Parks]

Lincoln, however, kept his quote, unquote, favorite death threats throughout the years in a special folder. Although he never told anyone his specific reasons for saving these letters. In my opinion, I think Lincoln, he might have had like, a sense of humor about the whole thing, but he also may have just been resigned to the fact that people were going to want to kill any president who threatened the institution of slavery. This would have been a stark reality for Lincoln because there had been incredible spurts of violence that occurred even in the lead up to the war as a result of the slavery debate. Chief among these spurts was bleeding Kansas, which began a full six years before the outbreak of the war. During this time of turmoil, up to 200 people were killed in raids and battles fought specifically over the issue of slavery, because Kansas was trying to figure out whether it was going to enter the union as a free state or a slave state. In fact, just before the raid on Harpers Ferry, John Brown had led a raiding party in Kansas with his sons, where they seized five pro slavery settlers from their homes and hacked the settlers to death with broad swords.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cool. It's like Balder's gate.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, man. Dirty. To me.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The last person to die by a broad sword is, like, in these days, it's just some fat anime, man. You know, like, that's fun.

[Marcus Parks]

Got it. A father and son activity.

[Henry Zabrowski]

God, I just wish. I wish I could have done that with my dad before he went. Nothing would have made him happier than chopping up a bunch of strangers with broad swords. So fun.

[Marcus Parks]

In other words, things had been tense, to say the very least, for years.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Once they start chopping people into salad and it's like a problem. It's not even guns anymore. You know what I mean? Like, we're just turning them into, literally, confetti.

[Ed Larson]

How did they know the swords were ladies?

[Henry Zabrowski]

You. You're your ass. You're why the country's in the toilet. People like you.

[Ed Larson]

I appreciate that. Sorry.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm sorry. Irrational. It's an irrational reaction.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that's all to say that Lincoln knew how fired up people were on both sides of the debate at all times. Now, the threats against President Lincoln's life were not just limited to letters. The earliest near successful attempt took place, coincidentally, in Maryland.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, I imagine that would be the. The. The lightest threats of death.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Are the letters. The letters are just saying, I'm gonna kill you.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's definitely the least of it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, this first attempt came to be known as the Baltimore plot.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can you actually say it properly? The Balmore plot.

[Marcus Parks]

The block. The Balmer plot. Balmer plot. Yeah. This plot, however, was not. This plot was not something that occurred months or even years into Lincoln's first term. People were trying to kill Lincoln on his way to his inauguration in March of 1861. This was before the Confederacy was even formed. A secret paramilitary group called the National Volunteers who had the stated goal of overthrowing the government by violent force. They intended to kill Lincoln in Baltimore when the President elect's train stopped in the city on its way to Washington D.C. the plan was to create a public disturbance and murder Lincoln in the fracas. But luckily the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency had infiltrated the National Volunteers. They uncovered the plot long before Lincoln arrived in Baltimore that day. So Lincoln ended up skipping the town altogether. The problem was that the Baltimore plot soon became public knowledge. The Baltimore papers were quick to call Lincoln the coward president because they wrote, had there been a threat to say, Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson would have crushed the conspiracy by quote, meeting it like a man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Why? By what, hitting a bullet head first? Like that's the idea. You just coming at these.

[Marcus Parks]

No, you'd probably. No, you would have met up with a man by now, putting a bunch of Native Americans between him and the bullets like Andrew Jackson would have done.

[Ed Larson]

Cripplingly hammered.

[Marcus Parks]

The Lincoln was quite defensive when it came to these attacks on his courage. And it is speculated that the press's reaction to Lincoln skipping Baltimore was why he had a future aversion to bodyguards or a large security detail. See, the Secret Service was created unfortunately after Lincoln was killed. As up to that point, bodyguards and security details were somewhat a matter of personal preference from President to president.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because they used to just walk in the crowd. Yeah, they used to walk around waving people like could kiss a wife. Take a baby.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. There's that famous picture of Lincoln at Gettysburg and he's standing there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, he shouldn't have been. He shouldn't have been. He was in, in danger.

[Marcus Parks]

Lincoln, for example, he was constantly opposed to the idea of having a personal bodyguard. And this is against the wishes of his friends, family and cabinet members who constantly told him that he needed some sort of protection.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Lincoln did somewhat acquiesce in 1862, it was about two years into the war when he allowed a company of soldiers to be assigned to the White House. But they were really bodyguards in name only. They provided no personal protection and their duties had more to do with taking care of little Tad Lincoln's goats than keeping an eye on the President.

[Ed Larson]

Man, you know, that annoyed the shit out of some guys.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Can we please put a soldier at the front of your home?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't need any of these so called bodyguards. I just need my glam squad. I have Ricky Oto, who does my culinary. I've got Brian Kingsley, he's doing my interior design. I've got Randall who does my clothes. And I've got old Chiba who works on my Madden scaping. Oh, I will unite this country.

[Ed Larson]

Also, like, this might not be true, but I remember when I was learning about Lincoln for Historical Roast. They said that he would challenge people who heckled him at his speeches to wrestling matches in front of everybody. If someone started heckling him, he just like, come down here and fight me the shit out of him in front of everyone to continue his speech.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, you want to take a shot at all sticking like it? Well, the Greek pretzel. You want to see what that's like? And I'll show you where the mustard comes from. Comes from old Lincoln's back pocket, if you know what I'm saying. All right, come get a sample of yourself. You want to think you're going to handle the heat. The python like our table. This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. Help. Men today face immense pressure to keep it all together. Bottling things up can lead to depression or unhealthy habits, or building an entirely semi ironic bulldozer that's been converted into an indestructible machine that you use to keep a small town in terror. It's okay to struggle. Real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying so you could be at your best for yourself and everyone in your life. This is true. All right? You got to get in there. You got to get into your brain. You have to observe your brain yourself because if not, eventually they're going to be doing it with a lobotomist knife. Okay? It's what your family's going to make you do. So you want to get into therapy, plus switch therapists at any time. Better helps.

[Marcus Parks]

Great.

[Henry Zabrowski]

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp, our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] LastPod that's betterhelp.com LastPod have you ever had that moment where your kid asks for help with homework and you're like, you're a 10 year old Chihuahua? How am I supposed to answer that? Or maybe your child's ahead of the curve and getting bored in class. Tell me all about it. Garmi keeps chewing on all the pencils. Whether your kid is struggling or soaring, IXL can make a real difference. IXL is an award Winning online learning platform that helps kids really understand what they're learning. Covers math, language arts, science and social studies from pre K all the way through 12th grade. It's fantastic. Don't miss out. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the US. One in four students in the US are learning with IXL. The kids got all different maths. It's all different than when we used to do. They read different books. The letters I think are different. What is Riz? There's many different things I don't understand. And that's what's important about ixl. It helps teach the children. So you go check out that ixl.

[Marcus Parks]

Alright?

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Ed Larson]

You're traveling. It's summer, let's face it. You're going to do something. Maybe you're a teacher, you got a bunch of free time, you're still getting paid. What are you going to do? You're going to go somewhere in the weird that you never been before and leaving the country, it's already stressful. It's good to just know a little bit more about where you're going, whether it's Mexico or France. It's good to know a little bit more about how to communicate with the people where you're going. And plus, you know, you gotta know what you're ordering off the menu. What are we even talking about here? At least for the waiters and waitresses across the world. Learn a couple things. Start speaking a new language with confidence thanks to Babbel's conversation based technique that quickly teaches you useful words and phrases about the things you actually talk about in the real world. Languages available on Babel are English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Brazilian, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Indonesian, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Russian. So go to one of those places and talk to the people. One thing that I love, and you obviously know that I love this, it's talking. And I want to talk to everyone no matter where I am. And so traveling the world is amazing. You learn so much about everyone everywhere, especially if you can actually talk to them. So let Babel help you out with that. Learn another language. Babel is gifting our listeners 55% off [e-mail] left get up to 55% [e-mail] left spelled B A B B E L.com left Babel rules and restrictions may apply.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now.

[Marcus Parks]

Eventually, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. He did appoint a cavalry detail in 1863 to guard the President when Lincoln traveled the D.C. area. Especially when Lincoln rode from the White House to his summer residence on a plot of land called Soldiers Home. Lincoln, however, thought that the security detail was unnecessary and intrusive. So he regularly slipped out of their sight while failing to tell any of his aides that he was leaving on his own. As such, Lincoln often rode back and forth between the White House and his summer residence and Soldiers Home alone. Now, it seems insane to us that a sitting president in the middle of a civil war would take such risks with his own life. It's to the point where one could make the argument that Lincoln may have had some sort of death wish, or at least didn't care whether he lived or died.

[Henry Zabrowski]

People say this, right, that he was fatalistic. They kind of blame it on his. They say he's, he was a depressive.

[Ed Larson]

He was incredibly depressed. Yeah, everyone in his life had died. He'd lost multiple children, his first wife, his mother at a very young age. He had a really hard life.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Sounds like no baggage, no problems. But you know, everybody's different.

[Marcus Parks]

There was still plenty of kids. And Mary Todd.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh yeah, Mary Todd's right there, buddy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, Well, I mean, that really has always been the craziest part of the John Wilkes Booth story. That's the thing that people always bring up in modern times. The fact that Booth was able to just walk up to the President in place and shoot him in the fucking head without running into a single security guard along the way. But I don't think that Lincoln's small or sometimes non existent security detail was just about his personal pride. Nor do I think Lincoln was secretly suicidal. Quite the opposite. In fact, I actually think that Lincoln had a small security detail because it may have allowed him to live his life his way. Way. In my purely speculative opinion.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is my favorite because we get to just speculate. We don't.

[Marcus Parks]

I think that Lincoln's small security detail and therefore the circumstances behind his untimely death were directly linked to Lincoln's true sexuality. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's finally time to talk about gay Lincoln. Oh, gay Lincoln.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I can't wait to hug you. Lincoln, I need you. I'm so excited.

[Marcus Parks]

And we're not just being shitheads here.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

There's four reasons behind this. The evidence for Abraham Lincoln being gay is extensive. If Circumstantial. But I do believe that it is crucial to understanding his life and consequently his death.

[Ed Larson]

And his logs.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Man. Bottoming out Abraham Lincoln to where he's already cuz. You know what his favorite meal was? Chicken Frey. You know what Chicken Frey is?

[Marcus Parks]

No idea.

[Ed Larson]

Are you telling me about it?

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's just fat gravy blumps chicken, right? It's extremely easy to make. It's like powered powdered chick. You use like flour on chicken. You make it into big sort of r. It's gloopy filled with carbs. And you know for a fact that's like when you're. If you're bottom and Lincoln, it's like getting your tire stuck in the mud. You're gonna need somebody to pull you out.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, you made catcher's mitts.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah. I call it my black hole.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the first mention of Lincoln's possible homosexuality was in a 1926 biography written by the three time Pulitzer Prize winning author Carl Sandberg, who wrote that Lincoln's friendship with the certain male lifelong chum had, quote, a streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Those spots is where I was kissing them. You know what I'm saying?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cool. I just want you. Don't be freaked out. As a president. Don't be freaked out. I'm the same Abe you knew. I've always been this way, okay? Just chill out.

[Ed Larson]

How's your wife?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Shut up. You're being a fucking bummer right now, all right? I'm out with my boys. I'm hanging out with my boys. I don't need to hear about mt right now, all right? So somewhere crying into a boy. Want it?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Abraham Lincoln's so called chum was Joshua Fry Speed, a guy who had been partners with Lincoln in his general store back in Springfield, Illinois. This was long before Lincoln was heavily involved in politics. Apparently before Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd. He and Speed lived together for a period of four years. A period in which these two men then continuously shared a bet.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He had such a nice peaceful life, him and his partner and their little store. And they could have just. They could have made like little.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what it's like? It's like Schitt's Creek.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's just like.

[Marcus Parks]

It's the apothecary.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that's also what he called his.

[Ed Larson]

Lincoln.

[Henry Zabrowski]

If he wasn't dead before, he's got to be dead after.

[Ed Larson]

That is Josh Speed's face. He does have a little like I'm up to no good smile.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He does look like a Lincoln kisser.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, he's mischievous. He's definitely mischievous.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's a Lincoln kisser.

[Marcus Parks]

And a lot of people got a lot of historians of people who really push back hard against the gay Lincoln thing. Like, they say that it was not uncommon for men to share a bed during this time period. And they're absolutely right, it wasn't. But not for four years. You're telling me you can't scare up an extra bed in four years?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, Josh. What are you doing? Getting another bed.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I love smelling you when you sleep. You're my best friend. The last thing I want to do is not smell you when we're asleep because obviously we're both wrapped in wool all day long, working in the heat. And I'm a wrestler. I'm a big old gaggly wrestler. Can you imagine what my fucking chest. What my chest smells like? I like it. Yeah. Idea of being within 8 inches of ed for.

[Marcus Parks]

I know you do. I know you do.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know you do. You showed evidence last night.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. I mean, we've had the touch for too long before.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, but it happens. It does suck.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You avoid it.

[Ed Larson]

They didn't say he liked sharing the bed. It was just better than sleeping on the dirt floor. You're in the middle of a cabin in Illinois. There's nowhere else to sleep.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well. Well. You think he didn't like it?

[Ed Larson]

I mean, who knows?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know.

[Ed Larson]

Devil's advocate. Wow. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I do think that they were. Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Please make your position clear. Edward, make your position clear.

[Ed Larson]

I just like to play devil's advocate.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Good.

[Ed Larson]

It's pretty clear that they were.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Furthermore, Lincoln briefly called off his engagement to Mary Todd when Joshua Speed suddenly left Springfield. Because Speed's absence had sent Lincoln into a deep depression. Lincoln also signed his letters to Speed as yours forever. While Lincoln's future wife, Mary Todd, got most affectionately. Which might as well been signed, your pal, Abe.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Your best friend.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And roommate. Your roommate, Abraham Lincoln.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. He did postpone his wedding to Mary Todd Lincoln to help Speed move to Kentucky.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's the gayest thing I've heard so far.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, in the letters that Lincoln and Speed wrote to each other, they talked quite a bit about their anxieties concerning their impending marriages. Specifically, they talked about the anxiety surrounding their abilities to sexually perform with their future wives.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can I just ask.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Henry Zabrowski]

When I'm going in there, when. When they say, eat the pussy, do I use my teeth? My big wooden chompers, do I bite?

[Ed Larson]

Grip that's what I did.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. I love you, Josh. God damn it. I wish we could just suck.

[Marcus Parks]

I just realized I've never seen Lincoln's teeth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, you don't want to. He must look like a graveyard. Yeah, I can't imagine what it'd be like near. Oh, his tongue. Like a horrific slug. And this dark brown gums.

[Ed Larson]

Did he smoke?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know.

[Ed Larson]

But it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Nothing was good.

[Ed Larson]

No, nothing was good back then. But, you know, he might. I'm sure he had a rotten mouth.

[Marcus Parks]

He might have. I mean, many men had rotten mouths back then.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just keep going. I'm looking up Lincoln's teeth.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay. Well, Joshua Speed was not Lincoln's only known dalliance. In his early 20s, Lincoln hired a 19 year old man named William Green to work at his store. But Lincoln and Green also shared a particularly small cot. Most tellingly, Green also wrote at one point that Lincoln had thighs that were, quote, as perfect as a human being could be.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I showed ed my thighs the other day. And I want you to look at them too, only just because you've never said anything like that to me. And I also believe that my thighs are the best thing that I have.

[Marcus Parks]

I've seen your thighs a lot agree.

[Ed Larson]

That your thighs are the best thing you have. I just didn't. I didn't necessarily feel like I had to say they were beautiful.

[Marcus Parks]

They're pretty good.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, they've got. They've got ham like qualities like hanging ham. And I do enjoy ham down. It's just incredible that you can just pull your pants down without undoing your belt.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Years of being a performer. Gotta have access to my ass that executives can get it, just so you know. Also, Lincoln did have horrible dental problems. He did lose a chunk of his jaw due to mercury poisoning in his gum rot. And his dentist, Johnny Greenwood, wow.

[Marcus Parks]

It's incredible.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just like the guy. Yeah, he made him dentures out of ivory and gold. And he said they creaked and clapped. Act as he spoke and ate like the souls of the dams were escaping from his mouth.

[Ed Larson]

So he had tusk teeth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But guess what? Left extra room for.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, it depends. I mean, we don't know how big those things were. Yeah, they could have been monstrous.

[Marcus Parks]

Now you might say that all these things, with all these guys, they might have just been youthful affairs.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Sure.

[Marcus Parks]

You might say, even say that Lincoln had fully suppressed his true nature by the time he'd become president. President.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But that discounts the case of Lincoln's aforementioned summer residence, Soldiers home, which to me, sounds like the name of San Diego gay bar that specifically serves Marines.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, it very much sounds like a buffet that someone rings a bell at. There's just a bunch of ass hanging.

[Marcus Parks]

Out of the window, but rough soldier ass. Battle hardened ass.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Soldiers are home.

[Marcus Parks]

See, the cottage at Soldiers Home was where Lincoln took his family during the warmer months to avoid death and disease because outbreaks of typh office and dysentery would regularly rip through Washington D.C. every summer.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's a reminder that it's a literal swamp.

[Marcus Parks]

It's an actual swamp. It's fucking idiotic that that's where our nation's capital is.

[Ed Larson]

Manhattan's also a swamp.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, but Manhattan's better.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, it's nicer.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, but it was. But this was also where Lincoln went when it was said that he wanted to, quote, get some sleep away from the prying eyes of the public. Public. And it was also where Lincoln preferred to stay when his wife, Mary Todd was out of town. Furthermore, a member of Lincoln's own security detail, Captain David Derrickson, gained a certain notoriety for sharing Lincoln's bed at Soldier's Home when Mary Todd wasn't around.

[Ed Larson]

Hey, just because Derrickson's looking to get his rail split, we don't gotta blame him for.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, not blaming him for nothing. I'm just saying David Derrickson was definitely near Lincoln's dicky. Quite a bit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Quite often of Lincoln gets you thinking.

[Ed Larson]

Well, didn't they.

[Marcus Parks]

Interesting.

[Ed Larson]

Didn't they say they would sleep chest to chest?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, this is. I made that up. I made it up saying that we. They slept chest to chest. That that's why they were called breast friends. No, I made that up. No.

[Ed Larson]

Okay. That would have been, you know, I guess that would have been the way to say that they weren't.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I think that's the most romantic way to sleep.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Chest to ch. Yeah. Facing the other person.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Get into the eyes of another person.

[Marcus Parks]

Feeling the breath of another man on your face. Face is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I face away from my wife, who I love.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. I face away from her.

[Ed Larson]

No. Yeah. So do I. So do I. I don't want to smell anyone's breath.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, but, you know, especially David Derrickson.

[Ed Larson]

I bet Derrickson was sweet as hell.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Civil War dick breath is not what you want to experience. It's not the American candle I want to purchase.

[Ed Larson]

I think. Captain Yankee Candle, please. And I heard Captain David Derrickson's nickname was Christmas cookies. He was delight. The smell.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I bet. I bet it's like a holiday every time I remove his Brooch.

[Marcus Parks]

No, this all might like now this all might seem like salacious gossip, but the point of covering it is and we like it. No, no, no. The point of covering all this is that I think it shows a man who spent his entire existence trying to live two lives. I believe that Abraham Lincoln wanted to live life in a way that would allow him to be who he truly was, at least some of the time. Because in 18, the only way a man was going to be able to be gay in any way, especially if he was the fucking President of the United States, was to live a fair section of his life in secrecy. If that was Lincoln's goal, then a large security detail which would make sense for anyone in his position, would have not just increased the exposure of Lincoln's private life, it would have also made it nearly impossible for him to sneak off by himself to get the sort of privacy that he would need to live at least a sliver of his life as he wanted to live it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And it's also like a lot of like homosexual acts at the time were considered to be illegal. Like they're depending on what they considered to be.

[Marcus Parks]

They were illegal.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

You would be put thrown to prison.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He had to. But he also was a man that really like, you know, we always talk about how like they're modern guys born in every generation. They just don't like how the. Am I here?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Abraham Lincoln kind of was like that where he definitely knew that he was a man of the moment. And he also knew that like he tried like a real man wanting to live life on his terms.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And so I could see him creating a very extravagant system in order to hide this lifestyle just so that he can be himself sometimes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But the problem here is that the precedent of a nearly non existent security detail had long been set by the time John Wilkes Booth showed up up at Ford's theater with a pistol. And while low security may have given Lincoln some happiness, if that was indeed the motivation, it also directly resulted in his untimely death.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that's how his gayness leads to him getting shot. That's crazy. That's technically theory.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I would say it would more like society's. Society's non acceptance.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm not gonna blame Lincoln. I'm not gonna blame Lincoln. You're right. Like it's not their fault.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Except for all the stuff that he did that made people angry. But again, he did correct stuff because he was president.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It was all good stuff.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now tellingly, John Wilkes Booth's original plan to kidnap Lincoln was in fact to intercept the President while he was traveling from the White House to soldiers home. And the Confederacy had even considered pulling it off themselves as far back as 1862. Although I don't know exactly why they never pulled the trigger on the plan. They were in full what's called black flag warfare. So everybody was on the table, Everything was on the table during the Civil War.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. I wonder why. Maybe they just felt like they didn't want to get that heat back on on them.

[Marcus Parks]

Could be, yeah. It might also have been like, ah, well that's, you know, that's not chivalrous. That's not, you know, whatever.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. They still were in that, that realm of warfare.

[Ed Larson]

They would literally line up and wait to get shot. It's crazy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, stupid. John Wilkes Booth, however, he at the very least recognized that like John Brown, he needed a crew. So looking for more direction, Booth made his way to the Confederacy's home base in the north in October of 1864, just before Lincoln's second election victory. This sanctuary was located way up in Canada.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, you guys are a part of our too. Yes. Yeah, you pieces of. Act like you're better than us. You ain't.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what the shitty thing is that they can technically say that they weren't a part of it because all this happened before Canada was actually a country.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What was it?

[Marcus Parks]

Province.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, Canada. You're absolved.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It was basically just somewhere where they can go hide.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. It's cold though.

[Marcus Parks]

Personally, I was actually very cold. But personally I was actually shocked to discover that the Confederates had built their own little nest in none other than Montreal.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Side stories. LPOTL gmail.com if you're in the Montreal area and know anything about this, I would love to find out what you guys. The idea that it was an entire. It really was a spy haven for the Confederacy.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh. Montreal was home to so many Confederate agents that it was called Little Richmond after the Confederate capital. According to an article in the Montreal Gazette, Montreal during the Civil War was like the Casablanca of its time as it acted as a hub for spies, plotters, and Confederate soldiers on the run.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Meanwhile, like, Montreal's the sexiest city in the world. And you can just imagine these horrific hicks from Arkansas just up there being like, what?

[Marcus Parks]

What they doing?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Them thin ass bagels, what are they doing?

[Marcus Parks]

I don't like bagels.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't like bagels. I like bread. I like flat ass bread.

[Ed Larson]

Where did the French stand on our Civil War?

[Marcus Parks]

No one really Came to the south side. I believe the French were on our side.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Like, I believe the French supported the Union.

[Ed Larson]

I know there were lots of French in the south because of Louisiana and all that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And so maybe that's why Montreal was like a way to be a Confederate hotspot.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's very interesting. Also, the piracy that that was around, like, I imagine all kind of was. Works together.

[Marcus Parks]

Louisiana, if I remember correctly, though, was kind of like, in an odd spot when it came to the Civil War, because I know they had started reconstruction in Louisiana before the Civil War was even over. So, yeah, Louisiana, I think, was, like, kind of a strange place.

[Ed Larson]

Amen to that.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, interestingly, especially considering Canada's oft touted status as a safe haven for escaped slaves. Slaves. Montreal fully welcomed the Confederates using a vast network of agents. The Confederacy used Montreal as a sanctuary where they could hide out after committing bank robberies in the border states, or they'd use it as a base to attempt just these insane plans. Like they plan to blow up the White House using landmines. They plan to burn down New York City. They get. Came very close. They burned down P.T. barnum's museum like the. The fucking. The Dime Museum, like the New York plot. Insane. They waged biological warfare, or attempted to wage biological warfare using clothing that they believed was infected with yellow fever.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why didn't they just want to kill Lincoln? I honestly, it's so weird to me that they would do all of this, but they wouldn't kill the President.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it is strange to me as well.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, didn't the Canadians burn down the White House at one point?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, that was during the. That was all.

[Ed Larson]

That was like 1812, whole different.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was a mistake. Some guy sneezed. It was a whole thing. It was a horse stereotypical. There's no reason to get in the.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, you know the plot to use yellow fever to wage biological warfare. I mean, that's not how yellow fever works. We know now that it's spread by mosquitoes. But the Confederacy still engaged in a plot to kill large numbers of Northern civilians and Union troops by using infected clothing sold at auction. And the whole plan was originated by agents in Montreal. Now, as far as how official all this was, was the Confederate President Jefferson Davis set up their Canadian outpost in Montreal himself, using the modern equivalent of $20 million. And a Canadian bank operated by Montreal's former mayor helped the Confederates launder money. The central location of the Confederate operation in Montreal, however, was the city's most impressive and fashionable hotel at the time St. Lawrence Hall. And it was at this hotel that John Wilkes Booth arrived in October of 1864. Booth checked himself in and thereafter spent 10 days hanging out with his fellow Confederates, playing card games and billiards while discussing his kidnapping plan with various Confederate agents. By the end of Booth's stay, he was, in effect, a Confederate agent himself. Although it doesn't seem like he left with any specific orders. There were a lot of guys like this, it seems like, in the Confederacy. Like almost. I wouldn't necessarily say agents of chaos, but more like. Yeah, give him some money. See what he can do. Let's see what he can pull up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, it's. Cuz it's a perfect example. It's asymmetric warfare. And it's a perfect place for mercenaries and people that just like to kill other people and do stuff in the shenanig and do things in the name of war. Yeah, because they can. They can get away with it.

[Ed Larson]

And it's a good investment to not hire labor.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, Booth did actually leave with a Confederate stipend worth the modern equivalent of $30,000, which is no small sum. No, but more importantly, John Wilkes Booth also had in his possession a letter of introduction to a Confederate agent in Maryland who could help Booth with the kidnapping of Abraham Lincoln. That agent's name was Dr. Samuel Mudd. Through Dr. Mudd, John Wilkes Booth.

[Ed Larson]

Sounds unreal.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I have to take a. I'm about to become Dr. Mud. I'm about to graduate from medical school.

[Ed Larson]

Thank you, Henry. Now we can move faster.

[Marcus Parks]

I. I can't just like, for days I just be like, they call me Dr. Mudd. Good morning. How are you? I'm interested in slaves that just. It's been going over and over my head.

[Ed Larson]

Sounds like a Primus song.

[Marcus Parks]

It's. They might be giant songs. Dr. Worm. Well, through Dr. Mudd, John Wilkes Booth would begin to put together a crew to enact his plan to kidnap the president. But when that plan inevitably failed, months later, it would be the same thing. Men who would conspire to kill Lincoln instead. Now, Dr. Mudd was a slave.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Must be Dr. Bud. Nothing special. Nothing to rattle about. Poor Dr. Mud.

[Ed Larson]

Well, I'll give you a clue to what my specialty is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep, that's a dookie poo poo. That's a little bit of dookie poo poo. Now this is our best episode.

[Ed Larson]

We just can't handle this doctor's name.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Doctor.

[Ed Larson]

He conspired to kill the greatest president of all time. Like, his name's Poopy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

His Name. He's a PO man fault. Seab says yeah, man.

[Ed Larson]

Honestly what he deserves.

[Marcus Parks]

What do you want from us? Dr. Mudd was a slave owner and farmer who owned a plot of land in Bryant Town, Maryland. But when the state finally abolished slavery in 1864, Dr. Mudd did not have a business plan that included actually paying the people who worked his plantation.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is going to devastate my whole poo poo base practice. It's going to fuck up all my fart science. This is all I need. Do my bean farm. Oh, no. All the precious beats.

[Marcus Parks]

Dr. Mudd's operation therefore collapsed with which gave him ample reason to help the Confederacy in any way he could. As for Booth's plot, Dr. Mudd's home was perfectly situated as a stopover between Washington, D.C. and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Which meant the Booth could hide at Dr. Mudd's farm. Farm with Abraham Lincoln after kidnapping him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

President Lincoln. I just say I'm a huge fan. Can I interest you with some beads? I'd love to help you. Do you have any duke or fart fart issues? President Legan. I'm a huge again, though I hate. I'm filled with hate. I'm filled with hate. I hate everything I I. But I'm still itches honored. A half in here. Yes, Dr. Mudd, yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Dr. Mudd's failed plantation could not be the only stop towards Richmond, nor could it even be the first.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dr. Mudd's failed plantation's a great roller coaster ride. Like a great dark ride at Six Flags.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Booth obviously couldn't travel with the President tied up on the back of his horse during the day, and Dr. Mudd was too far away from Washington, D.C. to reach in a single single night. Booth would need a place to flee immediately after kidnapping Lincoln. So Dr. Mudd introduced Booth to a man named John Surratt. John Surratt operated as a mail agent for the Confederacy by passing documents and letters to Confederates in the north. Dr. Mudd was also a male agent. So they were kind of, you know, connecting links in a chain. John Surratt's family also owned a tax tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland. This tavern had become a center for secessionist activities because of its close proximity to Washington, D.C. and John Surratt's entire family, including his mother, were all Confederate sympathizers. Therefore, their tavern had become a well known safe house for Confederate agents. In other words, the Surat family had a lot of credibility amongst the Confederacy. So when John Surratt agreed to be a part of John Wilkes Booth's presidential kidnapping plot plot. Booth's operation gained authority, while Booth gained more confidence. Now, once Booth started to believe in his plot with more fervency, he attempted to bring others into the conspiracy. Although John Wilkes Booth was never really worried much about whether or not these other people actually wanted to be a part of his conspiracy. For example, In November of 1863, just after Booth hooked up with the Confederates, officially, he agreed to be in a production of Julius Caesar that included both Booth and his brothers Edwin and June. It was a massive, massive deal. It was like kind of a publicity type, like a stunt. John Wilkes was in the role of Marc Anthony. However, John Wilkes Booth had also just lost a lot of money in an oil venture that had gone nowhere. I would imagine that might be why he agreed to be a part of this stunt production. And all the other actors, including, I'd assume, his two older brothers, took turns making fun of John Wilkes Booth for his business failures during rehearsal rehearsals.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Ah, yeah. That's gotta be brutal.

[Marcus Parks]

Dude, it's gonna sting.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, my God.

[Ed Larson]

Getting destroyed by your brothers haven't lost everything.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know the feeling. You're just like, God, I know they're gonna have something to say about this whole.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, because Booth had spent, like, such a long time telling everyone that he's gonna make so much money on this oil deal. Like, they gotta get in on this, they gotta help, you know, and then it just all goes. Goes bust. But during the teasing during one rehearsal, Booth turned to a friend of his, a fellow actor named Sam Brooks, and whispered that he had a better speculation than oil at hand, one that no one would laugh at. Now, Sam Brooks didn't think much of this aside, but I would imagine he may have at least humored Booth's comment, because a month later, Booth showed up at Sam Brooks's front door and told him that they had something to discuss. The two of them took a walk, wherein Booth revealed the entire plot to kidnap Lincoln and whisk him away to Richmond. Then Booth asked Sam Brooks if he wanted a piece of the action. This would be a similar situation to, say, Charlie Sheen dropping by Rob Lowe's house to ask if he wanted to help him kidnap George H.W. bush.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You might say yes.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, well, Rob Lowe's the perfect person to put in there, by the way.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's who I'd ask.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he was big Democrat. He used to sit. He used to go to all the rallies. He was a big Dukakis guy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, he Also did the thing where he just. I'm going to say this to both of you. If you ever have a concrete plan to kidnap a politician, don't tell me. Yeah, I don't want to know.

[Ed Larson]

And I'm also not going to use you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just go do it. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

No, you're the worst person to use.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm the distraction.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I dress up like a lady. I go in. I wear my tube top. I fall over a chair. My tits fall out.

[Marcus Parks]

I go, oh, no, you got big mouth. Your mouth's too big. Yeah, we're never going to get there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'll use it.

[Ed Larson]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

You know what I gotta do, Rob?

[Ed Larson]

I'm gonna get some tiny socks for Robert. We got Robert the doll, and he's got. He doesn't have nice new socks for summer. He's got just normal socks. So when he's got his weight. And so Robert needs little tiny socks to keep his little tiny feet nice. And so that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna hit up Bombas. Cause, you know, we work together now. And so Bombas, please give me some tiny socks for Robert and get him ready for summer. I got myself some tiny socks. I got my wife some tiny socks. Low ankle cut. Oh, they breathe so well. But still with Bombas, they get all my sweat and they gather it and they say, eddie, your feet are, are looking good. And that's what happens there. So go to bombas. The most important thing that I love about Bombas is one purchased equals one donated to someone who needs it. What a good company. All right. That kind of stuff really warms my heart, and so that's why I am going full Bombas from now out. So thank you so much, Bombas, for all that you do for everyone, and please support them as well. Well, go buy some Bombas and know when you're buying Bombas for you, you're also buying Bombas for someone who needs it. So head over to bombas.com lpotl and use the code lpotl for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B A S.com lpotl code lpotl at checkout bombas document and use code lpotl. You love it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

Brooks was, of course, horrified and shocked when Booth laid out his plan and he refused Booth outright. Booth, of course, got angry and indignant and told Brooks that he would ruin him and send Confederate agents to get get him if he didn't join the plot. But Brooks at least had the good sense to stand his ground. So Booth left and told Brooks on his way out that he'd kill him if he told anyone. Booth continued to send Brooks threatening and desperate letters for months afterwards. But Brooks still had to continue performing beside Booth and his brothers in Julius Caesar and was unable to tell anyone about Booth's insane plot because he truly believed Booth would have him killed if. If he did.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now that's acting. Exactly. Every single time he gets a note like, you know, you see the director been like, you know, John, I was thinking maybe we could try. And he was going like, don't, don't push him. Don't push him. I think you're doing great, Johnny. I think you're doing great.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking at this point that there are quite a few people involved in this plot. Too many to keep it a secret. But this was all a part of Booth's of piece plan. Booth wrote and spoke to a great many people about his plot to kidnap Lincoln outside of the actor Sam Brooks. But Booth was actually quite clever in the way he did it. So the Union was not shy in any way about imprisoning people suspected of being Confederate spies indefinitely. That's what the whole suspension of Habeas corpus was about. So Booth would approach people about joining his conspiracy in a way that would entrust trap these people. If Booth was caught or if they tried ratting him out, Booth would write letters to people suggesting that he needed help with a, quote, mysterious speculation hinting that he was talking about an investment. But when an interested party would write back, it created a paper trail implicating the person in the mysterious speculation, which was, of course, the kidnapping plot. With the letters in hand, Booth could blackmail possible co conspirators, telling them that they would all hang together if they betrayed him and that he had facts in his possession that would ruin them for life. Basically, John Wilkes Booth was engaged in a 19th century version of an email phishing scheme. Combined with that whole I've seen your porn and I'm gonna tell everyone about it scam that Henry's mother almost fell victim to a few years ago. Henry Thomas.

[Henry Zabrowski]

How do they have nudes of me? I don't know how they did it. I went and I looked everywhere and I was like, oh, they cameras in the soap. Is there cameras inside of me?

[Ed Larson]

I got one of those emails once. It's like, I have video of you. I hacked in. I have video of you masturbating, and I'll share it with everyone. And I'm like, if this is real, like nobody wants to see this, all.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Going to be so disgusted. Do well.

[Marcus Parks]

No, no, it's. Everyone's just going to make a face. All right now. After Booth failed to bring his fellow actor into the mix, he moved on to another recruit who was motivated not by ideology, belief, or Fame, but pure financial gain. This recruit was a German immigrant named George Adzerot. This was Boots man on the water. His boat guy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's my boat guy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Everyone needs a boat guy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Everybody's got to have a boat guy.

[Ed Larson]

Honestly, I'm kind of mad that we don't have a boat guy. If you want to be our boat guy, we are taking applications.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Side stories.

[Ed Larson]

LPOTL gmail.com.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I want to see a picture of your boat. You need to be able to that.

[Marcus Parks]

It needs to be your boat because that's the problem. The problem is that we don't have a boat. So you're going to have to provide the boat.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're the boat guy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And I'm going to need at least a copy of your criminal record. Now some laws are allowed to be broken, but I just need to know which ones you've broken.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You actually must have a criminal record.

[Marcus Parks]

But a fun one.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, George Atzerodt was tasked with ferrying Lincoln across the Potomac river on their way to Richmond after the kidnapped snapping attempt. Atzerot was sort of the ghoul of the group. Described as grimy and consumptive. A man who would go years without changing his clothes, then brag about that fact.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He smell me from over there?

[Marcus Parks]

No, he's a German immigrant officer.

[Ed Larson]

Much better.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can you. Can you smell my stink?

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, I can smell you quite well, George.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Good. That's gold.

[Marcus Parks]

Wait, on the water?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

It's funny, right?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, even on the stinky water I am stinkier.

[Marcus Parks]

Stinky water.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The stinky water of the Mississippi. I am the stinkiest thing upon it. Even worse than Dr. Mudd's practice.

[Ed Larson]

Take me to Dr. Mudd.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Atzerodt also had a spinal curvature which stooped his posture. And he always walked with his head that permanent new metal tilt to the side.

[Ed Larson]

No. Do you think he couldn't take his clothes off and that's why he never changed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Ain't gonna remove the buttons because it is too complicated for my two fingered hands.

[Ed Larson]

This is the best sailor they could find.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I do boats. I don't do clothes.

[Marcus Parks]

At was also an alcoholic. He had absolutely no beliefs in anything.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Also, that is important to remember for our. You have to be an alcoholic to.

[Ed Larson]

Be our boat and have no belie beliefs in anything.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, you definitely. Nihilists only, please. So when Atzerot's carriage painting business failed at the start of the Civil War, he made his drinking money by ferrying men and supplies across the Potomac for the Confederacy. Which is why he was the perfect person to ferry Lincoln in Booth's plot. It did, however, take both John Wilkes Booth and his Confederate darling, John Surat to convince Atzerot to join the Confederacy conspiracy. But join at Surat did, and the crew continued to grow. Now, John Surratt actually ended up being the key member of Booth's crew because besides his extensive Confederate contacts, Surat ended up recruiting the majority of the people involved. Through Surat, Booth also gained a local geography expert, a hunter named David Herald. Herald also had access to pharmaceuticals like chloroform, which would be very helpful in a kidnapping attempt. The final addition to the crew, though, was the muscle. Booth rounded out his team with the final edition of a powerful 21 year old Confederate soldier named Lewis Powell. Powell would prove to be one of the most violent members of Booth cell when the plan changed from kidnapping to assassination.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He does seem like the only one worth anything. Powell. Yeah, of their team.

[Marcus Parks]

What do you mean? Oh, you mean like as far as skill goes? Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's just straight strong.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I mean, the boat guy, he. I mean, all he is a boat guy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, man. Well, I mean, really, in the end, the only successful one was Booth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Or so I will overcome Lincoln with my stink. He will never be able to deal with how smelly my purses because of his need to smell. Wrecked it.

[Marcus Parks]

Guys.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know, Harold.

[Ed Larson]

We're going to get to a lot later, right?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Okay, good.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Booth's kidnapping crew was fully assembled by January of 1865. But while you might think Booth would be at the height of his confidence, it seems like the impending reality of having to actually do something towards the war effort was making Booth a little crappy. Whereas before he'd been described as a chronic optimist with a passion for life, his personality drastically changed at the the beginning of 1865. He turned distractible and short tempered. Booth in the past, had spent his time either acting or socializing. But he was beginning to drop out of performances with more regularity. And he'd stopped attending social functions by using increasingly outlandish lies as excuses. But while Booth's acting work was slowing to a crawl, he decided in mid January that he might as well use his strengths if he was going to successfully kidnap the the President.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Tap. It's mainly tap impressions and jumping. That's what I do best. And I think I can use them all.

[Marcus Parks]

Classical and modern tap.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Classical tap, tap. One foot at a time, the true way. Not this new jazzy African way. I like to do the old fashioned man way, the old white man way. One foot, one tap.

[Ed Larson]

He was a triple threat, but it was. I'm going to kidnap you, I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to stop the Union.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, in mid January 1865, Booth changed the kidnapping plan from capturing Lincoln during transit to abducting him from the audience during a performance at Ford's Theater.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I will dress as a high society woman and I will sneak my way into his chambers and thereupon arts obviously succeeding in totally. I have to erotically accept him to my wills. But then once that is over, then I will have Lincoln in my grasp.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Ford's Theater, whether it was for the kidnapping or the assassination, it was not an idle choice made by John Wilkes Booth. In many ways, Ford's Theater worked somewhat as Booth's home base. Since Booth was a traveling actor, he didn't have a permanent home. And since the owners of Ford's Theater were good friends with Booth, they allowed him to use the building as his mailing address. That meant that Booth knew both the people who worked at Ford's Theater and the theater's layout exceedingly well. When Booth brought his plan to snatch Lincoln from the theater to some of his co conspirators, they thought that the idea was, in a word, stupid. For them, the essential part of the plot, the very thing that made it work, was that they would capture Lincoln in an isolated spot away from the city.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, but think about the splash will make when Broadway finds out that we have Kidn in front of the biggest house I've ever been in front of. Excellence in theater. What's wrong, everyone? This is literally the equivalent if we wanted to kill Obama back in the day and he had come to the creek. Yeah, like, literally.

[Marcus Parks]

I did know that place inside. I knew every square inch of that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, we could have offered him some Molly in that back room. He never would have come out now that he's Jennifer Aniston.

[Ed Larson]

Look at there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's in their show.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, that's. Well, that's.

[Ed Larson]

That's the new one.

[Marcus Parks]

Bold proclamation.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Jennifer Aniston and some guy tried to kill Jennifer Aniston, I think to get at Barack Obama. But that's a whole long story. It's.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, that's very true.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. That's what you think, huh?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, it's what I know. That's what I know.

[Marcus Parks]

But while Booth was having to convince people that his plan was sound, his window for saving the Confederate was rapidly coming to a close. By early 1865, it was a foregone conclusion that the Confederacy was in its last days because their food, manpower, arms, and supplies were nearly gone. In fact, the Confederacy was desperately trying to negotiate an end to the war, although even after losing hundreds of thousands of men to combat and disease, even though their cities were on fire, they were so still stubbornly holding out for a compromise that let them keep their.

[Ed Larson]

Slaves, well, after they lost all their arms. They're going to need the slaves.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's the problem.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, Edward. Yeah, that's right. Yep, that's very true.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, very much so. Well, just the idea of this whole war has been fought on this one thing, and it's like, not. Listen, we're as done with this war as you are, and we are as sick of the bloodshed as much as everybody else. But can we keep our human chattel like. Listen, I know if you find this whole thing, it seems to be a misunderstanding, and I know that it is.

[Marcus Parks]

The reason why the war began in.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The first place, but what say we just stop the fighting part and just act like nothing happened? That would. We'd be all fine with that. We're all fine with that.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Abraham Lincoln knew exactly what the score was here, so he wasn't going to stop until this year. It was done. So whether John Wilkes Booth knew it or not, the war was all but unwinnable for the south by the time Lincoln's second inauguration rolled around. Lincoln's second inauguration, however, gives us occasion to talk about one of the other incredible coincidences when it comes to his assassination. And this coincidence may also be one of the assassination's secret motivations.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now, this is even more salacious than the gay stuff.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, no, this is super salacious, but it is also extremely interesting, and it might be a bit of a. A motivation. See, John Wilkes Booth actually attended Lincoln's second inauguration, but he was only able to do so using a ticket provided by his secret fiance, Lucy Hale, who is one of the more unfortunate innocent bystanders in this tale. Lucy Hale was basically an attractive society girl who'd caught the eye of John Wilkes Booth. But ironically, Lucy Hale was also the daughter of an outspoken abolitionist senator from New Hampshire.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The only thing I want free, good sir, is your daughter, as from her underwear.

[Marcus Parks]

Sorry you made your. You cracked yourself up with that one. I saw.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I really did.

[Marcus Parks]

Regardless of her father's views, however, Hale began receiving romantic letters from Booth in the first years of the war, and the two of them courted in secret for a long time before they were finally secretly engaged.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I Want to ask you, Lucy, if you want to form a confederacy of.

[Ed Larson]

Our own, what's the point of getting secretly engaged? That means nothing.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's. I think getting secretly engaged back then means that you tell each other, but you don't tell your parents.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's not real. Yeah, that's what it is. It's a. He's lying to the woman.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, surprisingly, Booth never talked with Lucy Hale about his extremist political beliefs in all the time they were together. Although I would imagine Booth was smart enough to not talk about how awesome he thought slavery was to the daughter of a fierce pro abolitionist.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Tell me, Johnny. And you were about to go to the asleep. But what do you think about slavery? I thinking right now, Penny thoughts think it's horrible.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because if not, you won't see none of these. You won't get none of this either. I going to get none of this.

[Marcus Parks]

I despise slavery with all the fire of God's reign.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Get to chomping. I learned how to teach a man to eat from Abraham Lincol.

[Marcus Parks]

But the incredible coincidence here is that long before John Wilkes Booth had courted Lucy Hale, Lucy had previously been courted by Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's eldest son.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Does her vagina have no loyalty? Does her vagina not think about the goddamn country.

[Marcus Parks]

Robert Todd and Lucy Hell had remained friendly. And tellingly, John Wilkes Booth had become enraged by one night when he saw his secret girlfriend dancing with the President's son.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's my secret girlfriend. That's mine, dude.

[Ed Larson]

I love that. Lincoln's son was clipping her, dude. That's awesome.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, because he was like a cool guy. Lincoln, son.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Robert Lincoln. Yeah. Robert Lincoln.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Bob Lincoln.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Bob Lincoln.

[Ed Larson]

He was the one who wanted to fight in the war. But they were like, n. You're going to. You're going to see stand next to this general.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it wasn't he. Yeah. He was played by Joseph Gordon. Joseph Gordon Levitt. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Very attractive. Who loves to people's girlfriends.

[Henry Zabrowski]

To people's girlfriends. He actually.

[Ed Larson]

He was fine.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Robert Todd Lincoln definitely looked like him. That's for certain, man.

[Ed Larson]

Do you think this had anything to do with him wanting to kill Lincoln?

[Marcus Parks]

I. Maybe. I don't know.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It didn't help.

[Marcus Parks]

Like, it definitely didn't help. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely didn't help. But perhaps an even larger coincidence was what Lucy was doing the day Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. See, Lincoln had just appointed Lucy's father as ambassador to Spain. And since Lucy planned to join him, she was brushing up on her Spanish. Lucy's Spanish study buddy, who she was studying with on the day that Lincoln was killed, was none other than Robert Todd Lincoln.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, the most Spanish banish of the President's sons. This is called an enchilada. Lucy this year is called a burrito supremo. And this here is the ancient Mexican art of frijole confritos.

[Ed Larson]

Your Spanish definitely is stuck to only food.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Over here is another incredible Spanish area thing called an empanada. There's another thing over. Just come here and kiss me. Let's.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Lucy Hale became somewhat infamous because John Wilkes Booth had her picture in his pocket when he killed Lincoln. But Booth also had pictures of four other women.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Covering my bases.

[Marcus Parks]

Booth was a ladies man, as we said last episode, and such was women's attraction that a jealous ex girlfriend who also happened to be a fellow actor. She once tried stabbing John Wilkes Booth to death. But that's all to say that Booth had many sides that he showed to many different people. So I do agree with most historians when they say that Lucy Hale was just as shocked as anyone else when her secret fiance murdered the President.

[Ed Larson]

Probably would have been a good idea to keep that secret a secret at that point.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, the problem was that they found her picture and she was popular. And so they went to her and be like, so why does John Wilkes Booth have a picture of you?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because they used to give pictures as like a gift from person. Like, she would have given him. She would have needed to have given him that picture.

[Marcus Parks]

And she was also, by the time of, you know, around the time of the assassination, they had started to be seen in public together. Like, I think, you know, he had even had dinner with Lucy Hill's like, mother. There was rumors that he had dinner with Lucy Hill's mother, like, and Lucy Hill herself on the night that he killed Lincoln.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He was like, I gotta get going.

[Marcus Parks]

I got something to do. But I don't think that he knew that she was studying with Robert Todd Lincoln that day. I think it was just a complete and total. And he had already planned to kill Lincoln that night anyway. So, yes, just absolute coincidence that, you know, John Wilkes Booth's secret girlfriend was hanging out with the son of the man he was killing.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, I'll tell you what's definitely finito. Your tutoring sessions with that son of a bitch's son. Oh, they are stapion. Oh, oh, they are overto.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, even though the Civil War was obviously a lost cause for the south, by this point, Booth doubled Down on the kidnapping plot to confuse everyone about his continued plotting. Booth constantly lied to friends, family and even his co conspirators about where he was, what he was doing and who he was doing it with. Booth was also draining his finances at a rapid rate because he was paying for all of his co conspirators room and board, in addition to being buying them all fine suits to make them look respectable. To throw everyone off their trail, the co conspirators all stayed in Washington D.C. using fake names, just waiting for Booth to give them the go ahead.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hello, my name is Robert Spaghetti. Yeah, my name is M. Mr. Stinkle. It's my. That's my state. I am Mr. Ronald Spaghetti.

[Marcus Parks]

Ronald Spaghetti. Are you guys related? Ronald Spaghetti and Bob Spaghetti.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Total convention. Total convention. We're both from the same town.

[Marcus Parks]

The town of Pasta.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Ravolio. Pasha Ravolio.

[Ed Larson]

Italy, with the Meatball brothers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

It's weird because you sound German.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, I'm very old. Eastern Italian.

[Ed Larson]

Shizone.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, while you may think that the plot to kidnap Lincoln was simply a plan that lost steam, Booth and his gang of confederates did make a bonafide attempt at snatching the President in the spring of 1865. See, in those days, theaters would announce Lincoln's visits ahead of time because it increased ticket sales. So when Booth got word that Lincoln had tickets to an upcoming performance at Ford's theater, he finally set his kidnapping plan into motion. On March 15, Booth gathered his team at Ford's theater in anticipation of Lincoln's visit, where Booth familiarized them with both the layout of the theater and his grand plan itself. On Booth's cue, one of the co conspirators would rush the President's box and seize Lincoln, while Booth and another accomplish would follow him with handcuffs. Once properly seized, Lincoln would be lowered from the box to the the stage with I suppose a rope or something similar.

[Henry Zabrowski]

When he has very long clothes on, he'll strip him down to the very bottom of his nudeness. And then we will tie those clothes together into a tether. Throw him over. Yes, I can see it now. Like a giant chandelier, Lincoln will swing above the audience. No, they'll see our plot is a most righteous one.

[Marcus Parks]

You throw him and I will catch him. That is the. That was the plan. Another javelin.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He is perfectly shaved, like a spear.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, another collaborator was supposed to be waiting to catch Lincoln. He was going to be down on stage. He'd come from backstage and catch Lincoln to make sure he didn't die going head first.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that's why I'm bringing the basket. Yeah, I got the basket because I measured it to the President's length.

[Marcus Parks]

Booth, two other guys, they would leap down after him using Booth's patented stage stunt techniques.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's a one, a two and a jump.

[Ed Larson]

It's that easy.

[Marcus Parks]

Remember, that's what Booth was known for. He was. No, he was the action star.

[Ed Larson]

He was a stuntman.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I jump. Yeah. And tap one foot at a time.

[Marcus Parks]

All the guys, once they were on stage, they would surround the President and hustle him out of the building where a carriage would be waiting in the alley to whisk them all out of the city's. Fast. Fast as possible.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's like we've already done it.

[Marcus Parks]

The co conspirators were not exactly sold on Booth's plan, and not just because it was obviously really stupid.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You want us to just get him? So that's the big great plan.

[Marcus Parks]

Booth get there. Really, their biggest problem with the plan was the end game. The idea that Lincoln could be exchanged for a large number of Confederate POWs who could turn the tank tide of war. The reason why they had a problem with this part is because there had already been a big POW exchange between north and south earlier that year. That had accomplished nothing. And a 'Thousand more Confederate POWs have been freed on the very day that Booth was pitching the plan to kidnap the President for this very purpose. I mean, and also that's not even to mention the fact that these. We're going to get into it, I think, in episode three, three or four, when we talk about the men who hunted Booth. But these Civil War POW camps were hell on earth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, I can't even imagine. Just the. The nice houses were bad. The living in a house as a rich person sucked.

[Marcus Parks]

The men would come out of these. If they. If they survived, they would come out of them ghosts. Like, not just malnourished, but mentally broken.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. They're not going to win a war for you.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Ed Larson]

At this point.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Point.

[Ed Larson]

First of all, they got caught.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And second, do you have any. How long? You have to hear crazy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Was it as Andersonville? Wasn't that where they kept everybody?

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, okay. Well, I think it is. And I'm usually wrong.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, I do know that Louie Andersonville is where they put all the fat guys. They're trying to get him lose.

[Ed Larson]

It was a huge. It was wonderful.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Booth ignored the fact that his plan was utterly pointless and senseless, but he was also charming and highly convincing. After arguing with his co conspirators from dinner time until five in the morning. Booth finally wore them down, and he convinced his compatriots that they would definitely be kidnapping Lincoln somewhere, somehow, by the end of the week, two nights after the meeting with his co conspirators.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's just such a funny time period to wrap it up. And by the end of the week, we will have the Confederacy back easy.

[Marcus Parks]

End of the week business. Business day or weekend?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Latest Saturday morning.

[Marcus Parks]

Two nights after the meeting with his co conspirators, Booth stopped by Ford's Theater. There, Booth was told that President Lincoln was scheduled to visit some wounded soldiers at a nearby hospital that very night. This fact was known to the people at Ford's Theater only because members of another theater's company were scheduled to perform at that scene, same hospital. Now, Booth saw the potential here because the road out to the hospital was rural and lightly traveled. Plus it was close to the Eastern Branch river leading to Maryland. So Booth and his compatriots could be on their way to the Confederacy within minutes of capturing the President.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I knew our boat guy wasn't a mistake.

[Marcus Parks]

And so Booth sent word to his crew that they were going back to the original plan. Fully stocked with supplies, tools, and guns, the kidnapping crew were instantly in their saddles, on their way snatch the President whether it was going to actually do any good for the Confederacy or not.

[Ed Larson]

Now, do you snatch Lincoln or do you him?

[Marcus Parks]

The plan, which sounds exceedingly confident, was to capture the President's carriage and somehow outrun the calvary before reaching the river. The kidnappers would then remove the wheels from the carriage so they could secure it to a boat to ferry it across the water, where the next phase of transporting Lincoln to Virginia could begin. Booth, of course, rode ahead of everyone else to do a little recon at the hospital because he had a good friend who worked as a doctor there. But when Booth arrived, he was told that the President had changed his plans at the last minute and wasn't expected to come. Now, Booth's crew were both angry that their plan had been aborted and extremely worried that their plot had been uncovered. But as it turned out, Lincoln had just decided he had more important business to attend to that night than visiting injured troops.

[Ed Larson]

Dick.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, that guy. I wonder what happened to that.

[Marcus Parks]

Lincoln had changed his plans in order to meet with the Governor of Indiana. But in yet another absolutely stunning coincidence, Lincoln actually had that. That meeting at the very same hotel where John Wilkes Booth was living at the time.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. And is this where he, a guy named Kennedy, is this Then or when is it?

[Marcus Parks]

Later.

[Ed Larson]

He's so far up his own ass like that, he doesn't even know the guy he's trying to kidnap is in the next room over. The most famous man on earth at this point.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We will find him somehow we will smoke him out like as. Like Abraham l is walking by. We will find the President and we will all. We will change him. Sorry, went into Nazi.

[Marcus Parks]

Though the conspirators understandably discouraged, especially after finding out that Lincoln was basically at Booth's house while they were planning to capture him in the woods, they all went their separate ways for the time being. As for both, he returned to Father Ford's theater, but not to further the kidnapping plot. Instead, Booth was set to perform the night after the failed attempt in a benefit performance of a play called the Apostate, which culminates in the murder of a tyrant and the suicide of his assassin. Meta April 18, 1865 would mark the last time that John Wilkes Booth would ever perform on the stage, because just a little under a month later, John Wilkes Booth would himself become America's first successful presidential assassin. Now, there's no hard evidence of when Booth changed his plans from kidnapping to assassination, because while Lincoln was killed on April 14, Booth was still sending telegrams discussing plans for Lincoln's capture on March 27. Partly, though, Booth abandoned the kidnapping plot because some of his co conspirators. Conspirators just weren't feeling it anymore.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dude, it was too long, all right? The Civil War is over, buddy. We want to move on.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, at this point, it's not.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Over over, but it's basically over.

[Marcus Parks]

It's getting there. And the Booth's plan is a lot of risk. Well, it's all risk, no gain.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because you're gonna just have the President and there's. And that's. Nothing's gonna happen. You're just gonna get murder.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I think not only are you gonna get murdered, but Grant and specifically a. A man, little general named Sherman.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Is going to you up. Yeah, they are going to you up even worse than they've already been fucking you up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They'll kill Lincoln.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They will kill Lincoln themselves. None of them like Lincoln. It's kind of like the Kennedy thing. No one liked Lincoln.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, no, that's not true at all.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, people respected him, but he had enemies as well.

[Marcus Parks]

His cabinet loved him.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. He won two presidential elections.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Absolutely. Of course, I will say he didn't have a cabinet. He had a full on walk in.

[Ed Larson]

Closet and he never left. But The. The. I will say, if they would have gone through with this kidnapping plan, the chances of Lincoln just beating the. Out of them in the box.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Everybody, we need to write this. We need to write this. In Glorious Bastards movie where Lincoln is brought in and then Lincoln slowly but surely takes the team down both by force and by charm. Begins like, winning them to their side and having to fight, fight John Wilkes Boots.

[Ed Larson]

In the end, I could see him getting completely naked and be like, let's go.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, this is one Log Cabin Republican. Ain't go that easy.

[Marcus Parks]

I want the movie where they take him all the way back to Richmond. Lincoln wakes up in Richmond, his eyes just pop open, and he single handedly fights his way out of the Confederacy and just takes it down himself. Like Abraham. Abraham Wick.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the member of the team that left after John Wilkes Booth, after just everything didn't work out was John Surratt. I mean, John Surratt, he was basically the guy who brought the team together. He had the strongest connections to the Confederacy. So when he rejected Booth's final plan, it was over. Like, they didn't have. They didn't have their guy anymore. The main guy.

[Ed Larson]

Wasn't he the money man, too?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Booth. Booth was the money man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, he was the. He made it a legit capital C. Confederate action. You know what I mean?

[Marcus Parks]

Like, yeah, basically, Surat had finally seen through Booth's, and he had no intention of remaining under Booth's influence.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He's an actor.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, but unfortunately for Surat and his family, Booth had no intention of letting Lincoln go. But most unfortunate of all, at this point in the story, deservedly so, was the Confederacy the Appomattic next campaign, which was General Robert E. Lee's last desperate attempt to defend the Confederate capital of Richmond. It was well underway by March of 1865. By April 9, the Union had guaranteed defeat for the Confederacy by cutting off their supply lines and basically burning the Confederate capital of Richmond to the ground, which was, in effect, a final spiritual defeat for every Confederate citizen and sympathizer. But few people were more shattered by the loss at Richmond than John Wilkes Booth. But for Booth, whose whole life was a performance, this was all mere prelude to the final dramatic twist. See, in addition to his admiration for John Brown, Booth was obsessed with heroes of literature and mythology who fought to the death in their final attempts to defeat tyranny. Men who kept going when all the odds were against them because they believed, believed in their cause. Interestingly, one could actually make the argument that Shakespeare was a massive inspiration For Booth, like others might make the argument that a movie or a TV show today might inspire a violent crime. See, in the estimation of both John Wilkes Booth and most Confederates, Lincoln was a Caesar in need of a Brutus. Like Lincoln, Julius Caesar had won a war by using self declared wartime powers. For Caesar, the power was martial law. For Lincoln, he'd suspended habeas corpus for the duration of the war in order to protect the Union against Confederate agents. That meant that anyone could be imprisoned indefinitely without trial. Lincoln had no intention of continuing the suspension of habeas corpus after the war was over. But Booth had convinced himself that Lincoln was going to become even more of a power hungry tyrant after the South's defeat. And it seems like Booth had also committed convinced himself that he was the only man who could stop him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's the only thing that literally it's what drove him, the only thing gave him purpose in this life.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, unlike the kidnapping plot, Booth kept his assassination plans close to his chest, although he was becoming more open about his hatred towards Lincoln. For example, in a visit with his brother Edwin, John Wilkes went on and on about the fall of Richmond and how awful it was for the future of the country. Now Edwin had remained loyal to the Union throughout the war. So he was pretty much at his wits end with his brother's stubborn and frankly evil loyalty towards the south, which Edwin had never understood.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cuz he's just a pain in the ass little brother.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. He's probably just got made fun of too much by his brothers and they chose the other side out of there.

[Marcus Parks]

Is he was, he was a contrarian.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Very much so, yes. And a lot of this really is about kind of what we see now which is when people go f. When annoying. Find a new community.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

To go join because they'll accept anybody.

[Ed Larson]

They.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The people in the pro slavery unit were just very excited to get a theater star that wants to be part of the movement. And so they'll take anybody because they're, they have no sense of quality and they're bad people also.

[Ed Larson]

He's like fucking crazy at this point. I have so many weird theories that obviously have no water, but I was like I. He's a stuntman. He's always doing all this crazy stage fighting and stuff like that. And then one day he like turns like you said, he becomes a different dude. Could have easily had a head injury.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dude. I view him very similar to like a Steven Seagal that went from a. He's like now he's like a. Technically he was a Real police officer. He. Because he cosplayed, eventually they gave him a fake little deputies badge and now he's over in Russia. Like he defected to Russia just to be important.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Edwin and John Wilk's Booth never reached common ground. And that argument was the last time that Edwin would see his brother alive. From there, Booth visited New York, where he met up with Sam Brooks, the actor friend that Booth had tortured for months with threats of blackmail. Booth went on and on about how he'd missed his chance to kill Lincoln during Lincoln's second inauguration. And when Brooks told Booth that he was crazy, Wils simply whimpered, quote, I could live in history tells you his exact fucking motivations.

[Ed Larson]

He just wanted to be famous.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He wanted to be another bottom now actor.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And there's also the. You know, they say that, you know, his career was not on a downward slide at the time. And that's true, it wasn't. But it also was never, never as big as his brothers or his father's.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Some say it was his voice had gone. Some say it was booze. Some say you killed a country John because of bad reviews.

[Marcus Parks]

No, it was not bad reviews.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's his liberties.

[Marcus Parks]

I know. It's his liberty. Well, that's some say. So he's not saying that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It is why nobody agrees.

[Ed Larson]

Also, I imagine he's pissing everyone off.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, he's a bad guy.

[Marcus Parks]

He's get. And that's the thing. He's. He's getting into that cycle that a lot of these people get into. James woods, where they're.

[Henry Zabrowski]

John Voight.

[Marcus Parks]

They're. Yeah, they're pissing people off. And them being. It pisses them off that other people are getting pissed off for them saying foul. Like they don't understand why other people are like, hey, that's not. That's not cool. And so it's just this never ending cycle. And before you know it, they're just absolute monsters.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, much to be Booth's chagrin, Robert E. Lee effectively ended the Civil War when he surrendered his forces to Ulyses S. Grant at the Appomattox courthouse. But Lee did so on the very same day that Booth returned to Washington D.C. from his trip to New York City. While the rest of the city partied with an energy that only comes from the end of a war. Wilks was openly depressed and spent time at the shooting gallery before meeting up with one of his Confederate buddies to commiserate. Now it seems as if Booth had pretty much given up. But Booth and one of his Co conspirators in the kidnapping plot attended a speech made by Lincoln just a few days later. And this speech very well could have given Booth the reason he needed to simply kill the President. The speech began with Lincoln saying that the government planned to follow a path towards reconstruction in the south that had already been successful, and L.A. booth, of course, believed that Lincoln secretly planned to further destroy the South. Although, ironically, as we'll get into later, the south would have been far better off had Booth just done nothing.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh yeah, because that's where the conspiracy comes in. We'll go into a little bit that they believe that the Cabinet itself was running some we got to kill Lincoln from the inside like plan, because they thought that Lincoln was being extremely generous. Generous to the South.

[Marcus Parks]

But for Booth and his compatriot, what made them believe more than anything that Lincoln was out to destroy not just the south, but America itself, was when the President said he wanted to give voting rights to some black Americans, limiting it mostly to just those who'd served in the war. Slow rolling it, as it were. What Booth heard, however, was that Lincoln was giving citizenship and full voting rights for every formerly enslaved man in the country, which was pretty much, in Booth, Booth's estimation, the worst thing Lincoln could have possibly said.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Would you let an Ottoman vote? Would you let a shovel vote?

[Marcus Parks]

You joke, but those are the actual arguments that they made.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, I know.

[Marcus Parks]

And this was what seemingly sent Booth fully into murder mode. Because Booth was heard to say after the speech that now, by God, he was gonna put Lincoln through. Now, after. After the speech, Booth went to Ford's Theater, hoping to find some like minds in his peers. But after hearing Booth launch into a racial slur laden tirade against the north and abolitionists, Booth's fellow actors said that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to hang out with John Wilkes Booth anymore.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. I think he's a pain in our ass.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Saving for the stage.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, buddy. Hey, wait. Hey, wait, wait. For later on when Stephen Sondheim writes a musical with a bunch of words in them like that.

[Marcus Parks]

But while his actor friends were abandoning him, Booth found solace in the same place where most actors end up after they start saying foul their friends just can't ignore anymore. Booth returned to his fellow extremists, his former co conspirators in the kidnapping plot. And before long, almost all of them were fully on board with a assassination. Sadly, though, from a historical point of view at least, there is no evidence as to what Booth said to his Co conspirators to convince them to participate in the assassination of the President and much of his cabinet. Or if Booth even had to convince them at all.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Say what? What?

[Marcus Parks]

What?

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're a.

[Marcus Parks]

But means I got to kill the President now.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

God damn it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Theater. Your rules rule out there.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, all we know is that by mid April, Booth and his co conspirators had a very simple plan to kill Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson. They were going to do all of it in the same night at the same time so the perpetrators could escape south together using the Pomac river once the deeds were done. And it's there that we'll pick back up up next week for part three of our series. With the actual assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the beginning of the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his collaborators, there's.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Plenty of conspiracy theory to go around. We're gonna go. We're gonna be bringing up quite a bit of that. Like, there's more of like the whole hunt for John Wilkes Booth is its own fucking episode.

[Marcus Parks]

It's insane. And we're also going to be getting heavily into the man who took John Wilkes Booth down, who has become one of my new new favorite characters in history.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, I'm excited.

[Marcus Parks]

This guy's out of his mind.

[Ed Larson]

Hell, yeah. I smell a possible candidate for March Madness 2026.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. God, I want John Wil's Booth in there, man. Thank you guys so much. Go to our patreon.com go to patreon.com last podcast on the Left to go watch us talk. And then you can also see last stream on the Left live every Tuesday at 6pm PST. One thing I do want to tell all of you, go to our new YouTube channels. We have a brand new YouTube channel that is where all of our comedy content that we're making through the Twitch channel was going. And it's now going to be going on YouTube, I believe it is. At LPN TV.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And so you go on YouTube. That's the name of it. Go follow that. All right. Because that's where we're going to be putting all our new stuff. And you're going to see that is where we're going to be streaming. Last podcast on the left beyond the veil with psychic R.H. davis, June 20. It's going to be both live streamed and in person. Tickets are going to be there. You're going to see. We're going to be doing it in conjunction with the Mystic Museum here in Burbank California. And this is going to be a very special night that you're not going to want to miss because you're going to get spooked out.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yes. And by live stream, that means you're going to piss yourself.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Ed Larson]

Because it's going to be spooky. Spooky.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

With Dr. Juice also.

[Marcus Parks]

Last time I got spooked out, I had to call up Dr. Mud.

[Ed Larson]

Also on the YouTube front, every. A lot of the people have their own channels now. No Dogs has their own channels. Foreign report has their own channel. Someplace underneath. Who's the. They all got their own channel. So if you want to follow those shows, go follow them respectively on YouTube. Also, catch us live. Saturday, June 28th, we're gonna be Atlanta at the Coca Cola Roxy. It's gonna be a blast. And then Salt Lake City on July 12th. Very excited for my first outdoor live amphitheater show. Yes. Then August 8th, we're gonna be in Charlo 9th, Durham, North Carolina. September 20th, St. Paul, Minnesota. October 11th, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. October 25th, Oakland, California. November 29th, Cleveland, Ohio. And December 12th and 13th will be in Portland, Oregon. And keep your earballs a tightened because we got some side story shows that are going to be announced pretty soon. We do.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And they are going to be fun special events. We have to figure out the to when we do the Dad's Garage shows. One of those shows is going to be short form improv and the other one's going to be long form improv.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, is this how you're throwing this at me? It's just telling me so I can't say no because I know a bunch of people are listening.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, great. I can't believe all this time you're getting me to do improv.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, you were doing it for everything.

[Ed Larson]

Like I finally achieved success. Now.

[Marcus Parks]

Now you have to improv. Yeah. Now you got to do improv.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Have fun, man. I'll be hanging out in my hotel room.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We're gonna have a good time. Eddie, you're gonna like the way you look.

[Ed Larson]

Also, I want to give a big shout out to bring her back. Go see this movie. We interviewed the Filippo Brothers. It came out a week ago, I guess, or yesterday depending on how you listen to this show. But go listen to that interview and go see that movie. It was unbelievable. The best horror movie scared the living out of me and I watched it on my computer in the morning.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It is going to be pretty close to sinners for best horror movie in the world in the this year cuz it is. That movie is truly frightening and upsetting and those guys couldn't be funnier about it.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, they're hilarious.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, cuz they did a talk to me, right?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

I love talk to me. I haven't seen the new one yet, but I love to Talk to me.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Talk to me. Is the new one.

[Ed Larson]

New one's truly just. It's everyone's worth this night.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. That's great. Well, hail Satan, everyone.

[Marcus Parks]

Now game.

[Ed Larson]

Hail the Union. I love you, Yankee Camp Andersonville was a Confederate prison that killed a lot of Union soldiers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey man, we'll get. If you try to rise up, we're going to get you again.

[Marcus Parks]

I've seen the coming of the glory of the Lord.

[Ed Larson]

Let's go get hammered in the desert.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.