The really awful, horrible, terrible bad day: the brutal murder of Abe Lincoln.

 Last week, I left you with Cpt. Lingerie.  This week, I'm gonna tell you how he committed the act.  Alright.  Here we go.

The plot to kill a president reputedly began as a plan to kidnap a president and hold him for ransom, to try and force a peace between North and South.

Portrait of a murderer.

Alright.  So, what was the plan?  Let's begin with JWB's co-conspirators:

Mary Surratt.

Lewis Powell

.
David Herold.

George Atzerodt.

Dr. Samuel Mudd.

Edman "Ned" Spangler.

Michael O'Laughlen.

Samuel Arnold.

There is one name missing from this list:  Mary Surratt's son John (look below).

We'll return to John a little bit later, don't worry Dear Reader.  However, first we have to go through JWB's master plan (tragic gag), and if you don't know anything about it, Dear Reader, it might seem incredible to you that it actually worked.

Alright, let's begin.

It really started with the ending of the Civil War, beginning in late 1864.  JWB, as a rabid southern sympathizer, was somehow unable to deal with reality.  I cannot tell you at what moment JWB conceived of a desire to do harm to President Lincoln, but let's see if we can break down what happened, and its' tragic culmination.

At first, Booth wanted to kidnap Lincoln, while he visited a veteran hospital, but that fell through, thus forcing JWB & co. to quickly change their plans.  It all happened rather quickly.  JWB went to Ford's theater on the morning of April 14th, 1865 to pick up his mail.  He found out that the president, his wife Mary, and two guests were going to be attending a performance of "Our American Cousin" that night.  They would (of course) be sitting in the president's box--which put Lincoln in an isolated position.  But, JWB's plan escalated:  he directed his motley crew of conspirators to simultaneously assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and William H. Seward, the Secretary of State (and Lincoln's close confidante).  

Lewis Powell, a former Confederate soldier, was told to kill the Secretary of State.  He was the son of a Baptist preacher (if you can believe it), and his family moved around the South during Powell's youth.  I guess you could say he was a dyed-in-the-wool southerner. 

Booth wanted each attack to be relatively simultaneous.  Around 10:10 pm, Powell approached Seward's house, with David Herold acting as lookout.  Seward was recovering from a carriage accident, and was (somewhat) bed-ridden.  Powell pretended to deliver a package to the Secretary, literally walking into the house, up to Seward's bedroom, where he drew a knife and attacked.  He wounded an army nurse, who was attending the Secretary.  Seward's daughter Fanny was also in the room.  In the subsequent attack, Powell managed to slash Seward's neck and one side of his face.  Seward was lucky though:  the splint on his jaw helped to deflect most of the blows.  Seward's son Augustus burst into the bedroom, where Powell succeeded in partially scalping him (ewwwwwwwww).  Somehow, Augustus and the army nurse managed to get Powell to the floor.  But the assassin was too strong.  Another man burst through the door (a State Dept. messenger), trying to help, but somehow Powell threw off his attackers, and stabbed the messenger in the back.  Dear Reader, would you believe that the son-of-a-bitch actually f*&cking escaped? I know:  unbelievable, right? But he did.  Yelling "I'm mad! I'm mad!" the d&*khead ran through the house and into the street, throwing away the knife, jumping on his horse, and rode away serenely into the night.  Unfortunately, he was not a native to Washington DC, so he got lost.  Three days later, Powell showed up at Mary Surratt's boarding house (??????? not exactly an intelligent move).  Once there, he found Mary being interviewed by detectives (whoops).  At first, he claimed to be a day laborer, working for Surratt, but his bloody clothes gave him away (are you kidding me?), and he was immediately arrested.

The murder of Vice President was given to George Atzerodt.  On the morning of April 14th, Atzerodt checked into the hotel, Kirkwood House, where Andrew Johnson was also staying.  That night, he drank his weight in alcohol, and got totally wasted.  Additionally, he actually asked the bartender where Johnson was.

 He spent the rest of the night aimlessly wandering the streets of the city.

He dropped his knife in a nearby gutter, where he was witnessed by a passing woman, who alerted local police.  Eventually, George made his way to the house of his cousin...

where he was (of course) arrested by police.

Which brings us back to Captain Lingerie, a.k.a. John Wilkes Booth....

After picking up his mail at Ford's Theater, Booth set his "plan" in motion.  Now, we all know a little of what happened next, Dear Reader, but patience because we're gonna go over it again.  Booth had free and total access to Ford's Theater, because he was well known, and had frequently performed there.  That night, when his minions were trying to kill the Sec. of State and the Vice President, Booth spent a little time prior to the murder at a nearby saloon.  At approximately 10:15 p, JWB made his way back into Ford's, and up to the doors leading into the president's box (to get to Lincoln, JWB had to go through two doors.

Now, that's a damn fine question, Dear Reader.  Guards weren't unusual, even at this time, but the secret service did not as yet exist.  So, there wasn't anyone to stop JWB.

It was later reported, that Booth (who knew the play well) waited until a moment in the play where the audience was supposed to laugh.  He crept up to the President, and aimed his tiny (lethal) .41 Derringer pistol at the base of Lincoln's head and pulled the trigger.

Major Rathbone tried to tackle JWB, who promptly stabbed him.  Then, he lept on top of the box's bannister and jumped onto the stage.  Then he waived his knife in the air, shouted something, and dashed off.  We don't know for sure what he said:  people in the audience heard different things.  However, there is darned good evidence that he yelled a line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" (roughly translated, it means 'thus ever to tyrants').

JWB rushed through the back of the theater, to a back alley, where a man held his rental horse.

Wait.  What?  I know, I know.  This was just another one of the incredible things that happened on that tragic night.  Well, Booth was able to make it out of the city with a broken ankle.  I mean, it was badly broken, Dear Reader.

And thus began the largest manhunt in American history--at least until 1865.  He was joined by David Harrold, and the two attempted to escape into the South.  Along the way, he and Harrold stopped at Mary Surratt's tavern, to collect guns and supplies.  The route had been planned, but almost immediately, things began to go wrong.  JWB's leg made it impossible for him to travel, leading the two men to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, a southern sympathizer.  The doctor treated Booth's leg, and even told the two men where they could spend the night in safety.

Meanwhile, the War Dept. offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Booth.  Today, that doesn't seem like a lot of moola, but in 2024, it amounts to nearly 2 million dollars.  In addition, federal troops combed the woods along the route reputedly taken by the two assassins.  

Our two murderous twits continued hiding out in the Maryland woods, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to cross the Potomac into Robert E. Lee's home state, Virginia.  Johnnie-the-village idiot spent the time reading newspaper accounts of his crimes.  He got really pissed off when he read the utter lack of sympathy, and the wealth of condemnation for his actions--even from those editors who criticized Lincoln:  With every man's hand against me, I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for... And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat.  https://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln52.html

You know what, Dear Reader? I'm really not sure that Brutus would've agreed with that statement.

At long last, federal troops eventually caught up with Booth and Herold, who were hiding in the tobacco barn belonging to a pro-southerner named Garrett.  A call rose up for the two guilty bastards to surrender.  Booth refused, but Herold capitulated.  The federal soldiers then set fire to the barn, and saw Booth moving around inside the barn in growing alarm.  One fed, by the name of Boston Corbett, fired his weapon, hitting Booth--a mortal wound in the neck.  He did speak before he died, saying "tell my mother I died for my country" and "useless, useless"--those were actually his last words.  He was 26.

It took him almost three hours to die.

Gee whiz, Dear Reader, I sure wish I could feel bad about that, but remember how Lincoln slowly bled out on that bed....

Booth's body was returned to Washington for further identification.  His remains went through a series of storerooms and hastily dug graves, before being turned over to the Booth family.  He is buried in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

A blank headstone, how fitting.  Can you see what's on top of the grave marker?

Pennies.  Just in case you forgot whose head appears on the face of this coin:

I guess that's fitting:  a blank headstone, and a public who still doesn't forget or forgive.

Until next week, dear reader....