After four long years, the guns of the Civil War had finally fallen silent. General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, and a powerful wave of peace and jubilation swept across the United States. President Abraham Lincoln, a man burdened by war and personal loss for so long, felt that relief more deeply than anyone. On April 14th, 1865, a festive Good Friday, Washington D.C. buzzed with excitement, and Lincoln himself was a man transformed, ready to embrace a future of unity and healing for the American people. He spoke of charity for all and malice toward none, envisioning a peaceful restoration of the Union.
But this newfound hope would be tragically short-lived. That very evening, as he sought a moment of joy with his wife at Ford’s Theater, a dark conspiracy was unfolding. The bright promise of peace was shattered by a single, desperate act from John Wilkes Booth. This story takes us back to that fateful night and the profound shock that rippled through the nation, from the president’s last words to his solemn funeral train journey, exploring the immediate aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and the enduring legacy of a man who held the Union together.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 2: On April 14th, 1865, this was Good Friday, and it was also the first Friday since Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Grant at Appomattox. This was a very festive and jubilant Washington, D.C., as well as jubilant Abraham Lincoln. For his entire presidency, Abraham Lincoln had been fighting the Civil War. One of his children died, too; Willie died while in the White House. So this was a man whose entire presidency was filled with misery, and for the first time, he could be happy, he could celebrate, he could be joyful.
Speaker 3: So, even though it was Good Friday,
Speaker 2: which is probably the most solemn day on the Christian calendar, Abraham Lincoln, at the suggestion of Mary Todd Lincoln, decided that evening he was going to go see a comedy play called Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater. So he woke up that morning in a good mood, and the pace people who saw him said that Abraham Lincoln was more cheerful and jubilant than he had been in a long time, and probably they had really ever seen him. He had breakfast with his son, Robert Todd. In the last months of the Civil War, Robert Todd had convinced his father and mother to allow him to go into the military because he didn’t want to grow old, thinking that he hadn’t taken part in this seminal event, in this seminal war of his youth, when he was of age to fight in it. So he finally convinced his father, and Abraham Lincoln reached out
Speaker 3: to Ulysses S.
Speaker 2: Grant, who took him on as an aide. So Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, was with Ulysses S. Grant at the surrender of Robert E.
Speaker 3: Lee.
Speaker 2: So that morning, Abraham Lincoln was having breakfast with Robert Todd, and he was
Speaker 3: telling him all about the surrender.
Speaker 2: At about 11 o’clock, he had a cabinet meeting, including Ulysses S. Grant, and at that cabinet meeting they discussed the the peaceful restoration of the Union. He was committed to honor his pledge in his second inaugural speech of malice toward none and charity for all. That was the approach that he was taking, not vindictiveness. He wasn’t looking to punish the South; he was looking to welcome them back in. So he had lunch with Mary after his cabinet meeting, and then they took a carriage ride to the Washington Navy Yard. On that carriage ride, Mary Todd Lincoln later recalled how happy Abraham Lincoln was and how he was imploring Mary Todd Lincoln that finally, this misery is behind us; we must be happy. They were trying to figure out together how to move forward as a couple, and they had talked wistfully about the travel they would do. Abraham Lincoln wanted to go to the Holy Land. He wanted to travel internationally for the first time. He could think more about the day in front of him, and the week in front of them, and the battles in front of him, which really makes his assassination just so much more tragic.
Speaker 3: So about 8:30,
Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln walked into the theater, and he took their seats in the balcony a little bit late, trying to be discreet. He arrived during the first act, but Abraham Lincoln couldn’t be discreet in a setting like that, so he received a standing ovation, and the orchestra struck up “Hail to the Chief.” So Lincoln acknowledged the crowd at Ford’s Theater. There were about 1,700 patrons at Ford’s Theater that day, and then he took
Speaker 3: his seat.
Speaker 2: At about 10 o’clock, during the performance, Mary Todd Lincoln was holding his hand and hugged him very self-consciously, though, and she whispered, “What will Miss Harris think of my hanging on to you?”
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: And Abraham Lincoln was trying to make her feel better and said, “She won’t think anything about it.”
Speaker 3: These were Abraham Lincoln’s last words.
Speaker 2: Now, this was before Secret Service protection, but Abraham Lincoln did have a personal bodyguard that would accompany him. But once Abraham Lincoln was in the balcony and the door to the balcony was locked, the personal bodyguard decided he was going to leave and go out and get a drink, so there was no guard there. At about 10:15, John Wilkes Booth entered the balcony during the third act, and
Speaker 3: Booth had performed at Ford’s Theater.
Speaker 2: Abraham Lincoln had even seen some of John Wilkes Booth’s performances, and Booth was probably one of the most famous actors in America at the time, very well-known. So when John Wilkes Booth came into Ford’s Theater,
Speaker 3: he didn’t have to sneak in. People knew him.
Speaker 2: When he went towards the balcony, he went rather freely because he was John Wilkes Booth, so he was very familiar with the play, too, and he knew one of the scenes in the third act had a big laugh line, so he knew when to time his assassination.
Speaker 2: He planned that during this big laugh line, the shot would be muffled by the laughter, and it would give him a little more time to make his escape. So during that scene, John Wilkes Booth snuck in. He had to cover that he needed. He had a single-shot derringer in his hand. He managed to get right behind the president and shoot the pistol. John Wilkes Booth leaped onto the stage, jumped off the balcony. In the process, he got his foot tangled on a flag, and he actually broke his leg in the fall, but he had a boot on, and in the adrenaline,
Speaker 3: he managed to escape anyway. Even with the broken leg, he held up
Speaker 2: his dagger, and he yelled, “The South is avenged! Sic semper tyrannus,” which was Latin for “thus always to tyrants.”
Speaker 1: And you’re listening to Lewis Picone tell the story of President Lincoln’s assassination and what would follow on his trek, his body’s trek, back to Springfield. More of this remarkable story, Lincoln’s last trip back home, here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country, and especially the stories of America’s rich past, know that all of Our stories about American history, from war to politics, to innovation, culture, and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can’t get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale.edu to learn more. And we returned to Our American Stories and the story of President Lincoln’s assassination and funeral train with author Lewis Picone. When we last left off, planning had begun for Lincoln’s final journey and his funeral. Let’s return to the story.
Speaker 2: Someone yelled, “Is there a doctor in the house?” And there was a 23-year-old assistant surgeon of the U.S. Volunteers there,
Speaker 3: who just happened to be in the audience.
Speaker 2: He had heard that Abraham Lincoln was going to see the play that day, so he wanted to get a chance to see Lincoln. His name was Charles Augustus Leal. He became the chief doctor who cared for Lincoln until his death
Speaker 3: the next day.
Speaker 2: Despite being the first one there, he found Lincoln on the floor. Mary Lincoln was trying to cradle him, and he examined him. He thought he was stabbed because there was blood everywhere from Rathbone. He saw that John Wilkes Booth had the dagger in his hand, so he just assumed that Abraham Lincoln was stabbed. He couldn’t find the wound, and he couldn’t find the pulse. Finally, he put his hand behind his head, and he discovered
Speaker 3: the bullet hole.
Speaker 2: Two more doctors arrived, Charles Taft and Albert King. Between them, they basically performed CPR and artificial respiration to get him breathing again. But Mary Todd asked him, “Is he going to recover?” And Leal was honest because he knew that no one had ever recovered from a bullet wound to the head. Like this, and he had told her, “It is mortal; it is impossible for him to recover.” Leal had implored someone to get brandy and water, which was one of the medical practices of the day, a stimulant to the body. That was the only medication that Abraham Lincoln was to receive the entire evening. So the three doctors discovered what to do next. They knew that Abraham Lincoln was going to die. It wasn’t a question of if he was going to die; it was a question of when and where Abraham Lincoln was going to die. The three doctors determined that he would never survive a ride, a carriage ride, on the bumpy cobblestone streets of Washington, D.C.
Speaker 3: In 1865, so they brought him outside.
Speaker 2: The first thing they looked to was a tavern next door, Taltavul’s Tavern, and that’s where the bodyguard had gone. They decided the president couldn’t die in a tavern that was so undignified. One of the reasons they brought him out of the theater was that it was too undignified for the president to die in a theater, and certainly he couldn’t die at a tavern.
Speaker 3: So across the
Speaker 2: street, there was a home, and there was a man standing outside, one of the residents, Henry Safford, and he was calling them, “Bring him in here! Bring him in here!” So this home was owned by a man named George Peterson. It was known as the Peterson Home. That’s where they brought Abraham Lincoln. They brought him in a room towards the back of the home that had been rented by a Massachusetts private named William Clark. Now, Clark was out celebrating the end of the war like much of Washington, D.C. Little did he know that the President of the United States was now lying on his bed in his final hours of life. But there were all these crazy rumors running through Washington, D.C.
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Andrew Johnson had been assassinated.
Speaker 3: Grant had been assassinated.
Speaker 2: It was just mass confusion in the city, and people tended to think the worst. It happened that the entire government had been decapitated. Eventually, most of the cabinet members came. It was reported that Andrew Johnson arrived at the home, too, but Mary Todd Lincoln did not like Andrew Johnson. At the inauguration, Andrew Johnson was sick, and he tried to treat that with whiskey, and he became drunk, and he gave an outrageous inauguration speech, and Mary Todd Lincoln had really despised him ever since. So, reportedly, when Andrew Johnson arrived at the home, Mary Todd Lincoln was so upset that she sent him away and wouldn’t let him inside. But the other members of the cabinet did arrive, except for Secretary of State William Seward, against whom there was an assassination attempt that night. They realized that this was a historic evening, and they wanted to make sure that the conversation—that everything was said—was recorded, so they managed to find someone in a new shorthand that was just outside of the Peterson home, the 20-year-old veteran named James Tanner, who had lost both legs during the war, and at 7:21 and 55 seconds, Abraham Lincoln took his last breath. Fifteen seconds later, at 7:22 and 10 seconds a.m., Abraham Lincoln’s heart stopped, and he died. It was very appropriate that it started to rain in the city. Now, reportedly, Edwin Stanton said, “Now he belongs to the ages.”
Speaker 3: Some people believe that he said,
Speaker 2: “Now he belongs to the angels.” But what was written down was, “Now
Speaker 3: he belongs to the ages.”
Speaker 2: Charles Leal, in an old custom that dated back to Ancient Greece, put coins over Abraham Lincoln’s eyes, and it was a custom where the Ancient Greeks believed that those coins over the eyes of the deceased would help pay for safe passage across the River of Death. And Leal crossed his arms, crossed Abraham Lincoln’s arms, and he smoothed his hair, and he covered his face with a white sheet. One of the first questions for the funeral planners was where Abraham Lincoln would be buried. As always, that decision is made by the spouse, and Mary Lincoln wanted her husband buried in Illinois.
Speaker 3: That was their home.
Speaker 2: Springfield, Illinois, was where they had last lived. It was where they planned to return to, and that’s where she wanted Abraham Lincoln buried. So now the funeral planners had to decide how to properly memorialize President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., and then how to return his body to Springfield, Illinois. Now the only option was by funeral train. The first funeral train in history was after John Quincy Adams’s death, but Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train would be much larger and much grander. So the planners decided to generally recreate the route that Abraham Lincoln had taken in 1861 after he was inaugurated and left Springfield, Illinois, to come to Washington, D.C., for the inauguration. He took a roundabout route that went north, and along the route, he’d stop.
Speaker 3: He’d give speeches along the route.
Speaker 2: This was really a way, at a time when very few people saw a president in person. Obviously, there was no television at the time, so in this era, Lincoln felt that it was important for him to introduce himself to the North. He tried to stop in as many cities and as many places on his inaugural route in 1861. So the planners decided to generally recreate that route in reverse. And there were petitions from governors of states once they knew that there would be a funeral train to have that train stop in their state. So a 10-person committee, a Congressional Committee, was formed to make arrangements for the funeral train, and the Abraham
Speaker 3: Lincoln funeral train almost becomes
Speaker 2: a character in the story of Abraham Lincoln. It was a 20-day pageant. The funeral train was 1,700 miles. 1.5 million people personally laid their eyes on the body of Abraham Lincoln, of the martyred president. Seven million more people either saw the funeral train or watched the hearse pass in the streets as part of one of the many public processions. It was nine cars to fit the large delegation of people who…
Speaker 3: Beyond that funeral train.
Speaker 2: The engine was called the Old Nashville.
Speaker 2: A picture of Abraham Lincoln was affixed to the cowcatcher. The last car was the 16-wheeled “United States”—the name of the car—and this was a car that had been specifically designed for Abraham Lincoln. He had used it during his presidency. It had 12 windows on each side, an interior paneling of deep chocolate color. It was a maroon-colored car, and it almost served as Abraham Lincoln’s Air Force One when he was traveling the country, and he had used it several times for trips to New York City.
Speaker 1: And you’re listening to Lewis Picone tell a heck of a story about Lincoln’s assassination and the funeral train it took him back home to Springfield. When we come back, more of this remarkable story here on Our American Stories. And we returned to Our American Stories and the story of Lincoln’s assassination and funeral train with author Lewis Picone. When we last left off, planning had begun for Lincoln’s final journey and his funeral. Let’s return to the story.
Speaker 2: So as they brought the coffin outside, Mary Lincoln escorted her husband and stepped outside and looked across the street at Ford’s Theater and said, “Oh, that dreadful house, that dreadful house!” before she entered the carriage.
Speaker 2: About 11 o’clock, the carriage arrived at the White House, and Abraham Lincoln was brought inside. They performed an autopsy of Abraham Lincoln inside of the White House. There were seven doctors who performed the autopsy. Certainly not that many doctors were required. Everyone knew how Abraham Lincoln had died, but this was one of those gruesome events where people just wanted to be there, and this was a time when doctors believed in the practice of phrenology, where a person’s intelligence could be measured by his brain
Speaker 3: size or by his skull size.
Speaker 2: So they measured the brain, and they found that it was normal size. After the autopsy, there were undertakers who were called to the house to embalm Abraham Lincoln’s body. Now, they had developed a new embalming practice. During the Civil War, when 750,000 people died, there was a mass death that had occurred in America, carnage that had never been seen before, a
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