Lincoln’s Assassination and the Hunt for John Wilkes Booth | The American Story | Ep 18

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
The Perfect Lunch Combo.
That first bite of your favorite sub, followed by ice cold Pepsi. Add a couple of friends, and now that's next level. Suddenly, the laughs get louder, the stories keep flowing, and the food tastes better. Because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun, and more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi Zero Sugar today.

**Glenn Beck** (0:30)
It's the night of April 11th, 1865 It's just two days after Robert E. Lee surrendered his battered army at Appomattox Courthouse. Washington DC is now erupting in celebration. The streets overflow with soldiers and citizens and newly freed black Americans waving flags, singing, dancing around blazing bonfires. And the city glows under thousands of lanterns and illuminations. It was relief, triumph and hope that was permeating the spring air.
Thousands now gather on the White House grounds under a sea of flickering torches. On the north side of the mansion, a second story window opens and a tall, gaunt figure steps forward into the glow of torchlight. It was President Lincoln. He gripped several pages in his hands, the speech he had written for this occasion. The crowd quiets.
As soon as Lincoln begins speaking, it's clearly not the kind of speech the crowd expects, because it's not a victory speech. He doesn't celebrate, he doesn't gloat. Instead, he speaks carefully about the immense task ahead, reconstruction.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:47)
In the speech, Lincoln said, it is fraught with great difficulty.
Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with. No one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with and mold from disorganized and discordant elements.

**Glenn Beck** (2:15)
He outlines a plan already underway in Louisiana for a new state government committed to being part of the United States again. And then Lincoln says something that slices through the night. He publicly endorses for the first time extending the right to vote to literate Black Americans and to Black Union troops.
Well, seething among the crowd on the White House lawn is the famous actor named John Wilkes Booth. He was flanked by two men, David Harold, a young drugstore clerk, and Lewis Powell, a former Confederate soldier. For months, their plan had been clear. Kidnap Lincoln, smuggle him south to Richmond, and ransom him for Confederate prisoners of war.
But with Richmond's capture and Lee's surrender, the Confederacy had almost completely collapsed. Their leverage had evaporated.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:07)
Booth writes in his diary, Our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done.

**Glenn Beck** (3:14)
Booth had been waiting, planning, biding his time. He even stood in a crowd at Lincoln's second inaugural address one month earlier. Historians have identified him in a photograph, standing on the portico staring down at the president. You can see that one and only copy of that photograph, the original at the American Journey Experience in Dallas, Texas.
When Richmond fell, Booth was drowning in his sorrow in a New York City saloon when he lamented to a friend, What an excellent chance I had if I wished to kill the president on Inauguration Day.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:49)
I was on the stand as close to him nearly as I am to you.

**Glenn Beck** (3:53)
But now, with the Southern cause gasping its final breath, Lincoln's speech infuriates Booth.
As Lincoln's words about black suffrage drift across the lawn, Booth sneers that it would mean full citizenship for blacks. He turns to Harold and Powell, his voice cold and final.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:12)
By God, I'll put him through.

**Glenn Beck** (4:14)
In a surge of fury, Booth urges Powell to draw his pistol and shoot Lincoln right there, perfectly framed in the window. But Powell hesitates, refuses. The risk in the dense crowd was too great.
The president finishes speaking and the exuberant crowd cheers and applause.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:32)
Booth, his eyes ablaze as he says, That is the last speech he will ever make.

**Glenn Beck** (4:37)
Little does the celebrating city know, this is the night John Wilkes Booth determines Lincoln must die.

**SPEAKER_5** (4:49)
This is the American Story, The Beginnings, adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton. Episode 18, Lincoln's Assassination and the Hunt for John Wilkes Booth.

**Glenn Beck** (5:11)
April 14th, 1865 It was Good Friday. President Lincoln and his wife took an afternoon carriage ride. They laughed and they talked about the future. Mary had not seen her husband in such a carefree mood since they moved into the White House four years earlier. That night, they were set to attend a play at Ford's Theatre. Lincoln liked attending plays. It was really one of the only things in his life as president that offered any break from the relentless pressures of the Civil War.