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- [00:00]
Tom Holland
Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to thereestishory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com right now at the Home Depot you'll find storage solutions made to fit your needs. Grab an HDX Tuff tote to protect your tools or keep your sports equipment contained with reinforced snap fit lids. Or stack up and make better use of your space with bins and totes Built to last. Whatever your story, we've got the gear to keep it organized and protected at the Home Depot. How doers Get More done Support for this podcast and the following message comes from America's Navy the Navy offers new graduates hands on training and experience in careers like computer science, aviation and medicine, plus education and sign on bonuses. Parents help your grads start their career today@navy.com Olivia loves a challenge. It's why she lifts heavy weights and likes complicated recipes. But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia, she bundled her flight with a hotel to save more. Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower Tower. You were made to take the easy route. We were made to easily package your trip. Expedia Made to Travel flight inclusive packages are ator protected.
- [01:47]
Abraham Lincoln
My fellow countrymen, fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago. So still it must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
- [03:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
The unmistakable tones there of Daniel Day Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln, of course, and Abe was speaking there at his second inauguration as President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1865. And Dominic, it is a great supreme moment of triumph, isn't it? Lincoln has just been re elected and victory for the north, for the Union that Lincoln has been leading throughout the Civil War is just weeks away. But what's amazing about that speech is how muted any sense of triumphalism is.
- [03:45]
Tom Holland
It's regarded by Lincoln scholars as one of his greatest speeches. There's no sort of sense of boasting and. And no sense of exaltation and glory.
- [03:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
We've won. I mean, there's none of that.
- [03:55]
Tom Holland
Well, that would have been very unlike Lincoln, to be fair. There's a great sense of melancholy, I think, to it. Sadness at the cost, humility, I think, in the face of God's divine plan and this emphasis on Union and reconciliation and binding up the. The wounds of the war. So his biographer, Michael Burlingame, who wrote, I have to say, I mean, it's genuinely. It's about a 10,000 page biography and it's so long that a lot of it was cut out. So he put it all online.
- [04:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
That is such Stanbrook behavior.
- [04:26]
Tom Holland
It is very Sambrook behavior.
- [04:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
But it's American biographical behavior, isn't it? Because an American biographer cannot see a life and not write a 10,000 page biography of him.
- [04:37]
Tom Holland
Yeah, exactly. They basically want to put down every single fact. That's what I intend to do in this podcast, Tom, actually.
- [04:44]
Dominic Sandbrook
Brilliant. Well, that's something for us all to look forward to.
- [04:46]
Tom Holland
I'll tell you a good fact that's in his biography that gave me great pleasure. Lincoln's inaugural got rave reviews in our own country, England. The Spectator said that in its dignity and principle, it was worthy of the greatest of politicians, namely Oliver Cromwell. Wow.
- [04:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
You don't get higher praise than that, do you?
- [05:01]
Tom Holland
You don't get higher praise. Very much. A friend of the show right now at this moment that Lincoln gives this speech. He has only 42 days to live. So we thought this week we would tell the story of his final days, of his last theatrical outing at Ford's Theater, and then the hunt for his assassin, John Wilkes Booth. And we wanted to do it, I think, not least because it would allow us to reintegrate into the show one of our favorite characters. Literally as mad as a Hatter. Top eunuch, Boston Corbett.
- [05:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, for any fan of eunuchs, this is going to be the high point of the series, I think.
- [05:39]
Tom Holland
Definitely.
- [05:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
And it comes at the end, so stay tuned.
- [05:42]
Tom Holland
Exactly. So if you want to jump ahead, just join the Rest is History club@the restishistory.com and you can hear that right now.
- [05:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
Don't want it done like a master.
- [05:49]
Tom Holland
Okay, So A bit of context for those of you still with us. The American Civil War has been raging since April 1861. But in the last couple of years, the massive economic and kind of manpower and industrial advantages of the north marshaled by Ulysses S. Grant have begun to tell Tom, we were talking about Grant before the show, weren't we? We agreed. Both boring and corrupt.
- [06:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's never a good combination. No, because if you have corruption, you want people to be flamboyant and interesting.
- [06:17]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [06:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
Not just dull, kind of handing out money to post offices and things.
- [06:21]
Tom Holland
American listeners won't like that because they think Grant is brilliant. Brilliant. Marshalling industrial resources.
- [06:26]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, I tell you who else went like that is Daniel Jackson, friend of the show, the voice of the Northeast, who's a big fan of Ulysses S. Grant. Because Ulysses S. Grant went to Newcastle, I believe.
- [06:35]
Tom Holland
Exactly, exactly. Anyway, let's get back to the story. At the end of 1864, the Union army captured Atlanta. Key moments in the war. General Sherman, who people may remember from our Custer series, makes his famous march to the sea that basically tears a hole in the economic and kind of transport networks of the Confederacy. So from that point on, the Confederacy really is on borrowed time. And the one hope the Confederates had, the one hope the slave south had, was that Lincoln would lose his re election bid in November to the Democrat candidate, George McClellan. Now, the Democrats wanted an end to the war immediately in a negotiated settlement with the Confederacy, but Lincoln won that election pretty comfortably. So now everybody knows that the war is going to be fought to the bitter end.
- [07:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
Is there never any thought on the part of say, Jefferson Davis and their Confederate president and his entourage that they might assassinate Lincoln?
- [07:32]
Tom Holland
That's never discussed, not among the Confederate leaders, but in Confederate newspapers, as we shall see. There is a lot of talk of this and there is an analogy they use that will please you greatly because it plays to your strengths. Incidentally, I read on the Reddit today of somebody complaining there's too much talk of Julius Caesar and the rest is history. So who. There is a spoiler alert about the comparison that will be made. So to get back to the inauguration, the scene, I mean, this is an extraordinary moment for Lincoln. Lincoln is the first president to win re election since Andrew Jackson back in 1832. So winning re election is actually quite unusual in American politics in the 19th century.
- [08:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's interesting because it's the opposite to 20th century, isn't it?
- [08:16]
Tom Holland
Exactly. Basically, in the 19th century, people just want to throw the president out as quickly as possible. I think by and large. Now Lincoln is a very unexpected person to even be president. He'd been born into poverty in Kentucky in 1809. He'd grown up in a log cabin, which becomes a very important part of his mythology. He's self educated. Initially he was going to be a blacksmith, but he ends up a kind of prairie lawyer. He becomes active in state politics in Illinois. He then becomes a prominent figure in the new anti slavery Republican party in the 1850s. And when he's nominated by the Republicans as their presidential candidate in 1860, it's quite unexpected. He's not really, he's not a top tier household name, but he wins the presidency and that's the trigger for the slave owning Southern states who are outraged by his elevation to secede from the Union and to form the Confederacy. So Lincoln is propelled into this position that's unprecedented in American history. He is facing one of the world's first modern industrialized conflicts. So it's a conflict of railroads and steamships and trenches and prison camps, all of these kinds of things that kills about 700 hundred thousand people. So something he could never have anticipated before, even before running for president. Anyway, this is his second inauguration. Now you would expect it under those circumstances to be a very solemn and serious occasion befitting his rhetoric. But you know what, what I love about this is it's Charles Dickens would have very much enjoyed it because he's not an admirer of 19th century America.
- [09:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
So it's like a scene from Martin Chuzzlewit.
- [09:50]
Tom Holland
It is like a scene from Martin Chuzzlewit, basically. So it's pouring with rainbow. There are far too many people. There's massive crowds. The capital is overwhelmed and the place is packed with women in long, muddy, sodden skirts sort of wrestling for places in the gallery. Now Lincoln has picked a new vice president to balance the ticket, create a sense of national unity. And this is a guy from Tennessee called Andrew Johnson. So he's a former Democrat and he's actually from a Confederate slave state.
- [10:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
And Dominic, it's important that listeners don't muddle him up with Andrew Jackson, isn't.
- [10:24]
Tom Holland
It, who came earlier, or Lyndon Johnson. So he's just Andrew Johnson. He's his own man. Tom. He's had typhoid, so he's very weak. And to try and sort of steady himself, he drinks three glasses of brandy and the brandy goes completely to his head. And he absolutely disgraces himself by making this interminable and rambling speech. He keeps forgetting everyone's names. At one point he grabs the Bible and starts slobbering over it and kissing it. Then he just won't stop talking.
- [10:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
So he's like Gussie Fink Nottle after drinking the vodka laced orange juice in.
- [10:53]
Tom Holland
PG Wodehouse, the New York World reporting on the inauguration, said he defiled our council chamber with the spewings of a drunken boar, which I like. So then Lincoln gives his speech. Brilliant. Try to raise the tone. Then there's the inauguration banquet and the crowd go completely bonkers. And I quote, they pushed the tables from their places, snatched off whole turkeys and loaves of cake, smashed crockery and glassware, spilled oyster and terra pin on each other's heads, ruined costly dresses and made the floor sticky with food. And if you've ever been to an American buffet, you will recognize this behavior. I think I've been to an American buffet.
- [11:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
I've never seen guests pouring terrapin over each other's heads.
- [11:35]
Tom Holland
And he says, heads, you'd have to be holding the terrapin up quite high.
- [11:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
Quite a big ask.
- [11:38]
Tom Holland
There's actually one nice moment which is the great black abolitionist Frederick Douglass turns up at the White House reception. He's turned away because he's black. And Lincoln hears reports of this and he says, no, no, no, have him in, have him in. And then he makes a great show of shaking Douglas's hand because he's a.
- [11:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
Great showman, isn't he?
- [11:57]
Tom Holland
Yeah, he's a great showman and he's also a nice person. So that reflects well on Lincoln, I think. But everybody is really struck at the time. They say Lincoln looks awful. He looks absolutely shattered. The Chicago Tribune, the listeners were painfully impressed with his gaunt skeleton like appearance. And this is not because, like you, Tom, he spends all his time in the gym.
- [12:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
But I don't have a gaunt skeleton like appearance. I glow with health. That's the difference.
- [12:20]
Tom Holland
Oh, is that the difference? Okay, right. I'm glad we've cleared that up. He is like you, he's in his late 50s, is that fair to say?
- [12:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
And working under unprecedented pressure. There is a point of similarity.
- [12:31]
Tom Holland
What about this bit? He strikes visitors as grey lined and haggard.
- [12:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, that's not me.
- [12:36]
Tom Holland
So he's absolutely shattered. And it's not just about the, the war. It's about the pressure of Washington politics. So Washington politics at this point, it's an intensely kind of faction ridden, disputatious place. And part of this is because the war has placed unprecedented demands on the American system. So, you know, the federal government is being asked to do things it has never done before, but also they're confronting absolutely existential challenges. What are they going to do about slavery? And what are they going to do about the rebel states of the South? So, on slavery, the House of Representatives has just approved something called the 13th Amendment. If you've seen the film Lincoln, the Steven Spielberg film, this is a big part of that story. So They've passed the 13th Amendment, and the states have just begun to approve it. So about 18 of them, I think, have approved it by the time of Lincoln's inauguration. So the. The bigger question now is, what on earth do you do with the Confederate south once they've lost? Now, for weeks, Lincoln has been striking quite a conciliatory note. In February, he had met Confederate negotiators on a steamer anchored in the Hampton Roads, and they'd had these talks, and he'd really gone out of his way to seem emollient. He had actually said, you know, if you will rejoin the Union, I will look into ways in which you can be recompensed for the abolition of slavery. Southern slaveholders would be compensated with northern taxes for their financial losses. And a lot of listeners may find that puzzling, given that they've been fighting the war. But one of his friends said the one thing that Lincoln feared was anarchy in the South. When the Confederacy breaks up, what he doesn't want is the whole thing to fall apart in chaos. And what he wants is to close the war upon such terms as would make the Southern people and Southern soldiers think somewhat kindly of the Union to which they were brought back by force of arms. In other words, we will welcome the prodigal son back into the family.
- [14:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's what you'd expect, though, isn't it? Because I know that all the various reasons for which the Civil War is fought, but one of them surely must be to preserve the strength and integrity of the United States and. And keep it as a continental power. So you absolutely have to make the defeated Confederates feel like they are Americans once again, because otherwise, you've defeated the entire purpose of what you've been fighting for.
- [14:53]
Tom Holland
Abraham Lincoln would agree with you. Abraham Lincoln would absolutely agree with you. However, a lot of people in his own party would not. So these are people who are called the radical Republicans. And quite a lot of them are actually saying there should be no clemency for the traitors at all. Lincoln's own vice president, Andrew Johnson, who's not a radical Republican, but I think partly because he is from the south and there's a lot of kind of internal feuding going on among Southerners. He says, treason must be made odious. In other words, the traitors must be punished and impoverished. So in other words, go hard on them. That's actually not how it turns out when he's president. So you've got the radical Republicans saying, go much harder on them. Lincoln's too weak. And on the other side, you've got moderates and Democrats who say, actually, you know, Lincoln's in danger of being too harsh. We should readmit the Southern states as quickly as possible. Don't expect them to behave in a very nice way to their former slaves. Wind up the military administrations in the south, all of this kind of thing.
- [15:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
So Lincoln is the centrist in this.
- [15:52]
Tom Holland
There are huge arguments going on, which we don't massively need to go into between Lincoln and the radicals about, you know, what's the oath that you will get the Confederates to swear, how many voters in former Confederate states will have to take an oath of allegiance and pledge to support the Union and all this kind of thing. One other explosive issue. Who will get to vote when the Confederacy is readmitted to the Union? Will former slaves be allowed to vote? Because as of 1864, virtually no black Americans can vote at all. There are a handful in New York, but there are very, very strict property qualifications. But, of course, if you allow millions of newly enfranchised African Americans to vote, that would completely change politics.
- [16:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
And in the Spielberg film, that is how they get the Gettysburg Address in, isn't it? That Lincoln sits there and he talks to a black soldier who says, we know we don't have the vote, and then completes the. You know, he speaks the Gettysburg Address.
- [16:49]
Tom Holland
Exactly. And actually the black soldier. That's an important point. There have been almost 200,000 black Americans serving in the Union army. And privately, Lincoln has already told his friends, I think it's completely unreasonable for us to ask these men to fight and die for, for the Union, but then not to allow them to vote afterwards. So he's got a lot of challenges because these are very controversial issues. And I think it's partly because of the weight of this burden that he's very keen to get out of the city. So on the 20th of March, General Grant, who has cornered Robert E. Lee, the Confederates leading general in Northern Virginia, Grant invites Lincoln to the front, says, do you want to come and see the action? You can see this in the film Lincoln, Tabby's favorite film. The big disagreement with me and Tabby on this is, I don't like that piano music. That Americans love in, in kind of Civil War documentaries and films. I find it offensively tinkly. Anyway, that's by the by. He sails down on this steamer to go and see Grant. Now the big theme of this whole section is the horribleness of Lincoln's wife. So she's called Mary Todd Lincoln. I think the film doesn't capture what an absolute monster she is, which may sound harsh, but basically here's the scene, right? They've gone on this boat, it's called the River Queen. General Grant turns up with his wife Julia Grant and Lincoln go off to talk about the war, goes to sit down next to Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln shrieks at her, how dare you Be seated until I invite you to sit down. And this is typical, this is how she carries on. So a friend of Julia Grant said afterwards, Mrs. Lincoln seemed insanely jealous of every person and everything thing. So a couple of days later they go off riding to look at some battle or something and another general's wife is there, General Ord's wife, who's very good looking, and she ends up riding next to Lincoln. And when Mary Link Todd Lincoln sees this, she shrieks again. She says, what does that woman mean by riding next to the President? Blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And Mrs. Grant says to her, oh, I think it's just an accident, don't worry about it. And Mary says, oh, I suppose you want to go to the White House yourself, do you? Oh, I suppose you see yourself as the President's wife.
- [18:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think she sounds fun. She sounds sassy.
- [19:01]
Tom Holland
She's worse than sassy.
- [19:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
Dominic, just to ask you, has she. I mean, she has been under considerable pressure, hasn't she?
- [19:07]
Tom Holland
She has, but I mean, her son.
- [19:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Has died because that's the.
- [19:10]
Tom Holland
Yeah, but come on, Tom.
- [19:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
But isn't she kind of. She's prostrated by that in a kind of very Victorian manner and she is.
- [19:16]
Tom Holland
But it's the 19th century. Hasn't everybody's son died at some point?
- [19:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
I suppose so, but I don't know, I mean, maybe she's depressed or.
- [19:23]
Tom Holland
I think it's generally agreed by other, other wives that she is a bit of a. What would you call. What's the word you use?
- [19:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
A baggage.
- [19:31]
Tom Holland
A baggage. So on this ride they get to where they're going and Mary Lincoln goes straight up to this Mrs. Ord. And one of Grant's officers watches, is and is appalled. He says she positively insulted her. She called her vile names in the presence of a crowd of officers and asked what she meant by following up the President by riding next to him. The poor woman burst into tears and inquired what she had done, but Mrs. Lincoln refused to be appeased and stormed until she was tired. Mrs. Grant tried to stand by her friend. Then everybody was shocked and horrified. He then went on to say, in the next few days, Mrs. Lincoln repeatedly attacked her husband in the presence of officers. Because of Mrs. Ord, Lincoln bore it with an expression of pain and sadness which cut one to the heart, but with supreme calmness and dignity. And to give you a sense, I have cut down this story from the sort of a billion examples in Michael Burlingame's book. Another general, Carl Schurz, said that Mrs. Lincoln was the greatest tragedy of Mr. Lincoln's existence.
- [20:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
And does Mr. Lincoln agree with this? Does he think she's awful, or does he secretly love her?
- [20:31]
Tom Holland
I think possibly a bit of both, actually. Do you know what I think of? I think of that scene on the French airplane with Emmanuel Macron and his former teacher.
- [20:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, where she punched him in the face.
- [20:43]
Tom Holland
She punches him in the face, and he has an expression of sort of shock, and then he arranges his features for the cameras.
- [20:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, Macron loves his wife, so maybe Lincoln loved his wife. I don't know.
- [20:53]
Tom Holland
Anyway, Lincoln spends a few days at the front. He's very sort of melancholy. There's a nice point, which I think is in the film, where he's sitting around a campfire with Grant, And Grant says, Mr. President, did you at any time doubt the final success of the cause? And Lincoln says, oh, never for a moment. Yeah, never for a moment. But most of the time, he's actually saying, oh, the horrors of war. I really hope this is the end. Now I feel terrible about all the people that died. He tells a story about seeing a Confederate soldier, a young soldier, dying. When he's telling people about this, he kind of chokes up and he says, oh, I feel so terrible. We've cheated. We've robbed both the cradle and the grave. In other words, both the very young and the very old. We have fed them into our. The mincing machine of our kind of military operation. And at one point, actually, General Sherman arrives and they're talking about the next battle. And Lincoln says to Sherman and Grant, more bloodshed, really. Can't we avoid this battle? And they say to him, well, you know, it's not really up to us. It's up to the Confederates. If the Confederates surrender, we will be able to sort of crack on and forget it. Now, as it happens, the noose is tightening around the Confederates all the time. On the 2nd of April, while he's going on these trips, the Confederates are forced to evacuate their capital, Richmond, Virginia, which then lies open to the Union forces. And the next day, the Confederate defenses at a place called Petersburg are broken and General Lee's army has to fall back across the Appomattox River. So the end is only days away. And on the 4th of April, so two days after the Confederate evacuation, Lincoln actually goes to the Confederate capital, to Richmond, and is an extraordinary moment. I don't actually remember this. In the Spielberg film, Lincoln has been dreaming of this moment all these years. And he says to his aides, it seems to me that I've been dreaming a horrid dream for four years. And now the nightmare is gone. And he goes with his son called Tad or Taddy. He is his youngest boy. He's celebrating his 12th birthday. He had a cleft palate and he suffered from a very severe speech impediment. So it's kind of sad story with Tad. And they travel on this boat, the River Queen, with a military escort, and they land in Richmond, quite close to the downtown area. And it's an incredible scene because all the former slaves of Richmond, they hear the news that Lincoln has come and they rush down to the landing place. And the journalists who were there described them shouting, hallelujah, hurrah, hurrah. Bless the Lord. Praise the Lord. One guy from the Boston Journal said, you know, no written description can capture the emotion of the moment, the shouting and the dancing and the thanksgivings and whatnot, as they greet this bloke who is their liberator.
- [23:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
And Dominic, this guy writing for the Boston Journal, presumably is a war correspondent. And I see in your notes that he's called Charles Coffin.
- [23:37]
Tom Holland
Yes, that's proper nominative determinism, isn't it? There's a woman there who's shouting like, thank you, Jesus, that I behold President Lincoln. They all get down and they kneel in front of him. And Lincoln. I mean, the thing about Lincoln is you're always looking for the sort of chink in his armor because it'd be amusing to be revisionist, but no such chink ever appears. He behaves with such dignity and grace.
- [23:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
And he tells him, don't kneel to me, kneel to God only. And that's kind of has a resonance because the emancipation statue that then gets built after the war shows a. A freed slave on. On his knee in front of Lincoln. And that's been, you know, very controversial now, but Lincoln Was ahead of the game, really. He wouldn't have approved of that statue.
- [24:21]
Tom Holland
No, he wouldn't, actually. It's a really good point. It's a really good point. Anyway, they. They walk into the city. It's a war zone still. I mean, it's. It's a city with smoldering buildings. There's a pool of smoke. It is incredibly hot. There's a famous moment, another famous moment. Again, very much dance to Lincoln's credit. They pass an old black man in rags, and he's kneeling on the ground, and he clasps his hands and he says, may the good Lord bless you and keep you safe, Master President Lincoln. And Lincoln takes off his hat and he bows to this man and all the watching journalists and whatnot. The entourage are astonished by this. I mean, it's so telling. And Charles Coffin said it was a death shock to chivalry, meaning the idea Southern hierarchical ideals and a mortal wound to cast to the idea of cast. I mean, whether it was a mortal wound, I guess you'd say, maybe in the very, very long run. But obviously, as we know at the time, white supremacists actually poised to make a bit of a comeback anyway.
- [25:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
But again, I mean, it kind of. It illustrates the way in which Lincoln in so many ways is, you know, a century and more ahead of conventional thinking.
- [25:28]
Tom Holland
And his. His grasp of those sort of gestures is unparalleled, I think. Anyway, they reach the White House of the Confederacy. Have you ever been there, Tom?
- [25:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, I haven't.
- [25:37]
Tom Holland
No, I have. It's quite interesting, actually. It's quite weird because it's a bit like the real White House, but just not as good.
- [25:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. Well, I mean, that's the Confederacy for you, isn't it?
- [25:46]
Tom Holland
And he goes and he sits in Jefferson Davis's chair. He's exhausted. He's very haggard. He's described by captains who are there that he looks a tired man whose nerves had carried him beyond his strength. He asks for a glass of water. And then they say, would you like to go around all Jefferson Davis apartments? And he says, no, no, I don't think that'd be right. It's not right to tour another man's home.
- [26:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
I admire that.
- [26:09]
Tom Holland
Yeah, exactly. And it ends with him giving this speech in Capital Square enrichment to a generally black crowd. Again, freed slaves. And he says to them, my poor friends, you are free. Free as air. You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it. It will come to you no more. Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as he gave it to others. It's a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years. And then he ends by saying, you know, learn the laws, be good citizens, obey God's commandments. Thank him for giving you liberty, for to him you owe all things. So very moving stuff. He stays in Richmond for another day, and then he tours the front. And then on the 9th of April, he returns to Washington, D.C. and his mood at this point is a kind of odd mixture. At times he's very giddy, almost with happiness, but then he can be very melancholy. So when they're sailing home on the River Queen, he actually reads a soliloquy from Macbeth to his. To his companions. Hard to imagine the current president doing that, I think.
- [27:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
But it's so interesting, isn't it? Because it's. It's. What is it in your notes? You say it's the soliloquy Macbeth delivers after he's murdered Duncan. Yeah, so much blood. And that must be expressive of a sense of guilt. I mean, Macbeth is consumed by guilt. It's so interesting he would choose that.
- [27:28]
Tom Holland
Speech because Macbeth is actually saying at one point, I'm so troubled by guilt that I envy Duncan, who I've killed, who is now sleeping under the sleep of the just. And I think Lincoln absolutely feels that, you know, he's on this tour of the front. He's said again and again how much he regrets the bloodshed and the killing. You know, he doesn't glory in it. He doesn't glory in victory.
- [27:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
But it's more than that, isn't it? Surely it's. It's a sense of. I mean, maybe unrealized, even by himself, of worry whether he has been the. The tyrant of Confederate invective, whether he.
- [28:00]
Tom Holland
Has.
- [28:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Spilled the blood of Americans on the altar of his presidency. I don't know.
- [28:07]
Tom Holland
No, I think you're right, Tom. I think he. I think everything we know about Lincoln suggests that he is a man who, while ultimately a very effective politician, very firm, decisive, all of those things, that he is an intensely reflective person. And there was also a kind of human. I mean, there is a kind of humility to him. I mean, I don't want to turn into a kind of Lincoln hagiography, but he is one of those characters in history that you kind of look for an opportunity to be revisionist. And actually, there isn't really one. Now, the one thing I will say is the thing about Macbeth, I think there is a fatalism to Lincoln at this point. He has said many times to people I wonder if I will ever see the end of the war, whether I will live to see the end of it.
- [28:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
He has dreams of his potential murder, doesn't he?
- [28:46]
Tom Holland
Exactly so. Exactly, he said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, however it ends, I have the impression that I shan't last long after it is over. And actually, at this point, when he's reading that speech from Macbeth, it is the 9th of April, and he has only five days to live. But actually, while he's on the boat, there is a very, very dramatic development elsewhere in Virginia. At Appomattox Courthouse, Robert E. Lee's army has been cornered and trapped. They failed to break through the Union lines. And that afternoon, in a place called the McLean Farmhouse, Lee signs the instrument of surrender. It's a scene we described before, I think, in, in our Custer series.
- [29:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, because he was there, wasn't he?
- [29:28]
Tom Holland
Yeah. Eli Parker, who was General Grant's adjutant, wrote out the document. And when Lee found out that this bloke was a Seneca Indian, he said, oh, it's good to have one real American here and an absolute Hollywood style. Parker said, sir, we're all Americans.
- [29:45]
Dominic Sandbrook
And everyone clasped their hand over the heart and burst into patriotic tears.
- [29:49]
Tom Holland
Everybody cries, but nobody more than Tabby watching that in the film version, I think. Anyway, the next day, the 10th, Lincoln is back in Washington. He's actually in great form and his advisors say, you know, they'd never seen him so happy because he's heard the.
- [30:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
News, because he's fun, isn't he as well? He's great sense of humor. So when he's. When he's on a jig, he's. He's all in.
- [30:10]
Tom Holland
Exactly. He's a very. He's an up and down person, I think it's fair to say when he's melancholy, he's very melancholy. And when he's jolly, he's very jolly. And of course, he's got big challenges now. Now they really have to make up their mind, what do they do with the rebel states now at the time, lots of people said, why don't you give a speech? Go on, Everyone wants a speech. But he said, no, no, I need a day to think about it. So it's not until the next day, the 11th of April, that evening, with a huge crowd waiting outside the White House, that he gives this speech. And very unusually, and this is a sign, I think, of the political pressure he reads from a text. He doesn't deliver his remarks extempore because.
- [30:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
He needs every word to be finely valued and graded.
- [30:50]
Tom Holland
He Says, I'm going to talk about reconstruction and sometimes I'm betrayed into saying things that other people don't like. And he doesn't talk really at all about. Again, no triumphalism. He says, I would like us to welcome back the rebel states as though they were never out of the Union. In other words, we're like loving parents and we're welcoming the errant child back.
- [31:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
Into the family or the prodigal son, because I imagine that, you know, the language of the New Testament is saturating his prose.
- [31:17]
Tom Holland
But now comes the kicker. He, for the very first time in public, Lincoln says, I think it is time to give the vote to some of our black fellow citizens. He says, I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. Now that may sound like only a small move, but that's how Lincoln always works. It's always, he works with the sort of thin end of the wedge. He's a gradualist. He's always very exactly what he did with emancipation. He moves slowly but steadily towards a more radical position. This is a massive, massive moment. And for one listener in the crowd in particular, these words are like a electric shock or something. And this bloke is a 26 year old actor and when he hears Lincoln say these words, he turns to the man next to him in the crowd and he says, that means citizenship. Now, by God, I'll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make. And as we'll find out after the break, John Wilkes Booth means every word.
- [32:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Rest Is History. And Dominic, just before the break, you mentioned a man in the crowd listening to Lincoln talk about giving black Americans the vote. And this was a young actor called John Wilkes Booth. Who is he and does he have a link to a famous assassin of Julius Caesar?
- [32:51]
Tom Holland
He does indeed. He's born in Maryland in May 1838. He's 26 years old. He is the son of a Shakespearean actor from London called Junius Brutus Booth and this bloke Booth's mistress, Mary Ann Holmes, and they had moved to America 17 years earlier. Now, Junius, Junius Brutus Booth was already married to somebody else. So John Wilkes, who is named after the John Wilkes. Right.
- [33:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
John Wilkes is a Whig MP in Georgian London. Marcus Junius Brutus, of course, is the famous assassin of Julius Caesar. Both of them obviously are radicals, people committed to the overthrow of tyranny. So this presumably is a family tradition.
- [33:37]
Tom Holland
Totally. I mean, I think John Wilkes Booth grows up with these. This sort of nominative determinism hanging over him. Now he's illegitimate because his parents aren't married. Right. His father was married to somebody else. Now, actually, when he was 13, his parents did get married, but it's kind of too late for him. And the stigma and the shame of this, his biographers often think, are massive drivers for him. Like, he always feels this very keenly that his parents weren't actually married when they had him. Now, he's a very athletic, handsome bloke with kind of leading man looks. He went to boarding school in Maryland. He's steeped in the classics. So if his father's name wasn't enough, he kind of grows up reading Cicero and Tacitus and all this sort of stuff.
- [34:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
So Roman. Roman authors who are essentially opposed to the tyranny of the Caesars.
- [34:29]
Tom Holland
Exactly. He loves all this. Absolutely loves it. Now, his father was an actor. His older brother Edwin was an actor. And when he was 17 years old, he starts out as an actor himself on the Stage in Baltimore, 1855. Everybody always said that Edwin, the older brother, was a kind of more nuanced actor, more precise. But John Wilkes, he's more vital. He's a. He's boisterous, he's exciting, he's.
- [34:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's kind of Brian Blessed a little bit.
- [34:57]
Tom Holland
Yeah, he's a bit of a ham, but he's a fun ham. And he's a huge scene stealer. And he will do. He specializes in leaps and I don't know how much opportunity there isn't Shakespearean soliloquist to do a little. Little leap or caper or something.
- [35:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, leaping across a stage will be a feature of the story later on, won't it?
- [35:17]
Tom Holland
Exactly. And he does these leaps and basically the women in the audience go mad with excitement when he does these kind of acrobatics. And he gets loads of fan mail from women. And on the eve of the Civil War, so 1860, 61. He's in his very early 20s, and he is really seen as a. I mean, he's often described actually as a failed actor or jobbing actor. He's quite a big star.
- [35:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
I was wondering about this and. And whether you could give an analogy in today's star system. So is. I mean, is he Timothee Chalamet? Is he a minor part on the Archers? I mean, where is he on the Spectrum?
- [35:55]
Tom Holland
Well, Timothee Chalamet is a very big star. I don't know whether he's quite that big, but he's definitely bigger than a bit part.
- [36:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
He'd be a lead on a. On a kind of HBO TV series, perhaps that level.
- [36:08]
Tom Holland
I'd say he would. He would be the lead in Outlander.
- [36:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
I had always bought into this thing that he was a minor frustrated actor who never got any jobs or anything. And to realize that actually he's been starring in an HBO series puts a completely different spin on it. Yeah, he is the probably the most famous assassin in American history, if you. By which I mean he's got a profile before he commits the murder, right?
- [36:33]
Tom Holland
Oh, he's totally got a profile. He's played Richard iii, he's played Romeo, he's played Hamlet, he's played Brutus, he's played Mark Anthony.
- [36:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
Because it is often said that assassins are losers, isn't it? I mean, we talked about this when we did the JFK series, but in this case it's not true. He is someone who is used to being on the stage. And as we will see, the assassination will see him jump onto a stage.
- [36:55]
Tom Holland
Exactly. Although there are. There are aspects of his life in which he does feel himself very strongly to be a loser. So he is a loser in a sense. But you're right, professionally, he's. He's had quite a good run. Now, interestingly, his heartland is the north and the border states, and he did loads of shows in Washington and New York and Philadelphia and so on in November 1863. Here's a good example, Tom, of how he's a. He's a star watched by very famous people. He plays a villainous ancient Greek sculptor in a play that's sadly not really endured. It's in the repertoire called the Marble Heart.
- [37:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Is it still around the script?
- [37:34]
Tom Holland
I'm sure it is. I bet you can find it somewhere if you want to play it. The theater he plays at is called ford's Theatre on 10th street in Washington. And in the audience in the box is Abraham Lincoln. And at various points, Booth is delivering is. When he's not leaping, he's delivering these menacing line, villainous lines, and he aims them at the presidential box. And Lincoln actually says to her friend, he does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he? Now, this is no accident, because Booth absolutely loathes Lincoln. I said he was born in Maryland. From the beginning of the crisis, Booth identified very strongly with the South. Maryland was a slave state where a lot of people strongly supported the Confederacy, but it didn't break away from the Union, so it didn't join the Confederate states. That's partly because the Union troops right away imposed martial law. It's also because Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Maryland is a strategically vital. If you lost that, you would lose Washington. So the Union keeping it was really, really important. Now, Booth feels this very keenly, and one reason he feels this very keenly, he hates the fact that Maryland is part of the Union is because he is so racist. He had actually drafted a speech in 1860, when the crisis was really blowing up, and he planned to give it in Philadelphia, but he never did. And in this speech, he said, you know, slavery is brilliant. He said, I've been through the South. I've seen how happy the slaves are. I have seen black people whipped, but only when they really deserved it, and never as much as they deserved. And he says of abolitionists, I call them traitors. Treason should be stamped to death. So deep is my hatred for such men. I wish I had them in my grasp. And if I had the power to crush them, I would grind them into dust.
- [39:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
So he's. He's very against the woke mind virus.
- [39:26]
Tom Holland
He's very much against the woke mind virus, it's fair to say. Now you might well say, come on, mate. I mean, if you really hate it that much, why don't you actually go and fight for the Confederacy?
- [39:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
Good point. What's his answer?
- [39:37]
Tom Holland
He's promised his mother that he wouldn't.
- [39:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
So not only is he racist, but he's a racist mummy's boy.
- [39:42]
Tom Holland
Yeah, he's a cowardly racist. The worst kind of coward and the worst kind of racist. I think it's fair to say.
- [39:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, the worst kind of racist is racist PE teachers. We agreed on that.
- [39:50]
Tom Holland
I think we did. Yeah.
- [39:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. But this is the second PE Teachers.
- [39:53]
Tom Holland
And cowards is the revenge diagram there. I wonder. Anyway, he has. He is such a massive mummy's boy in a really slightly weird way, which is why, despite being very popular with the ladies, he's never got married and never, you know, he's never really settled down. But as the war goes on, he feels guilty about this. As the war goes on, people say to him, you know, will you stop talking about the war? Stop going on about how much you love the Confederacy, and if you like it that much, go and fight for. Even his sister says this. Why not go and fight for her if you love the south so much? Every Marylander worthy of the name is fighting her battles. And at one point in late 1864, he says to his mum, I've begun to deem myself a coward and to despise my own existence.
- [40:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
So all this time, he's. He's still doing his plays, is he?
- [40:36]
Tom Holland
He is, and he's doing quite well. He actually, genuinely is playing quite big parts, and he's getting a lot of acclaim and stuff, but he's unhappy. His family had a history of mental instability. His father was a massive wife beater. He's drinking loads, he's necking loads of brandy and he can't sleep. And I think a lot of this is actually because he feels so guilty about the war and because the news from the front is, as he perceives it, so bad. So basically, every. Every battle the south lose, he then drinks, like, another gallon of brandy or something, and he focuses all of this rage and resentment on the figure of Lincoln. So a barber said afterwards that basically whenever Booth turned up for a shave, everyone would kind of sigh and roll their eyes because basically for the next 10 minutes, he's going to treat them to a monologue about how terrible Lincoln is.
- [41:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
He.
- [41:21]
Tom Holland
He said to his sister, that man's appearance, his pedigree, his coarse, low jokes and anecdotes, his vulgar similes and his policy are a disgrace to the seat he holds. Not enough chat about Lincoln's low, vulgar jokes, I think.
- [41:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, it is interesting that there is clearly no notion of any censorship going on, that you can badmouth the President in the depths of a terrible civil war, and people just slightly roll their eyes. So any notion of Lincoln as a tyrant is clearly mad.
- [41:51]
Tom Holland
Well, as we will see, you know, the. Nor, some northern newspapers are absolutely ferocious in their invective against Abraham Lincoln. So. And actually, this brings us to an important point. Booth loves a historical analogy.
- [42:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
So do we. So that is an unsettling point of comparison, to be fair.
- [42:09]
Tom Holland
Tom, the hammy acting. There's a lot of. There's a lot of. I didn't want to go into the parallels, but they're pretty. They're pretty overwhelming. First of all, he sees Lincoln as an American Napoleon, and he does not mean that kindly. So he says to his sister in 1864, Lincoln rules by robbery, rapine, slaughter, and bought armies. He is Bonaparte in one great move, that is by overturning this blind republic and making himself a king.
- [42:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
And Dominic, can I ask, is there another figure from world history who is accused by his fellow citizens in a republic of trying to make himself a king?
- [42:46]
Tom Holland
There is. And this will please that bloke on the Reddit. It's Julius Caesar. Brilliant. Right, so Booth actually writes a letter when he's made up his mind. To do this dastardly deed, he writes a letter to the newspapers for publication, which is never printed. And he says, specifically says, lincoln is like Caesar who menaced the liberties of the people, and I am like Brutus who arose and slew him. Now, Michael Burlingame, in his enormous Lincoln book, has a really interesting section about what a popular analogy this is at the time.
- [43:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's still a popular analogy. I think we've talked about this, that in a republic that is modeled on the. The Roman Republic, everyone is absolutely prone to see any presidential figure as potentially.
- [43:28]
Tom Holland
A Caesar, although surely much more so at a time when all the opinion formers, politicians and whatnot have had such a classical education, of course, and also.
- [43:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
In a civil war, which is how Caesar comes to power.
- [43:42]
Tom Holland
Now, in the Southern newspapers often use this parallel. So you asked, are Southerners calling for Lincoln's assassination? The Richmond Dispatch said, and I quote, assassination in the abstract is a horrid crime, but to slay a tyrant is no more assassination than war is murder. Who speaks of Brutus as an assassin? What Yankee ever condemned the Roundhead crew who brought Charles I to the block? So it's not just Caesar, he's Charles the First. And Michael Burlingame points out that in the north as well, and this is your point about censorship, Tom. Lincoln's critics often compare him with Julius Caesar. So in May 1863, so these are Democrats and some radical Republicans actually, who think that Lincoln is, you know, too. Too much of a centrist dad. They say he's a tyrant and he's piling up power and whatnot. So in May 1863, at a new York college called the Cooper Union, a speaker said in public, let us remind Lincoln that Caesar had his Brutus and Charles the first his Cromwell. Let us also remind the George III of the present day that he too may have his Cromwell or his Brutus.
- [44:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Just two questions. The first I have lurking in the back of my mind. I think I read an article about bioterrorism through history that there was. There was some guy who sent Lincoln a load of clothes that he tried to infect with yellow fever or something.
- [45:05]
Tom Holland
Yeah, his name was Dr. Luke P. Blackburn, and he was from Kentucky. He was a Confederate agent. I'm laughing because actually, I've just googled it, so I don't actually really know this. He. Yes, he was going to distribute infected clothing with yellow fever. And slightly, slightly weirdly, it's. It's the soiled.
- [45:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
The soiled what?
- [45:30]
Tom Holland
It was the soiled bedding of people from Bermuda.
- [45:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think that's unpleasant. But apparently it wouldn't have worked because yellow fever spreads via mosquitoes.
- [45:39]
Tom Holland
He went on a very long journey. He had to go through Canada, so multiple customs inspections with his soiled.
- [45:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
His soiled bed linen. Wow.
- [45:51]
Tom Holland
Well, so that was your first question. What was your second?
- [45:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
My second question is, what kind of security does Lincoln have? So. So presumably, there isn't a kind of National Security Service at this point. There aren't loads of people in suits with dark glasses.
- [46:05]
Tom Holland
Well, actually, we will get onto this, Tom. I'm delighted to say he has virtually no security at all. He doesn't want security. He doesn't like bodyguards.
- [46:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's not federally provided.
- [46:14]
Tom Holland
No.
- [46:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
So he has to basically provide it for himself.
- [46:16]
Tom Holland
Pretty much. Exactly. Pretty much, yeah. Now, you asked about security. John Wilkes Booth's first idea is actually to kidnap Lincoln, not to kill him. By 1864, Booth has developed this plan to kidnap Lincoln from his summer cottage outside Washington. Now, the details of this plan are a little bit unclear, but what seems to have happened is Booth thought he could kidnap Lincoln and exchange him for Confederate prisoners of war. That seems a mad waste if you've kidnapped the leader of the. One of the combatants just to hand them over in exchange for some prisoners of war is, I think, is demented. Some historians think this is actually part of a wider Confederate conspiracy. The Confederates had a lot of spies in Washington and secret agents hanging around. One of them is a man called John Surratt, who definitely worked for the Confederate Secret Service. And his mother, Mary Surratt, will come on to her. She ran a boarding house in Washington which was a safe house for Confederate agents. And Booth seems to have been connected with these people, and he has this scheme that they're going to kidnap Lincoln on the road, then take him off into captivity. And as late as March 1865, he's got a group of kind of hangers on, and he's chatting to them all the time about this kidnap scheme, but it doesn't really come to anything. There's one day when they do actually go, but Lincoln doesn't turn up. So whether they could have pulled us off, who knows? Then, in early April 1865, Booth hears the news of the Fall of Richmond and then of Robert E. Lee's surrender, and he is absolutely crushed. And I think this is the point when he comes up with the idea of killing Lincoln rather than kidnapping him. And there's another element to this. You asked if he was a loser. What is undoubtedly true is that John Wilkes Booth Feels himself to be a failure and is motivated by a thirst for fame. He says to friends, again and again, a man could immortalize himself by killing Lincoln. He says, I want to do something that will mean that I'm remembered for all time. So the question is, will he get the chance? And we'll come to that. Now back to Lincoln. Lincoln had made that speech on the 11th of April, but two days later, on the 13th of April, he comes down with this terrible headache. He was going to go on for a carriage ride with Mary to go and see the gas illuminations that had been put up across Washington to celebrate the victory. He can't go, so they make Ulysses S. Grant go with Mary instead. And guess what? The trip is a total disaster. The crowd cheer Grant and they chant his name. And Mary Lincoln is basically furious. And she actually at one point asks the carriage driver to stop and let her out because she can't bear it anymore that people are chanting Grant's name and not her husband's.
- [48:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
I quite like that I come in to respect her.
- [48:57]
Tom Holland
I think she's awful.
- [48:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean, I literally know nothing about her beyond what I read in George Saunders novel, which made me more sympathetic.
- [49:04]
Tom Holland
All right, fair enough. So the next day is the Good Friday, 14th April.
- [49:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
Lincoln is killed on Good Friday.
- [49:10]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [49:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
So this Christ like man is killed on Good Friday.
- [49:14]
Tom Holland
Couldn't make it up. So that morning, the last morning of his life, Lincoln has a meeting of his cabinet with General Grant in attendance. And they are talking about Reconstruction again. He says, the great question before us, we must soon begin to act. But he says, I am not going to take a hard line on the South. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union. He goes out of his way to say, I do not want you to persecute the Confederates after the war. No bloody work. He says, what I would like is for you to frighten the leaders out of the country. Jefferson Davis and co. Open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off.
- [49:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
As in run away to Paris or something.
- [49:53]
Tom Holland
Run away to Paris. It's a funny thing about Lincoln. He always talks very kindly, almost sort of fondly of his opponents. So he actually called Jefferson Davis. He used to call him Jeffy D.
- [50:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Sounds like a kind of minor singer in the late 1950s.
- [50:06]
Tom Holland
Jeffy D. Jeffy D and the Confederates woo. Yeah, yeah. Or Bobby Lee. He would call Robert E. Lee Bobby Lee. Bobby Lee is very much. Yeah, yeah, that's his.
- [50:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's his girlfriend.
- [50:20]
Tom Holland
Anyway, everybody at the Cabinet meeting Said afterwards, Lincoln was actually in great form. He'd had this headache, it had a couple of days off. He seems to have. That seems to have done good. His Treasury Secretary, Hugh McCulloch had said it. I'd never seen him so happy. The burden had been lifted. His face no longer had its weary look, it was bright and cheerful. Now afterwards, he goes for a carriage ride with Mary and actually they don't have a massive argument on this carriage ride, which is nice. She comments out how jolly and playful he is and Lincoln says to her, well, for the first time, I really feel as though the war is over. He says to her, we must both be more cheerful in the future. Between the war and the loss of our darling Willy, we have been very miserable. So Willie is the boy who died of typhoid. They've got a nice evening out ahead, Tom. They're going to the theatre. So they've gone a lot to the theater in the war. There are two theatres in Washington, really, two big ones, the national and Ford's. Ford's is on 10th Street. It's a red brick building. It's seen as very modern. It was only opened two years earlier by a theatrical entrepreneur called John T Ford.
- [51:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
So he's a very modest man.
- [51:23]
Tom Holland
Yeah, Ford's Theater. Exactly. Now it's putting on, I'm delighted to say, a British play, a British play mocking Americans called Our American Cousin by Tom Taylor. It's a farce. I've actually read the script. I fell down the rabbit hole and read the script.
- [51:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Is it good?
- [51:39]
Tom Holland
It's terrible. It's. It's very unfunny. It's a farce about basically a boorish hick from Vermont who inherits the fortune of a aristocratic British family and he goes to claim it. There's a series of comic misunderstandings.
- [51:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think it sound. You could do a double bill of that and the. The one where Booth played a Greek sculptor.
- [51:59]
Tom Holland
You could actually.
- [52:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
That'd be quite interesting.
- [52:01]
Tom Holland
Why don't people do more John Wilkes Booth themed entertainment? It's an absolute riddle. Now, the Evening Star, the Washington Evening Star, has already reported that Lincoln's going to go to this play and they've reported that he will go with General Grant. And the theater has had a rush of last minute bookings and they're rushing to kind of get flags and they. They're rushing to sort of do a patriotic lineup beforehand of songs and stuff. It's all very exciting. Now meanwhile, while Lincoln's off on his carriage ride and talking to his cabinet, what's John Wilkes Booth doing? He has stayed in Washington. He had gone to see the Illuminations, the lights, you know, lit up, kind of eagles and stars and stuff. And he said it was a great display, but I wish it had been a display in a nobler cause. But so goes the world. Might makes right. He's very sad because the south has lost Sometime that morning, good Friday morning, he goes over to Ford's Theatre. Now, he's very well known at Ford's Theatre because he's a. You know, he's a big actor. And he often has mail sent there, kind of fan mail from his female admirers.
- [53:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
And so presumably, he knows Ford's Theatre like the back of his hand, knows all the exits.
- [53:09]
Tom Holland
I mean, crucially, he knows the entrance and exit. He knows the stagehands, even. He knows it so well. And while he's picking up his post, he chats to the manager of the theater, who's Harry Ford. I think he's John Ford's brother. And Booth says, oh, you've heard the news about Lee surrendering Appomattox. Says, I'm absolutely gutted. Lee, What a fool. He should have gone down fighting. What a cow. What a. What a mess he made of that. And Ford says to him, well, come on. I mean, he's a general and you're not. You don't know what you're talking about. I mean, he.
- [53:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
I've got to say, Booth walked into that one.
- [53:40]
Tom Holland
He did. He did. Booth is absolutely shocked and downcast by this. And then Ford says, hey, guess who's coming to our theater tonight? President Lincoln. And he's bringing Ulysses S. Grant with him. And Booth apparently showed no reaction at the time. He just sat down and started looking at his post. But clearly he's thinking, because in the next few hours, he does three things. First of all, he goes to see a bloke who runs a stable near the theater, a man called Mr. Pumphrey. And he hires a brown horse, a mare with a white star on her forehead. He says, I'll come back for this horse later. Hold on to the horse for the time being. Then he goes to that Confederate lodging house, the safe house run by Mary Surratt, and he talks to her in private, and he gives her a package. Later, she goes out of the city to a tavern that she owns in the countryside in Maryland, and she leaves this package there. We'll come back to the package in the next episode. And then third thing, at some point in the afternoon, Booth contacts three of the sort of hangers on who he'd been talking about the kidnap plot too. And he makes arrangements for the evening. And these three blokes are. There's a carriage repair man from Germany called George Azerot, there's a pharmacist's assistant from Maryland called David Herold, and there's a former Confederate soldier who's now working as a Confederate agent called Lewis Powell. And Tom, I will keep it in reserve what these arrangements are. So now we come to the evening, the White House. The Lincolns have had their dinner. They're about to go out to the theater. They're delayed because the speaker of the House of Representatives, who has the excellent American name of Shyla Colfax, is waiting to talk to him about California and Dominic.
- [55:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's fair to say, isn't it, that from this point on, Fans of mad 19th century American names are going to be in clover?
- [55:32]
Tom Holland
Yeah. Because there's loads of them coming up. There is. And there's actually a lot of people I've cut out of the story who people could kind of Thurlow Weed or something like mad American names I've had to cut out. So just assume that. Basically assume that in the background are a lot of people with these baroque, ridiculous names. So about 8:30, after talking to Shyla Colfax, the Lincolns are ready to leave. Now the plan has changed. Ulysses Escrow has been so burned by his previous encounters with Mrs. Lincoln that he says, there is no way I am going to the theater with these people.
- [56:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
So Ulysses S. Grant was meant to be going on the night that Lincoln is assassinated, drops out. Do people not find this suspicious? I mean, conspiracy theorists, gosh, that's a.
- [56:15]
Tom Holland
That's a good point.
- [56:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
Does anyone think Grant was perhaps behind the plot? Clear Lincoln out of the way so he could in due course become president?
- [56:23]
Tom Holland
I love the idea that you've invented a conspiracy theory live while recording a show. Wow. I've never heard that claim.
- [56:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
I find that quite suspicious.
- [56:32]
Tom Holland
So the other person who doesn't go, who hates Mrs. Lincoln is Julia Grant. She says, she says to Grant, I will not go if that woman is there. Does this not raise the possibility that the bullet was meant for Mary Lincoln and actually it's Mrs. Grant who's behind the conspiracy? That would be a twist.
- [56:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
That is a twist.
- [56:49]
Tom Holland
So they don't go. Now Lincoln says, oh, if they're not going, I don't really want to go. And Mary says, you have to go. The press hear that you're going, and if none of us go, they'll be. Everyone will be really disappointed, she says, Anyway, I've lined up some replacements. My friend, Clara Harris.
- [57:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
So she does have a friend.
- [57:04]
Tom Holland
She does have a friend, which is lovely. I was thinking exactly that. She's got at least one friend. She's got Clara Harris. And Clara Harris has her fiance, who's Major Henry Rathbone. So they're going to take these two people. Now, you asked about security. There is very, very little security. They're escorted to the theater by a police patrolman called John Parker and a White House messenger called Charles Forbes. But they're not professional bodyguards. Lincoln never travels with professional bodyguards. He has said many times, I will not be shut up in an iron cage. Now, he says when people say to him, do you not want to be careful? You're fighting a civil war? He says, who would want to kill me? No one would want to kill me. It's not in people's nature to want to kill me. Now, that would seem mad to us today. But the fact is that at the time, there's never been a successful assassination in American history. And Lincoln's own Secretary of State, William Seward, said in 1862, assassination is not an American practice or habit. And one so vicious and so desperate cannot be engrafted into our political system.
- [58:07]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, that's aged well.
- [58:08]
Tom Holland
Yeah. How wrong he was. So they turn up at ford's Theatre at 9 o'. Clock. Now, they're late. The play has been underway for 20 minutes. And they go up to their box. So it's actually two boxes which are knocked into one. So the theater, when they know Lincoln is coming, they have to basically knock Two boxes into 1. Boxes 7 and 8. In the box are a sofa, an armchair and a rocking chair that Lincoln will sit in. The box is very conspicuous. It's been hung with American flags for all to see. Lincoln goes in, the audience turn to look at him. The play stops. To actually stop the play, the band plays Hail to the Chief. Everybody applauds. Lincoln smiles. Lincoln bows. And the play resumes. Everybody is roaring with laughter. They think this is a brilliant play. Lincoln is watching it. He seems very intent on it. He's kind of laughing to himself. And yet, Tom, all the time, his killer is coming closer and closer. So we get to 10, 15. Now on stage, the American cousin, who is played by an actor called Harry Hawk, has been arguing with his British relative, Mrs. Mount Chessington. Miss.
- [59:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's a very British name.
- [59:19]
Tom Holland
Doesn't it sound like a great play?
- [59:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
It sounds brilliant. Do you have an example of the brilliant dialogue from the Play.
- [59:24]
Tom Holland
I do. Mrs. Mount Chessington says to this bloke, you don't know the manners of good society. And she storms off. And Harry Hawks, playing the American cousin, says, I don't know. The man is a good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal. You sock dologizing old man trap. Everybody laughs, of course, the whole theater erupts in laughter. On stage, this bloke, Hawk, Harry Hawk, he turns to walk off stage, and at that moment, the door of Abraham Lincoln's presidential box swings open, and standing in the doorway is John Wilkes Booth.
- [60:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, if people want to know what happens next, there's literally only one way to do it, and that is either to wait until Thursday to find out what happens to President Lincoln, or if you're a member of the rest is History Club, you can go straight ahead and listen to it. Now, if you're not a member of the rest of History Club but you would like to find out whether President Lincoln survives or not, you can go to the restishistory. Com and on that gunshot, goodbye.
- [60:35]
Tom Holland
Goodbye.