Lincolns view of the world in one word, the word is is. He believes the United States is a country not the United States are. In the prior, states were reviewed as part of an overall confederation of states. He believed we were one country. And he wanted to bring the Southern States back. Second, he wanted to improve the status and the lot of the lives of the americans the africanamericans living in the United States of the time it. Those who were free before, and certainly those who became free. Many of them as a result of lincolns own efforts. When he was killed, everything changed. It sent back relations in this country over 100 years. And it setback the quality of life, and the economy and social development of the Southern States to the point where many Southern States to this day are lagging behind the rest of the country in education and health care and in so many other criteria. Would this have been different if lincoln survived . Impossible to know. But he would have tried. He was facing a congress that did not want to go that route. They wanted revenge. And that was racist. Lincoln certainly had a lot of racist views. But could he have changed the course of American History if he had survived . I dont know. But i certainly think that the assassination of lincoln change the course of america in a way that, again, we are probably still suffering from. Remarkably, a few days after the assassination, Jefferson Davis the president of the confederacy, made a statement of the saddest thing that happened to the south other than the civil war itself was the murder of Abraham Lincoln. There is a new book out professor at nyu morning lincoln, which talked about how different people react to the assassination itself. There are so many mysteries about the lincoln assassination. But one of them that there is no mystery about is who did it. Obviously, and the kennedy assassination, did lee harvey also will do it or did someone jump up from behind the car really grassy knoll or what have you. With the lincoln assassination it was almost immediately determined to John Wilkes Booth did it. People recognized him as he walked down the theater, people knew who he was. Booth himself kept a diary in the 12 days after the assassination, before he himself was killed. In which he talked about killing lincoln. He had a band of conspirators, all of whom identified booth as the leader of the conspiracy. There was no doubt the John Wilkes Booth did it. The question we have to ask was John Wilkes Booth the head of the conspiracy or was there someone else about him . Did someone steer booth to do it . Northern abolitionists and what have you, we will go into those. The first part of this talk at and again, there will be two parts. The first part is that what happened. What were the events of the day and days after . In the second, was there a conspiracy involved . This is the last picture taken of president lincoln, the day after the civil war ended on april 10, four days before his assassination. This is the picture you see in the Washington Post all the time. What you dont see is the glass plate cracked when the photographer took it. And the photographer said this is a bad sign, and lincoln said no, its a glass plate that cracked. He didnt think this was much he didnt make much of these types of symbolic act. It is important to note, when you think about the lincoln assassination, the John Wilkes Booths original desire was not to kill lincoln, it was to kidnap lincoln. And to kidnap lincoln during the course of the civil war, bring him to the south and trade him for confederate soldiers particularly towards the end of the war when the confederacy was running out of soldiers, on at least two occasions excuse me, i have a bit of a cold. On at least two occasions, booth went to try and kidnap lincoln. Once when lincoln was going to the soldiers home in northwest and lincoln had too many soldiers, so booth stopped and didnt do anything. The second time, lincoln didnt show up where he was expected to come. How do we deal with this assassination . A good place to start is where it started. A rock n roll restaurant in chinatown. Its on sixth and 8th street. Here it is again. Rock n roll. Wok n roll. Im sure no one will be surprised that it was not a Chinese Restaurant and 65. In 1855, this is what it looks like. It was a boarding house owned by a woman by the name of mary surratt. Today there is a plaque outside of it. If you go there, it says where the conspirators plotted the induction of abraham like in 1865. So before looking at the plot to murder lincoln, lets look at the plot to kidnap lincoln. In doing that, we are going to meet most of the Major Players in our story. The first one to look at is a woman by the name of mary surratt. Who was born either in 1823, she was relatively early in her life, she converted to become a catholic and became very devout catholic, which played a role in her later problems. Goes there was huge anticatholicism sentiment in the country. She got married to a man by the name of john surratt when she was either 17 or 20 years old in 1840. It was in a stream late tumultuous marriage, he drank heavily, he was pretty violent he failed to pay his debts, had a violent temper, despite that somehow they were still able to produce three children. Only two of whom are important to our story. The first is their daughter, elizabeth, whom everyone called anna, and so i will call her hannah for the rest of this talk. And a sun, john junior. In 1853, john senior was able to obtain a piece of land in a suburb of washington that today is still called surratt smelled. Surrattville. That there is a surratt high school, i find it bizarre. That there is traffic onslaught highway, i find a bizarre. The places are named for the people involved in the assassination of lincoln. John senior built a tavern on his land, and that was one of the sources of their income. The tavern still stands, and if you go on the two are tour, one of the first stops is the tavern. Its a place where booth stored weapons and binoculars, place where mary surratt went on the day of the assassination. John surratt also bought a townhouse, the address of the time was 541 8th street, its now 604. They change the numbers. Its still the same house. After his death, the house, mary surratt use it as a boarding house and it became the main source of her income. She was very much a racist, they owned slaves, they had to sell their slaves in order to pay off their debts. Both the tavern and the boarding house were used by confederates as places to house spies as places where they could stay and rest for a while. And leave as dropoff points. Their sun, john junior, who is one of the more fascinating characters of many fascinating characters we will meet, went to college at centrals college in maryland. Saint Charles College in maryland. When the civil war began, he was 17 years old and he decided it would be more exciting to be to join the Confederate Secret Service and be a spy and go to class. He probably wouldve done the same if he had been in one of my classes. Now its time to talk about some of the folks who rented rooms from mrs. Iraq. One of them who did was a man by the name of george at saratov. He was born in germany moved to the United States when he was eight years old. In 1843, even though he came as a child, he spent the rest of his life speaking with a heavy german accent. He ran a carriage repair shop, the equivalent of an auto repair dealership. In a town in maryland coal port tobacco. People called him for tobacco. Port tobacco. He was introduced to John Wilkes Booth five surratt junior. He stated he stayed at the boarding house until he was thrown out for being drunk. They did not like each other this will come back, again we talk about this a little later on. Even after he was kicked out of living at the boarding house she had seven rooms and as many as 10 and 12 borders in the seven rooms. George would show up for the meetings in the parlor. This again becomes quite significant. Another person who stayed at the boarding house was lewis powell. It was powell was born in alabama in 1844. He lied about his age when the civil war began in 1861. He said he was 19 years old, he was 17 years old in order that he could enlist in the Confederate Army. He was a very big, very strong human being. Some people question whether he was very bright, but that is a different matter. He certainly was an enormous character. Probably about 63. He kept effecting from the Confederate Army and then reenlisting when he felt like it. He made his way to baltimore in january of 1855, where he met john surratt junior. Who in turn introduced him to John Wilkes Booth. And later on, as this Conspiracy Group became more coherence powell became the number three. Booth was number one, surratt junior was number two. Powell was number three. He moved into this rod boarding house and stayed there most of the time until the events of april. The next person that we will meet is david herold. David herold group in washington, didnt need to stay in this rod boarding house, but did spend some nights there. He was a student at georgetown no he was not my student at georgetown. For very obvious reasons. He studied pharmacy, and i teach history. [laughter] prof. Nurnberger the fact that he died in 1865 was probably contributing factor him napping my student. At 18 years old and 1860, hes received a pharmacies are to forget and then took jobs working for physicians and a drug stores for clerks. He became acquainted with john surratt while he was attending classes at Charlotte Hall military academy in the late 1850s. In december of 1864 sirota junior introduced him to John Wilkes Booth. The next person is someone who may or may not come in all likelihood may not have been one of the conspirators. But there are some historians who believe he was. I dont think so. And that is a man by the name of lewis why shouldnt. Lewis why shouldnt. Wightman. At the behest of his mother, he agreed to study to become a Roman Catholic priest. He was admitted to the seminary at st. Charles college in maryland. There he met and befriended a fellow student i the name of john surratt junior. You can see this is sirota junior, he is quite key to the story. As a result of his early friendship with sirota junior when the civil war broke out they parted ways. Sirota john surratt junior became a career for the confederacy, and he took a job in todays equivalent of the dod. He moved into this to rot the su boarding house. Rrat. He would become a witness for the prosecution later on. Other friends of both who did not stay the boarding house but showed up to the meetings in the parlor michaela, a lifelong friend of booth. He joined the Confederate Army but was discharged in 1862. He agreed to participate in the first kidnap plots, the plot to kidnap lincoln and trade him for soldiers. The plot didnt go anywhere, and he quits. When he heard about the lincoln assassination, and found out who was involved, he turned himself in. Even though he had nothing to do with the assassination, he wound up being one of the eight targets who was tried for the assassination. He thought he was going to just be turning himself in to give testimony, the next and he knows he is being tried for murder. And ultimately winds up getting a life sentence. The next person again did not state the boarding house as far as i know, but showed up to the meetings in the parlor, samuel arnold. He dropped out of the conspiracy after the kidnap plot was dropped. So basically, booth relies on john surratt junior, lewis powell, and others. Ultimately eight people are tried for the myrtle or murder of lincoln. Four and up being hanged. As for john surratt, and i would tell you now. But its one of those where you are going to say you are making it up. That brings us, of course, to the key figure in our story John Wilkes Booth. John wilkes booth was born in bel air, maryland, in 1838. His parents were the leading shakespearean actors in england, man by the name of junius booth. His mistress, marianne holmes. Junius had a different family in england, he came to the United States with his mistress. They came in 1821, they were welloff, they bought a 150 acre farm where john wilkes was born and grew up. His father later built in the state on it, which was called tudor hall, which is still there. The family used it as a summer residence while maintaining a winter residence in baltimore. You can tell these are not poor folks. John was named after a british politician by the name of john wilkes, who is one of my favorite characters in all of history. When i was getting my masters i had a paper from Richard Hofstetter asked if you could meet any one character and history, who would you like to meet and i said john wilkes. Different topic, fascinating guy. Wilkes college is named after him. Juniors booth, a chronic alcoholic. He constantly was on the road wasnt around very much. Wilkes himself suffered from a we would call learning disabilities. He had difficulties learning to read and write. As a child, he was noted mainly for torturing and killing cats. His longsuffering mother doted on him, and felt that her handsome little boy could do no wrong. This gave wilkes the belief that all women thought of him in the same way. And he had tremendous charismatic appeal to women which again, we will talk about a little bit. As an actor, he was certainly not as good an actor as his brothers. Were his father. But he was a notorious scene stealer. He would jump around the stage wave weapons, he would scream and yell. He would do gymnastics. In one review, the New York Times calls him the handsomest man in america. He stood 59 inches, jet black hair, lean and athletic. His stage performances were characterized by acrobatics. He frequently came to believe his roles were real. And sometimes he would have duels with characters in plays and that he would try and kill them. This is not a good thing with your fellow actors. In fact, some of his fellow actors would leave performances bloodied i booth because of their encounters. Walt whitman wrote of him, he has flashes of true genius, he may be the finest actor in america. He was certainly a major figure in the american theater. As the 1850s were drawing to a close, he was becoming wealthy as an actor. His annual salary was in excess of 20,000 a year. Which translated into todays money is well in excess of half 1 million. He wasted a lot of money, he lived farm of his means. He got very upset because he got involved in a very bad Oil Speculation and lost a ton of money. But more than that, he was outspoken in his racism. His dislike of africanamericans. In his support for slavery. His support for the south. Despite that, despite his political views, he kept getting very good job offers. And very good roles. He played romeo and Juliet Richard the third in new york city and he, again to give you an idea of the mans ego, here is his business card. His email address, and phone number on the back. He didnt even put his name down. He was so well known. In 1863, family friend of his by the name of john ford opened a new theater in washington on 10th street. Now called fords theatre, then calls for a year as well. Then called fords theater as well. Lincoln in particular enjoyed watching booth performed. In fact, he went and watched booth and number of times, on november 9 1863, booth performed to play called the marble heart at fords theater. And lincoln sat in the same area where he was ultimately killed, in the same seat where he was ultimately killed, and watched booth performed. And was so moved to send booth a note saying would you please come to the white house, i would like to meet you. And booth said absolutely not. I would rather have the applause of a nigger then to me that president. On another occasion, lincoln took his sun tad to perform it. Booth was so excited to meet the president s 11yearold son in he gave him arose. Lincoln asked him to meet and booth said no. Less than five months before the assassination, the number 25 1864, booth appeared for the only time with his two brothers. Edwin, who was probably the greatest shakespearean actor in the United States in the 19th century, and his other brother junius. It was a single engagement of julius caesar, performed at the Winter Garden theatre in new york. Wilkes played with Anthony Edwin played brutus. The New York Times referred to as the greatest Theatrical Event in new york history. The proceeds for this performance went to charity, to purchase a statue to be built in honor of William Shakespeare which to this day still stands in central park. My favorite character in the whole story. Lucy. February 1865, wilkes meets the daughter of abraham for senator and they become engaged. I doubt that the senator would have been happy with his soninlaw. He was abolitionist, he felt strongly that africanamericans deserve rights and here is this racist proslavery actor. So they didnt tell anyone that they were engaged. She is intriguing. Before dating booth, she dated all over Wendell Holmes junior, and Robert Todd Lincoln. Busey on say dated lincoln sun i dont make this booths fiance dated lincolns son. How to why for is this she had a freethinking outlook on life. She didnt mind that booth had other mistresses, and she had other f