WEBVTT - Lincoln’s Final Days 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:15.440 And we continue with our American stories up next, The short, 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:21.599 happy life of Abraham Lincoln his final days. By all accounts, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.080 good Friday, just two days before Easter on April fourteenth, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:30.680 eighteen sixty five, was the happiest day of President Abraham 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.000 Lincoln's life. It had most certainly been the happiest few 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.839 weeks of his life, according to James Swanson, author of 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:43.040 the New York Times bestseller Manhunt, the twelve Day Chase 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:48.680 for Lincoln's killer. Here is what Swanson wrote. Lincoln had 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:53.440 won the war. Richmond fell on April third, Lee surrendered 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.640 on April ninth, and Lincoln gave his final speech from 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:01.720 the White House grounds the evening of April eleven, the 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.920 night before the night Lincoln was shot by his assassin. 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:09.039 Local newspapers reported it being the most beautiful night in 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.720 the history of Washington, as the city celebrated the ending 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:19.479 of the bloodiest and costliest war ever fought on American soil. Fireworks, flares, 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.800 and other sources of every imaginable variety illuminated the evening's 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:29.039 sky again. James Swanson, one of the papers, said that 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.200 the Capital Dome was so beautiful that night that it 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.039 looked like a second moon had descended upon the earth 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.480 as a sign of God's favor for the Union and 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:45.199 for the victory. The very next morning, an idyllic spring 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.520 morning on April fourteen, Lincoln met his son, who'd been 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.520 working for General George Meade, and then he met with 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:56.680 his cabinet. A rare visitor joined that last meeting Lincoln 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.240 would ever hold with his staff none other than you, 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:04.440 General Ulysses S. Grant. They discussed affairs of state, and 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.840 things ended with Lincoln sharing a dream he'd had the 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.120 night before. In it, he was at the head of 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:17.360 a mysterious vessel moving towards a distant shore. He was alone. 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.520 Lincoln added that whenever he had that dream, and he'd 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.400 had it many times before during the war, something of 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:30.760 critical importance transpired. I'm convinced something of major significance is 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:36.440 about to happen, Lincoln told his men. When the meeting ended, 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.120 he and his bride, Mary, took a carriage ride to 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:42.640 enjoy the open air and talk about matters of the heart. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:49.160 Here again is James Swanson. During that ride, Lincoln told 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.520 her he knew they'd been very unhappy ever since the 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.200 death of their eleven year old son Willie in the 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:59.560 White House in eighteen sixty two. The death count in 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.000 the Civil War over six hundred thousand, had taken its 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.120 toll on Lincoln two. It had been a crushing burden 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.560 on him, and the two of them had grown apart 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.239 during the war for so many reasons. He told Mary, 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.040 we must be happy again. Mary even wrote a note 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:23.080 later that day about her husband's rejuvenated spirit. You alarm me, 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.760 she said, because I have never seen you this happy 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.840 since just before the death of our child. Just two 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.600 days before Easter, the day Christians around the world celebrate 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.360 the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Lincoln had experienced a resurrection 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:44.160 of his own. That night, he and Mary attended Our 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.360 American Cousin, a popular comedy of the day by British 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.560 playwright Tom Taylor. The couple arrived at Ford's Theater thirty 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.200 minutes late, and the play was stopped immediately as the 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:00.840 band rose and played Hail to the Chief went wild. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.480 They were celebrating their great leader. They were also celebrating 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.960 the end of a terrible war. They too had borne 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.120 the heavy burden of the greatest conflict on American soil. 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:19.160 They too had the feeling of being reborn. That moment 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.240 may well have been the happiest of Lincoln's life. On 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.719 the day that marked a new and happy beginning to 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:30.320 Lincoln's life and the nation's John Wilkes, Booth was plotting 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:36.159 to make it the president's last Here's James Swanson on Booth. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.400 The twenty six year old was one of the most 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.279 popular actors in America. Exceedingly handsome and athletic. Women and 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.640 men would stop in the street to watch him as 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:53.839 he passed. Generous, vain, funny, egomaniacal, politically motivated to be 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.480 a lover of the South, and a supporter of slavery 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:01.200 who once said slavery is the best thing that ever 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:07.000 happened to the black man. On the day Lincoln gave 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.560 his last speech from the White House, Crowns Both was present, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.320 seated not far from him. When Lincoln spoke to the 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.919 adoring crowd about giving blacks the right to vote. Both 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.960 turned to a Confederate sympathizer he knew well and said, 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:27.000 that's the last speech he'll ever give. It turns out 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.120 Booth had considered killing Lincoln before. At the president's second 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:35.400 inaugural address, he sat a mere fifty feet from the 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:40.480 man he hated. Here's James Wanson getting drunk at a bar. 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:44.400 Shortly after that, Booth pounded his fist on the table 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.880 and said to a friend, what an excellent chance I 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:52.880 had to kill the President on inauguration day. He was 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.720 almost as close to me as you are now. Then 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.560 came the catalyst that drove Booth into action. While visiting 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.839 Ford's Theater midday to pick up his mail, a woman 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.760 told the actor that Lincoln was attending the play that night. That, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:14.440 according to James Swanson, set off the imaginary clock counting 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:19.520 down in Booth's head. What motivated one of the leading 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.280 actors of his day to do such a thing again, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:28.080 James Swanson, Lincoln was an American caesar. To Booth, he 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.240 wanted to punish Lincoln the tyrant. He hoped to change history, 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:36.080 and of course he wanted eternal fame. He had it 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.640 in his lifetime. But Booth wanted to be immortalized as 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:44.839 a Southerner and ultimately an American patriot. The rest of 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:50.200 the story, what Herman Melville called that bloody awful night, 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:56.320 is embedded in the American memory. The details of the 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:01.520 assassination Notwithstanding, what Booth did that night was what James 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:07.640 Swanson called a new art form performance assassination. Woth wasn't 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.440 on a suicide mission. He had an actual escape plan. 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:15.400 What he really wanted, Swanson noted, was to be seen 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:21.520 and celebrate. Again. Here's James Swanson when he crept to 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.640 the President's box and shot Lincoln and jumped to the 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.840 stage of Ford's theater. Wuth wasn't wearing a disguise, He 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:33.280 hadn't shaved his mustache. He did nothing to conceal himself 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.440 when he turned to the audience and faced them and 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:43.200 cried out the state motto of Virginia. That motto, sick 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:48.280 semper tyrannus is a Latin phrase meaning thus always to tyrants. 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.120 Those words were followed by the last words Booth ever 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:58.520 uttered on an American stage, the South is avenged. As 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.480 he left the stage, alted to himself, and only few 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:08.480 people heard it, I have done it. Booth then escaped 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.520 to the back of the theater, jumped on his waiting horse, 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.400 and rode off into the night. The largest man hunting 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.960 American history ensued. Booth was found twelve days later outside 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:24.400 of Port Royal, Virginia, trapped in a tobacco barn, the 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.440 cavalry set the building on fire to force him out. 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.239 When he reached for his rifle and headed for the door, 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:35.439 Sergeant Boston Corbett pulled his pistol and fired only once, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.720 striking Booth in the neck and severing his spine. He 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:45.320 would die within hours, a slow, miserable death. Back at 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.320 Ford's Theater on Good Friday, America's beloved president lay dying 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.240 in his box. He was attended by three doctors, who 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.840 had concluded quickly that the wound was mortal and that 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.520 the theater was simply not an appropriate place for a 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.840 man like him to die. So those men carried him 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.320 from his box, down the stairs and into the street, 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.680 looking for a place to make the President of the 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.920 United States as comfortable as he possibly could be, and 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.880 the few hours of life he had left to live. 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.960 A person staying at the Peterson House, just across the 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.880 street from Ford's Theater, was quick to help. The doctors 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.000 rushed Lincoln in and took him directly to the back 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.200 of the bedroom, where he died the next morning, on 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:38.320 April fifteenth. As he died that night, a light, cold 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.880 rain began to fall over Washington. It was as if 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.960 the very heavens wept at the loss of our beloved President. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.120 Thus ended the short happy life of the Great Emancipator 0:09:53.600 --> 0:10:00.920 Abraham Lincoln. The opening stanza of Walt whitman epic poem, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.960 when Lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed, captured the nation's 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:13.280 grief in Way's mere prose could not when lilacs last 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.280 in the dooryard bloomed, and the great star early drooped 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.960 in the western sky in the night, I mourned, and 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:27.920 yet shall mourn with ever returning spring, ever returning Spring. Trinity. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:33.319 Sure to me you bring lilac blooming, perennial and drooping 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.600 star in the west, and thought of him. I love 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:44.680 the short happy life of President Abraham Lincoln, his final 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.199 days here on our American stories.