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Abraham Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865, was more than just the murder of a president—it was a pivotal moment that launched an unprecedented national ritual of grief that would forever transform how Americans viewed their 16th president.
What many don't realize is that John Wilkes Booth wasn't just any assassin—he was arguably the most famous actor in America, a genuine celebrity heartthrob "with women tearing at his clothes." His star status gave him complete access to Ford's Theater, where Lincoln had gone to see "Our American Cousin" despite looking physically ravaged by the war at just 56 years old. While Booth succeeded in killing Lincoln, his co-conspirators failed in their attempts to assassinate Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State Seward (though Seward was severely wounded and disfigured).
The three-week funeral journey that followed stands as one of the most extraordinary public spectacles in American history. Lincoln's embalmed body traveled by train through city after city, retracing in reverse the route he had taken to Washington in 1861. At each stop, his body was displayed for public viewing while an embalmer fought a losing battle with decomposition—by the final stops, Lincoln's lips had shrunk to reveal a ghastly grin that required constant touching up.
Perhaps most fascinating is what happened after the funeral. For decades, Lincoln's remains faced repeated theft attempts, including a brazen 1876 plot that failed only because the robbers couldn't lift his 500-pound lead-lined coffin. For years afterward, his coffin was hidden under a pile of garbage in the tomb's basement. His son Robert eventually had his father permanently secured by encasing the coffin in ten feet of concrete—ensuring that the martyred president would remain eternally undisturbed, much like the mythologized image of Lincoln that Robert carefully curated by destroying personal papers and controlling his father's narrative.
The funeral procession didn't just bury a president—it birthed an American icon, transforming a deeply controversial wartime leader into the marble figure we revere today. Subscribe to hear more forgotten stories that reveal the complex humanity behind our nation's most mythologized figures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good morning everyone and welcome back to A Better
Life, new York.
This is part two of ourconversation with Jack Stanley
regarding Lincoln'sassassination and the facts and
circumstances that surround theassassination, as well as his
funeral.
I hope you enjoy this as muchas you've watched and listened
(00:30):
to part one.
Please know that video isavailable on YouTube and audio
is also available by all themajor podcast services, which is
Apple and Spotify.
Those are the two main ones,but there are many others and
we're on them all.
So part two of LincolnAssassination and the
(00:51):
Surrounding Circumstances withJack Stanley.
Thank you all for listening.
Please like and subscribe, andwe look forward to your comments
for future subjects ofconversation.
Thank you for future subjectsof conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you.
I have to imagine that, and yousee it, the physical change in
Lincoln, that the toll of justendless death, endless horror,
endless hatred for him, had tohave its effect on him and he
(01:29):
looks like a very old man by thetime we get to 1865.
He's only 56 years old, but helooks like hell.
He looks like hell and hevisits the South and then April
(01:53):
14th, goes to Ford's Theater.
He saw the show before and heconvinces his wife to go see it
again.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Then he loses interest and she's the one that
pushes him to go my Americancousin, our American cousin.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Our American cousin.
And our American cousin is acomedy and it's famous for a
great line in the play whereeveryone loses it.
And of course John Wilkes Boothis very familiar with the play.
(02:31):
He's part of that whole groupunder Mrs Surratt, that would
meet at her home.
They were thinking ofkidnapping Lincoln, but
eventually he just says, let'sjust, let's just go.
And then he sets the other guysup to also kill Johnson and
(02:52):
also Seward.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Right.
It's funny, is, I think, whatpeople was lost in our teaching
of history is that how famousJohn Wilkes Booth was, him and
his family at the time.
He is probably the mostrecognizable man in America.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, he was a heartthrob at the time.
He's the first actor to havewomen tearing at his clothes.
Okay, he was that kind ofpersonality and he was from the
Booth family, going back to hisfather and his brother, Edwin
Booth.
(03:33):
I used to spend some time atthe Players Club in New York
City Right.
That was founded by Edwin Boothand the Booth Theater is still
on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
And up.
It's an interesting thing up onthe top floor of the Players
Club is Edwin Booth's apartmentand they have saved it as it was
since the time of his death in,I think, 1893.
And there, next to his bed, hekept a picture of his brother,
John Wilkes.
Of his brother, Because it wasa painful, painful thing for
(04:12):
Edwin Booth when this happened,because his name was totally
sullied and he stops performingimmediately and steps away from
the stage and writes a longletter of apology to the
American people.
But he feels that his career isover and it's, I think, about a
(04:37):
year or possibly a little laterthan that.
He is convinced to come back onstage and he is absolutely
terrified.
He's afraid someone will shoothim and he says he was ready and
the curtain opened and heappeared and the entire audience
stood and applauded it wasn'thim it wasn't him, but he was
(05:05):
terrified and the audience lethim know.
We understand, it wasn't you.
And also there's a littleinteresting story with Edwin
Booth.
It was in New Jersey at a trainstop where Robert Lincoln fell
(05:28):
onto the tracks and Edwin Boothwent down and helped him up from
the tracks before the trainarrived.
It wasn't as big a deal as theymade it out to sound like he
saved his life.
The train was roaring by, hefell and he helped him.
Yes, and the interesting thingis that Robert Lincoln was
(05:54):
helped by a booth and AbrahamLincoln was also killed by a
booth.
It's interesting, the twodifferent sides there.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So it's interesting, the two different sides there.
So I'm sure everybody's heardout there and exactly what
happens.
I mean, booth can walk aroundthe theater like a god because
everybody knows him.
So it wasn't like he had thissecret that he slid past
everyone and hid.
Everyone knew him, he wasfamous, he went in there and no
one thought a second thing abouthaving him there.
(06:27):
Then of course he he gets intothe, the, the booth excuse the
expression where where umlincoln is, and he pulls out a
gun to the back of his head andkills him.
Yeah, but then of course hejumps down and apparently his
spur gets caught on the on theflag on the flag and he breaks
(06:50):
his leg um and uh.
You know it's reported that whathe says is six semper tyrannis
is that what it is the motto ofvirginia yeah is yeah To all
tyrants right.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, being an actor, he couldn't help himself.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I know that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's Shakespeare out of the thing.
And the interesting thing is aswell, you know, booth had been
there in the afternoon at Ford'sTheater and cut a hole in the
door and also fixed things so hecould get in, and so he had
everything all set up in advanceand he had a single shot,
(07:41):
derringer and a knife and I meanI mean it's a point blank range
.
I mean he pulls it right up tothe back of his head and fires
and the bullet lodges rightbehind his, I believe, his right
(08:04):
eye.
And there are some that say andI don't know how true this is,
was it the right eye or was itthe left eye?
I'm always trying to remember.
I think it was the right eye,but if it's the left eye, I'm
sorry, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
One of the eyes.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The thing is, I've heard from some historians that
Lincoln sensed something andstarted to turn his head, which
would make it the left eye.
I don't know whether that'strue or not, but nonetheless the
deed was done.
The deed was done.
Rathbone, who is with Lincolnwith his fiance, jumps up and
tries to attack Booth, and Boothslashes him with his knife,
(08:56):
cuts open an artery and blood isflying all over the place.
And Mary Lincoln, who's stillholding her husband's hand, you
know suddenly realizes he's beenshot because he basically just
falls forward because of theforce of the shot, and then she
lets out with one of her bullets, hurtling screams.
(09:25):
People in the audience arethinking is this part of the
show Right?
And it takes a few moments foreveryone to realize that the
president has been shot,especially when Booth comes up
on the stage and does his greatand then hops away because he
can't run, because he's got thebroken bone, and then he slashes
his knife toward people comingnear him and they all have to
(09:46):
get out of the way.
His horse is waiting for himoutside because he had a fellow
waiting, and off he goes andeveryone is like confused for a
few moments and stunned intosilence, until finally one of
the doctors that happens to bein the audience realizes what's
going on, tries to get in.
(10:07):
The door is locked.
The booth had locked the doorto the booth and they have to
bash it down and they get inthere.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So originally he cut that hole.
He was going to shoot himthrough that hole, wasn't he?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
No, he wanted to be able to observe what was going
on.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Oh, okay, to shoot him through that hole was no, he
wanted to be able to observewhat was going on.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Oh, okay so he knew and he waited.
As I was mentioning before,there's a great line in that.
In that play yousaccadigitalize an old man, trap
you or something like that, andthe audience went crazy
laughing.
That's when he fires right.
Um, lincoln is pretty well deadat that point.
(10:49):
He's hardly, he's not evenbreathing at that point.
And the doctor puts his fingerin into the wound in the head
where he finds it Right, andbreaks the clot and it starts to
bleed and then he startsbreathing again.
Wow, that's pretty brilliant,yeah.
And then he announces that thewound is mortal.
(11:14):
And then they try to figure outwhat to do with him.
Because they don't want toleave him in the booth there.
They take him outside, which isinteresting.
They take him outside beforeanyone knows where to put him
and finally someone yells bringhim here.
And it is right across thestreet.
(11:40):
And they bring him into thehouse, take him all the way
through the house to the backroom and lay him on a bed.
He doesn't quite fit in.
Now, they don't know where he'swounded besides the head, so
(12:00):
they completely strip him of hisclothes and basically examine
him and find it's just a woundto the head, but it's, it's
mortal, I mean it's, and helingers for quite a while.
Until what is it?
722 in the morning and thenStanton, who was basically
(12:29):
running the show, who basicallysays I'm in charge.
He's like he takes over thegovernment.
Very much familiar when Reagangot shot, if you remember that,
that whole thing, alexanderHiggs.
Yeah, alexander Higgs, I'm incharge.
And he proclaims now he belongsto the angels or now he
(12:53):
belonged to the ages no one'squite sure what he said and two
coins are put over Lincoln'seyes as he's laying in that bed
the Peterson house, as I recall.
I have something here actuallyfrom that.
This is a photograph of the bedhe was in and the pillow, with
(13:29):
the bloodstained pillow, takenby the occupant of that room who
happened to be a photographer,and next to it is a strip of
wallpaper from that room.
Wow, is a strip of wallpaperfrom that room.
Wow, that wallpaper was takenout in the 1890s and was from a
(13:56):
collection owned by a professorLatimer of Columbia University
and he had a lot of Lincolnstuff that he had and that came
up for auction and I wasfortunate to get a little chunk
of it, which was kind of cool,nice and.
(14:16):
But that Peterson house becomesa place of pilgrimage and
anything dealing with it.
The place is ravaged.
People are tearing pieces ofthis and everything else.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Who else was attacked that night simultaneously?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Seward.
Seward was attacked.
Seward was attacked by pain andit's an interesting thing, the
thing that saves Seward he hadbeen injured a few weeks before
in a carriage accident, that'sright, and he was wearing the
steel cage that was holdingeverything in place and pain
(15:01):
came announcing.
He was from the drugstoredelivering medications for
Seward and they said well, youcan't see him.
And so he attacks Seward's sonwith his gun, doesn't shoot him,
he hits him with it andbasically fractures his skull
(15:22):
and tears the skull right to thebone.
Really, this guy, payne, is amonster of a guy Monstrously
strong, not exceedingly bright,but he goes in, works his way
into the bedchamber where Sewardis lying in his bed in this
(15:45):
cage, and then just startsslashing him and the only reason
that he isn't killed is becauseof that cage.
The cage deflects the knife andhe slices part of his face away
.
Terrible injuries and they werethinking he was going to die.
(16:05):
But he survives.
But he is disfigured the restof his life and he will only
pose with one view that totallyhides the other side of his face
, which is just very disfiguredfrom all the knife damage.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So and someone else was attacked.
I mean, there were plans to geteverybody, but some people
backed out, right?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yes, the guy who was going to attack Johnson.
I can't think of his name offthe top of my head.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But he got scared and backed out right.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
He got drunk oh happens and then chickened out,
although he did leave a note forJohnson with his name, which
was kind of interesting.
Just the brightest thing.
I'll get you next time.
Yeah, and it's an brightestthing, I'll get you next time.
(17:05):
Yeah, and it's an interestingthing.
Think, had he done it, it wouldhave put the entire government
in chaos, and I forget who wouldbe next in line at that point.
Speaker of the House.
Yeah, okay, the Speaker of theHouse.
(17:25):
Okay, I don't know who in lineat that point.
Speaker of the House.
Yeah, okay, the Speaker of theHouse.
Okay, I don't know who that wasat that point.
Off the top of my head, I can'tthink of it either.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And then the President of the Senate and then
it goes after that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
But Secretary of State goes around Lincoln's dead
and his body's collected andbrought to the White House and
he is embalmed and I think he'sthe first president to be
(17:57):
embalmed, because otherpresidents beforehand were
basically just cleaned up andburied Right Lincoln's embalmed.
He was very fascinated with itbecause his son, willie, had
died in 1862, and he has Willieembalmed.
(18:22):
And he has Willie embalmed andLincoln would go to the cemetery
often and go to the mausoleumwhere his son was basically put
for a while, open the casket andjust look at his son and he
(18:43):
would do that over severalmonths and just talk to his son.
It's kind of macabre if youthink about it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Oh, he was that, well , yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, lincoln could depress a hyena.
I mean there is that kind ofthing.
I mean he had that in him.
So he is dead.
He is embalmed.
They find the bullet when theybasically open.
They do an autopsy and theyopen the cavity of the brain and
(19:19):
they weigh the brain andeverything and the brain, the
(19:40):
bullet falls out of the brain,making a clicking sound.
Lincoln, who always had issues,emotional issues, what?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
She had lost, had them before the death of her son
, oh yeah, she had them beforethe death of her son.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
But Willie really kind of pushed her almost over
the edge to a point wherePresident Lincoln took Mary to
the window and he pointed overand he said do you see the
asylum down, yonder, mary, Ifyou get much sicker we might
have to take you there.
I mean she was a, she was abasket case once, once her
(20:25):
husband was killed.
I mean she's never right afterthat.
It's sad.
I mean she is a very sad case.
Brilliant, brilliant, verywell-educated, spoke several
languages.
Um, she just uh.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
The white house, the presidency for which she was
such a strong putcher for, uh,he didn't want it was the
greatest detriment to her life.
Even their whole courtship wasbizarre, if I remember correctly
.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, yeah, he takes her out dancing and says you
know, I, I, you know I guess I'mdancing in the worst way.
And she said, yes, mr McGee,but she was also courted by
Douglas, right, you know, shewas a pretty hot tomato in her
time, you know, hot tomato inher time, you know, and she was
(21:24):
very rich in her very wealthyfamily and beautiful in those
days and she had very prettyshoulders.
She would always show off hershoulders, which was very daring
in those days.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
She was very short, right, she was 5'4" and she was,
was it him?
He was infatuated with someother woman before her and that
sort of broke him up the firsttime or something.
I don't remember the entirestory.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
He got kind of cold feet.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And you know he often did what his friend Speed did.
Speed got married and told himhe's very happy and that kind of
pushed Lincoln along to finallyget married.
But Lincoln had problems beforewith other women and I can't
(22:33):
think of the names off the topof my head.
But here's something veryinteresting here.
Here's another set of books.
This is the three-volume set byWilliam Hernon, who was
Lincoln's law partner, and it'scalled Hernon's Lincoln and a
(23:06):
lot of people didn't like thebook because it made Lincoln a
little too human.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Now, the fellow that worked with Herndon was Jesse
Weik Weik W-E-I-K.
How do you pronounce that?
I guess Wieck.
This is autographed by him,which is kind of interesting.
(23:38):
And in these books he suggestslots of things about Lincoln and
he interviewed everybody.
Lots of things about Lincolnand he interviewed everybody and
a lot of people didn't likethese books because it just made
Lincoln seem very human, whichI see no problem with.
But he also suggests thatLincoln might have caught some
(24:02):
venereal disease from seeingvarious women.
He suggests that in the bookhere that he might have passed
to Mary.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And that's what could have made her yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
It's just a suggestion.
We don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Who knows?
No one knows, but not even surethey knew at the time.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
But this is a fascinating there's a little bit
of a caveat to these bookswhich I got these from the
library of the entertainer JimmyDurante.
Really he was an avid historyfan and these were from his
personal library.
Just kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
So just to finish up on the funeral.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Just to finish up on Booth for a minute.
So Booth runs away, has abroken leg.
Sooner or later he finds adoctor to set it right.
Yeah, and his name happens tobe Mudd.
Yes, and that's really wherethe phrase comes from.
(25:24):
You know, at that time periodno one wanted to be called Mudd.
That's a kind of unfortunatestory.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You know, you think about it.
He had no idea, but he knewthat Booth wanted to get rid of
Lincoln.
He was aware of that but he hadno idea that anything had
happened.
I don't think Booth told himanything had happened.
He set Booth's leg and wasbasically charged as a
(26:01):
conspirator.
And he does get released earlybecause he does help a lot of
prisoners during an epidemic andhe doesn't live that much
longer after that.
A very fascinating thing thecommentator, the newsman Roger
Mudd, was a direct descendant.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I did not know that.
I did not know that.
Well, what's interesting aboutMudd too is, if you think about
it, you know, the oath of beinga doctor is to treat the patient
.
That's right in front of you,right?
Yes, indeed.
So to pick and choose you don'tpick and choose patients that
basically, you're going to facemore than criticism.
(26:46):
You're going to faceprosecution by following your
Hippocratic oath, and that's thedeal.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, indeed, indeed.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So Now I know you want to get to the part where we
came here to talk to thefuneral.
This is our preamble.
Yeah, it was our preamble Anhour and 20 minutes in, and now
we're going to talk about whatwe came here to talk to the
funeral.
This is our preamble.
Yeah, it was our preamble Anhour and 20 minutes in, and now
we're going to talk about whatwe came here to talk about.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
This is fun.
I enjoy this.
This is great to talk aboutthis stuff and I hope we can do
this with a number of presidentsand historic events, because
it's great to share theknowledge back and forth and
have this kind of a wonderfulconversation.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Well, I think about at this present time.
I think a lot about presidentsignoring the United States
Supreme Court's edict, and Ithink about the American Indians
yes, I'm thinking of AndrewJackson Andrew Jackson, correct,
(27:52):
and I think about that himtelling the United States
Supreme Court well, you may have, but how are you going to
enforce it?
It's unbelievable.
So I think about that, but Ican edit that out too.
So the funeral, yeah, well,lincoln's unbelievable.
So I think about that, but Ican edit that out too.
So the funeral, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Well, lincoln's dead.
He has a special casket madefor him it's called a coffin in
those days because it'swedge-shaped and he is, as I
said, embalmed, made up, dressedin his second inauguration suit
(28:34):
and laid out in the White House.
And then there's a period ofpublic grief.
Also, it is well known at thatpoint that Robert E Lee is
terrified over the fact thatLincoln's been killed and he
(28:58):
starts sending letters to peoplesaying you know, this is not a
good thing, this is the worstthing that could happen to us,
because it looks like the Southhas done this.
And he tells don't do guerrillawarfare, don't fight, just give
(29:19):
up, end, stop this.
And he does all this In 1865,the whole country was absolutely
in shambles.
You know, lee surrenders onApril 9th, April 14th, 15th,
lincoln's murdered Seward isnearly murdered.
(29:42):
You have a vice president whois strongly disliked by the
political class.
He had a little issue at theinauguration.
He was suffering from the fluand someone suggested that he
have a couple of few snoots ofalcohol to help him feel better,
(30:06):
and it goes right to his headand he becomes a Tennessee
rambler hall to help him feelbetter.
And it goes right to his headand he becomes a Tennessee
Rambler.
You know, and it was said itwas interesting to watch Lincoln
at that.
He was trying to find a way tofit his six foot four frame
under the chair so he couldn'tbe seen.
And Lincoln never speaks toJohnson.
(30:29):
I mean he's just there forwindow dressing, basically, and
Lincoln never speaks to Johnson.
I mean he's just there forwindow dressing, basically, and
suddenly he's the president andLincoln, as I said, is dressed
up and then we start the threeweeks of funeral.
(30:52):
Think about that Three weeksLincoln travels with an embalmer
Because the body doesn't holdup that well.
Right, you know he's dead andtherefore all of the wounds, the
(31:16):
face keeps turning black fromthe wounds and they're
constantly chalking the face.
And they had done this a littlebit before with two individuals
John Quincy Adams had done manystops and they kept him under
ice, and Henry Clay.
(31:37):
Henry Clay had done somewhatthe same thing, but nowhere near
as long as this.
And what the funeral route waswas a reversal of his route,
coming from Illinois toWashington in 1861, with all the
basic same stops.
And so in each one of thesestops he is brought out, cleaned
(32:05):
up the changes, collars andstuff like that to make him look
presentable and then thousandsand thousands of people view the
body.
This goes on from state to stateto state to state till May.
And by May Lincoln is looking alittle bad.
(32:33):
In fact the lips had kind ofshrunk a little bit, so there
was kind of a toothy grinstarting to show and they had to
kind of fix that.
It was really getting kind ofhorrendous.
And so finally and I think itwas in early May, may 4th or so
(32:54):
he's finally interred in atemporary revolt in Illinois.
There was a big battle inIllinois when are we going to
bury him?
And they said Chicago.
And Mrs Lincoln gets her stufftogether more or less to argue
(33:14):
and she said no, it's going tobe Springfield, illinois.
And they said no, it's going tobe Chicago.
And she said if you keep thisup, I'll have him buried at the
Capitol.
She basically tells him to shutup.
And she said he was there atthe opening of the cemetery and
(33:38):
said this was a beautiful placeand this is where he will be
interred.
And eventually he was.
He was interred in a temporarytomb.
He was interred in a temporarytomb and right from the start
(34:03):
there are threats and weakattempts to steal his body.
Now this goes on for years andwhat they do periodically.
Every few years they open uphis coffin and look inside to
see if he's still there.
They look at him and they saythat's him.
And then they close it.
(34:23):
They finally create the tomb andhe's interred there and then,
on election night, 1876, wheneveryone's busy politicking and
voting, a team of grave robbersbreaks into the tomb.
Now they had found out about itbecause they were loudmouths in
(34:48):
the bar.
Now, they had found out aboutit because they were loudmouths
in the bar and they were inSpringfield.
They were telling people thisis what we're going to do.
Blah, blah, blah.
And they break in, they getinto the tomb and he's in a
sarcophagus, basically in thetomb, and they break it open and
(35:13):
then they start pulling hiscoffin out.
What they did not know was thathis coffin was lead-lined, it
was heavy, it was like 500pounds, and it just falls to the
ground.
They can't really.
They're just dragging it.
They can't get anywhere.
(35:36):
And at that point they'recaptured.
But this was rather upsetting.
And there was the old guard atthe tomb decided we have to hide
him.
So what they did?
They struggled and brought hiscoffin to the basement of the
(35:58):
tomb and there was a pile ofgarbage and they put him under
the pile of garbage and that'swhere they keep him and nobody
knows where he is.
And people are coming to thetomb and looking at the empty
sarcophagus and he's not there.
(36:19):
He's down in the basement underthe garbage, broken pieces of
wood, this, that and anythingelse.
When Mary Lincoln dies, she isput under the garbage as well,
and then Tad is buried already Ishouldn't say I should say
(36:40):
entombed already in the wall.
Eventually Mary Lincoln is putinto the wall and then Abraham
is kept where he is andeventually, since there are lots
of problems with the tomb andthe tomb starts falling apart,
now they got to take all thecoffins out again and they take
(37:03):
them all outside and put them inan underground vault and they
keep them there for 15 years orso and they totally tear down
the entire tomb and rebuild itagain.
Finally, in 1901, september of1901, to be exact they take the
(37:38):
coffins out of the ground againand put them in front to make
sure they get everything alltogether.
And what they do in 1901, thinkabout this this is 36 years
after he has died.
They open his coffin again andthey bring all the people around
(38:02):
to take a look at him,including a young boy, by the
way.
And Lincoln is recognizable.
The pillow has shifted, hishead's fallen backward.
He's changed kind of color.
He's become kind of dark.
It was said he looked like astatue of himself and he had no
eyebrows at this point, but thebeard was there and the mole was
there and the young fella and Ican't think of his name lives
(38:25):
until 1963, 64.
They did a thing in Lifemagazine and he said as a young
boy I slept with Mr Lincoln manytimes after seeing that.
I kept seeing that image.
But he was the last livingindividual to have looked upon
the face of Lincoln and that wasin the 1960s.
(38:46):
He died, if you think about it,nearly 100 years later after
his death.
Lincoln is buried, incidentally,in his mausoleum and it all
deals with Robert Lincoln andalso with Pullman.
The Pullman Coach Company is avery successful train company
(39:13):
bringing train cars, sleepingcars, and the Pullman strikes of
the 1880s and 1890s areterrible.
They bring the National Guardand they just shoot employees
that are striking.
Mr Pullman thought that when hedied people would steal his
body, so he had a special cagemade for his coffin, his casket,
(39:38):
which is put 10 feet into theground and then coated
completely with cement.
Coated completely with cement.
Then on top of that was a10-foot square piece of
(39:59):
limestone marble, whatever itmay be over that to basically
make sure no one got near him.
Okay, now here's the interestingthing to basically make sure no
one got near him.
Now here's the interestingthing.
Robert Lincoln was so impressedby that, that burial which took
place right here in Chicago.
I've been to the tomb, thePullman Tomb.
(40:20):
I'm always thinking about itevery time I go there.
I'm sitting there saying therehe is, mr Pullman.
He's 10 feet down underneathall that stuff encased in cement
.
Robert Lincoln says this is theperfect thing to do with my
father.
So they examine the body onemore time just to make sure he's
in there, and then they put himin a cage, fill that whole void
(40:44):
with cement and then build thefloor over that.
He has never been touched.
Since he never will be touched,he is encased in probably about
10 feet of cement.
He's safe, never to be touchedagain and never to be bothered
and looked at again, which Ifind rather macabre, actually
(41:08):
again, which I find rathermacabre actually.
Right, that's more or less thefuneral.
I mean there's a lot of thingsthat do take place.
I have something here.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
I remember a picture on a documentary on Roosevelt.
There's a picture of theLincoln funeral in New York City
, yes, yes, and in thebackground you see the Roosevelt
Mansion.
In the background in the windowyou see Teddy Roosevelt sitting
there and he talks about it agreat deal as an adult.
(41:46):
The effect that seeing theLincoln funeral had on him.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yes, that's very true .
And you know, the interestingthing was his Secretary of State
was John Hay and John Hay wasAbraham Lincoln's private
secretary and he always wouldsit and talk to Hay about
Lincoln, sit and talk to Hayabout Lincoln.
(42:11):
And when Roosevelt won theelection in his own right in
1904, for his inaugural speechon March the 4th, John Hay
presented Roosevelt with a ringand in the ring were hairs of
Abraham Lincoln and he wore thatwhen he gave his inaugural
(42:33):
speech.
A fascinating thing.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, I knew he was obsessed with Lincoln, but I
didn't know to what extent.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
And Hay really liked Roosevelt.
You know they live right acrossthe street.
It was the Adams and HayMansion and they lived together.
I think they called themselvesthe Four Hearts or something
like that.
It was a name for their groupand they would sit and play
cards all the time.
All kinds of variouspersonalities would come there.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Roosevelt hated Italians, so I can't be too.
Though I really like him andeverything he did, I can't
really support that all thatmuch.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
But the thing is that he would constantly talk to
Harry about Lincoln and heyLoved in many regards Theodore
Roosevelt he thought he was, hewas just fascinating.
And he said he always haddreams and in his dreams he
(43:35):
always heard the voice ofRoosevelt in his dreams.
And he said and this is afascinating thing, he wrote
about it.
He said I have always dreamtabout everybody and I'd never
dreamt of Lincoln.
And then in 1905, he said Idreamt about being in the White
(43:55):
House and he said the voicewasn't the voice I was used to.
He said, but I recognized it,it was Lincoln.
And he said John, you lookterrible.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Now, that sounds like Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
And you need to take a rest.
But John Hay would die a fewmonths after that.
But he is very famous as asecretary.
There's a photograph of Lincolnwith his secretaries, nicolay
and Hay, who wrote a book aboutLincoln.
And this is one thing I justwant to mention quickly because
(44:36):
I know we've talked a lot here,and that is that Robert Lincoln
becomes more or less the HayesBureau for Abraham Lincoln.
He wanted to basically have theapproval on anything written
(45:01):
about his father.
He controlled the narrative.
Yes, the Nikolai Hayesbiography of Lincoln was
carefully purged by Robert ofanything he disagreed with,
carefully purged by Robert ofanything he disagreed with.
And they didn't dare doanything that would offend
(45:24):
Robert because then theywouldn't get any more material.
Not only did he have thateffect, but the president of
Columbia University went tovisit him one day and found him
by a roaring fire burning hisfather's papers, and he finally
(45:45):
convinced Robert to stop.
But how long had he beenburning papers?
We know he destroyed all theletters between Mary and Abraham
.
What did he destroy?
He finally destroyed everythingthat didn't make his father
(46:07):
look like the God that he's beenmade into, lincoln.
It's hard to look at Lincoln asa human being.
You think about it.
I mean, we've kind of made himinto, as I said before, he's
been pasteurized, all thedisagreeable elements have been
(46:28):
kind of removed.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
His humanity has been removed.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yes, it was said about Lincoln with his
photographs that they're allLincoln and there's many
pictures of Lincoln but there'sno portrait history, his
(46:55):
available history, that we havelots of images of Lincoln
throughout his life but wereally have no great portrait
because it has been expunged ofvarious parts that people felt
were not necessary to thenarrative.
And I think that's important.
(47:16):
With Robert, robert Lincolncarefully, basically curated his
father's collection to such adegree that the only thing that
remained was what Robert thoughtshould remain.
It would be fascinating to beable to look at what Robert
(47:41):
destroyed.
It would be fascinating to seea little bit more of who Lincoln
was.
Lincoln kept no diary.
Lincoln basically kept hiscards close to his chest.
He was very private on his ownthoughts excuse me, own thoughts
(48:04):
.
He never let people truly knowwho he was and he would be
different people in front ofdifferent groups.
It's an interesting thing.
I mean Lincoln has become andhe's got his own temple more or
(48:27):
less a god to the American ideal, the American history, the
history of America, of theUnited States, I should say we
have made him one of the gods inits pantheon.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Well, it's funny you say that to some extent.
I mean, we remember all thethings that he did.
And when you look at and Ithought it was always
interesting in Spielberg's filmof Lincoln, where he doesn't
really portray him as this, youknow, flag waving, always do the
(49:06):
right thing kind of guy, butmore like that He'll.
He'll do whatever it takes toaccomplish the goal he's after
and what he thinks is in thebest interest of the country.
He'll make a deal, He'll pay aguy off, and that's how politics
was done in those days.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So it's a little bit taken out of context.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
You know, paul, what was the guy's name?
You know the guy that had thebridge or the toll?
I forget that.
You see in the movie that hetalks about and there's all
kinds of people that he tries toget to vote his way to pass
(49:52):
that amendment.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Oh yes, as I said early on, he's a master of
doublespeak.
Oh yes, as I said early on,he's a master of doublespeak.
And when he met with theConfederate delegation.
He made sure he wasn't inWashington.
(50:13):
And the interesting thing,there are no official notes to
that meeting.
But Alexander Stevens, who wasthe vice president of the
Confederacy, was at that meetingand the fellow with him, I
can't think of his name, didwrite down things that Lincoln
(50:36):
said and it's interesting whenyou read it.
It's like basically he'ssitting there doing a little
horse trading, you know, and hesaid tell you what, drop your
arms and come back to Congressand vote against the 13th
Amendment and we can put slaveryoff.
(50:58):
We can put slavery off, youknow, for a couple of years.
I think he even offered thefact to 1900.
We can gradually do slowemancipation.
If you folks come back rightaway.
Now that's what Lincoln wassaying.
(51:18):
He probably might not havemeant it, he was probably doing
his thing.
It's fascinating because whathe was doing was saying let's
just stop.
We're old friends, let's juststop this.
Come back in Now.
We're lost on this becauseLincoln is removed.
(51:41):
We'll never know how Lincolnwould have dealt with the
radical Republicans, how Lincolnwould have dealt with the South
, how Lincoln would have dealtwith many things.
He said let him go, easy boys.
Lincoln would have dealt withmany things.
He said let them go easy, boys.
But would he keep to that?
(52:01):
He said he gave a parable, asyou said, with Jefferson Davis.
He says let them run away.
Basically, let them run away.
He said don't hurt them,that'll just make things worse.
And his idea of reconstructionwas quick, basically, get 10% of
(52:24):
the population to agree to theunion and bring them back.
Now, of course, that didn'thappen at all and basically they
became an occupied nation whichcreated animosity which well
(52:44):
continues to this day to adegree.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Absolutely, I don't go there.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Well, one more thing I'd like to say about the
funeral.
So I don't know if I mentionedthis to you, I may have.
So a friend of mine actually afriend of my ex-father-in-law
grew up in Boston and his motherwas one of the infamous
secretaries to John F Kennedyand all through the White House
(53:17):
years, and all through the WhiteHouse years through when he was
in Congress, his mother workedfor the Kennedys as they were
back then, and when Kennedy wasassassinated, jacqueline looked
(53:38):
to her to help her figure out.
And this is this is a story,goes from what I hear from him
his mother's past, but I've seenher papers and her photographs
and notes and their, theirunbelievable artifacts that, um,
they had long conversationsabout and long investigations
(54:04):
into.
The only funeral of anassassinated president they
looked to was Lincoln, andthat's why it was so similar the
funeral procession, the casket,the horse, the whole thing.
Obviously he was buried inArlington and he was buried in
(54:26):
the spot that he actually pickedout, that he said he would like
to be buried there, which was alittle weird in itself.
Yeah, but, and she also helpedJackie write all the condolences
.
Thank yous for the condolences.
So she was involved in thatwhole situation and they really
looked to Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Yeah, lincoln's funeral, and there again, I mean
, it was very grand and it was agreat spectacle, let's put it
that way, right.
And Kennedy's?
Yes, I've heard that before.
I've heard about the that assoon as she was riding back in
(55:13):
the jet with her husband's body,she was already, and it's
interesting, here she is in thisbloodstained outfit and she's
already figuring out what to do.
You know she's already figuringhow to create the illusion of
Camelot and how about that.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
She has a birthday party for her son.
The next it was the next day ortwo days later, so that
business would, so things wouldbe as normal.
Now you're still in the WhiteHouse.
You have a new presidentJohnson, whatever his role, I
mean, I still can't get over thepicture of him winking at his
(55:54):
friends in the airplane whenhe's getting sworn in.
So that's a whole other andwe've talked about that at
length already, but I'm glad totalk about it with you.
So I think that justdemonstrates and a good place to
end it is the effect thatLincoln had on the future, on
(56:15):
future presidents.
Lincoln had on the future, onfuture presidents, on future
America and how we deal withthings of great, great turmoil
and disagreement.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
I'd like to close with just two things here.
Sure, these are from the time.
This is the memorial address toAbraham Lincoln, read before
Congress.
Wow, all of this was donebecause we had a civil war going
(56:52):
on.
Still, to a degree, everythingwas done in 1866.
And this is the funeral programin New York City.
And if you let's see if I cando this gracefully it's kind of
(57:28):
fragile.
I gotta kind of.
This is the wow, wow.
This is an amazing book andit's filled with images and
they're all drawings.
Of course they couldn't theycouldn't reproduce the
photographs and printing inthose days very well, but all
the various things taking placeand pictures of the funeral, etc
.
And this whole book was puttogether after the event and
(57:52):
it's just filled with every bitof information about his funeral
.
And in closing, the last thingto show you is what I'm going to
be working on, a documentary on.
Is this?
This is Abraham Lincoln'sfuneral march and the martyr
(58:25):
president.
Pretty amazing.
We're going to have thisorchestrated and it's going to
be played.
It'll be interesting to hear.
I look forward to it.
Yeah, and with Lincoln, inclosing, with you, I just wanted
to say Lincoln, as I said, isvery much like, basically, the
(58:49):
base of a tree and there's amillion branches going out in
every which direction, and inevery one of those you could
find something to talk about orshare or investigate with
Lincoln.
He was an amazing individual,put into a situation that no
president has ever been put intobefore or since, and basically
(59:14):
kept the nation together throughpure tenacity.
If you think about it, as hesaid to Horace Greeley, if about
freeing the slaves, if I cansave the union and free the
slaves, I'll do it.
(59:35):
If I can save the union andfree some of the slaves, I'll do
it.
If I can save the Union andfree some of the slaves, I'll do
it.
And if I can save the Union andfree none of the slaves, I'll
do it.
Lincoln was focused on savingthe Union and for that we should
be very thankful.
Speaker 1 (59:57):
Well said.
Thank you very much.
That's the end.
It's probably going to be atwo-parter, I think, and I
appreciate it.
We're at an hour and 52 minutes.
My goodness, so it went veryquickly in my mind.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
There's so much more to talk about.
Right, it feels like we justscratched the surface.
I'm not sure we talked aboutanything we wanted to talk about
, but it was a real pleasure.
I really enjoyed it and I thinkthat's a great idea.
I think we should do one onother presidents, sure.
Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
I think that would be great, that would be great.
The McKinley funeral.
Interesting thing I have thefuneral booklet for William
McKinley put together by theminister who officiated the
funeral.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
It's amazing, it's a one-of-a-kind item, so that will
be our next thing.
So I thank you all.
Thank you, jack, for thehundredth time.
It's awesome to talk to youover those things.
I'm so happy to put this out.
I'm going to try to do it in atwo-part, and we look for other
conversations of historicalevents.
Right now we're onassassinations, but there are
(01:01:08):
many other things, because thehistory of America is what we
need to get through the times wehave.
There's no question about it.
So thank you again.
All right, speak soon.
Thanks, take care, bye, bye.
Good morning everyone and welcome back to A Better
Life, new York.
This is part two of ourconversation with Jack Stanley
regarding Lincoln'sassassination and the facts and
circumstances that surround theassassination, as well as his
funeral.
I hope you enjoy this as muchas you've watched and listened
(00:30):
to part one.
Please know that video isavailable on YouTube and audio
is also available by all themajor podcast services, which is
Apple and Spotify.
Those are the two main ones,but there are many others and
we're on them all.
So part two of LincolnAssassination and the
(00:51):
Surrounding Circumstances withJack Stanley.
Thank you all for listening.
Please like and subscribe, andwe look forward to your comments
for future subjects ofconversation.
Thank you for future subjectsof conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Thank you.
I have to imagine that, and yousee it, the physical change in
Lincoln, that the toll of justendless death, endless horror,
endless hatred for him, had tohave its effect on him and he
(01:29):
looks like a very old man by thetime we get to 1865.
He's only 56 years old, but helooks like hell.
He looks like hell and hevisits the South and then April
(01:53):
14th, goes to Ford's Theater.
He saw the show before and heconvinces his wife to go see it
again.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Then he loses interest and she's the one that
pushes him to go my Americancousin, our American cousin.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Our American cousin.
And our American cousin is acomedy and it's famous for a
great line in the play whereeveryone loses it.
And of course John Wilkes Boothis very familiar with the play.
(02:31):
He's part of that whole groupunder Mrs Surratt, that would
meet at her home.
They were thinking ofkidnapping Lincoln, but
eventually he just says, let'sjust, let's just go.
And then he sets the other guysup to also kill Johnson and
(02:52):
also Seward.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Right.
It's funny, is, I think, whatpeople was lost in our teaching
of history is that how famousJohn Wilkes Booth was, him and
his family at the time.
He is probably the mostrecognizable man in America.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, he was a heartthrob at the time.
He's the first actor to havewomen tearing at his clothes.
Okay, he was that kind ofpersonality and he was from the
Booth family, going back to hisfather and his brother, Edwin
Booth.
(03:33):
I used to spend some time atthe Players Club in New York
City Right.
That was founded by Edwin Boothand the Booth Theater is still
on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
And up.
It's an interesting thing up onthe top floor of the Players
Club is Edwin Booth's apartmentand they have saved it as it was
since the time of his death in,I think, 1893.
And there, next to his bed, hekept a picture of his brother,
John Wilkes.
Of his brother, Because it wasa painful, painful thing for
(04:12):
Edwin Booth when this happened,because his name was totally
sullied and he stops performingimmediately and steps away from
the stage and writes a longletter of apology to the
American people.
But he feels that his career isover and it's, I think, about a
(04:37):
year or possibly a little laterthan that.
He is convinced to come back onstage and he is absolutely
terrified.
He's afraid someone will shoothim and he says he was ready and
the curtain opened and heappeared and the entire audience
stood and applauded it wasn'thim it wasn't him, but he was
(05:05):
terrified and the audience lethim know.
We understand, it wasn't you.
And also there's a littleinteresting story with Edwin
Booth.
It was in New Jersey at a trainstop where Robert Lincoln fell
(05:28):
onto the tracks and Edwin Boothwent down and helped him up from
the tracks before the trainarrived.
It wasn't as big a deal as theymade it out to sound like he
saved his life.
The train was roaring by, hefell and he helped him.
Yes, and the interesting thingis that Robert Lincoln was
(05:54):
helped by a booth and AbrahamLincoln was also killed by a
booth.
It's interesting, the twodifferent sides there.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So it's interesting, the two different sides there.
So I'm sure everybody's heardout there and exactly what
happens.
I mean, booth can walk aroundthe theater like a god because
everybody knows him.
So it wasn't like he had thissecret that he slid past
everyone and hid.
Everyone knew him, he wasfamous, he went in there and no
one thought a second thing abouthaving him there.
(06:27):
Then of course he he gets intothe, the, the booth excuse the
expression where where umlincoln is, and he pulls out a
gun to the back of his head andkills him.
Yeah, but then of course hejumps down and apparently his
spur gets caught on the on theflag on the flag and he breaks
(06:50):
his leg um and uh.
You know it's reported that whathe says is six semper tyrannis
is that what it is the motto ofvirginia yeah is yeah To all
tyrants right.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, being an actor, he couldn't help himself.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I know that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's Shakespeare out of the thing.
And the interesting thing is aswell, you know, booth had been
there in the afternoon at Ford'sTheater and cut a hole in the
door and also fixed things so hecould get in, and so he had
everything all set up in advanceand he had a single shot,
(07:41):
derringer and a knife and I meanI mean it's a point blank range
.
I mean he pulls it right up tothe back of his head and fires
and the bullet lodges rightbehind his, I believe, his right
(08:04):
eye.
And there are some that say andI don't know how true this is,
was it the right eye or was itthe left eye?
I'm always trying to remember.
I think it was the right eye,but if it's the left eye, I'm
sorry, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
One of the eyes.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The thing is, I've heard from some historians that
Lincoln sensed something andstarted to turn his head, which
would make it the left eye.
I don't know whether that'strue or not, but nonetheless the
deed was done.
The deed was done.
Rathbone, who is with Lincolnwith his fiance, jumps up and
tries to attack Booth, and Boothslashes him with his knife,
(08:56):
cuts open an artery and blood isflying all over the place.
And Mary Lincoln, who's stillholding her husband's hand, you
know suddenly realizes he's beenshot because he basically just
falls forward because of theforce of the shot, and then she
lets out with one of her bullets, hurtling screams.
(09:25):
People in the audience arethinking is this part of the
show Right?
And it takes a few moments foreveryone to realize that the
president has been shot,especially when Booth comes up
on the stage and does his greatand then hops away because he
can't run, because he's got thebroken bone, and then he slashes
his knife toward people comingnear him and they all have to
(09:46):
get out of the way.
His horse is waiting for himoutside because he had a fellow
waiting, and off he goes andeveryone is like confused for a
few moments and stunned intosilence, until finally one of
the doctors that happens to bein the audience realizes what's
going on, tries to get in.
(10:07):
The door is locked.
The booth had locked the doorto the booth and they have to
bash it down and they get inthere.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So originally he cut that hole.
He was going to shoot himthrough that hole, wasn't he?
Speaker 2 (10:22):
No, he wanted to be able to observe what was going
on.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Oh, okay, to shoot him through that hole was no, he
wanted to be able to observewhat was going on.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Oh, okay so he knew and he waited.
As I was mentioning before,there's a great line in that.
In that play yousaccadigitalize an old man, trap
you or something like that, andthe audience went crazy
laughing.
That's when he fires right.
Um, lincoln is pretty well deadat that point.
(10:49):
He's hardly, he's not evenbreathing at that point.
And the doctor puts his fingerin into the wound in the head
where he finds it Right, andbreaks the clot and it starts to
bleed and then he startsbreathing again.
Wow, that's pretty brilliant,yeah.
And then he announces that thewound is mortal.
(11:14):
And then they try to figure outwhat to do with him.
Because they don't want toleave him in the booth there.
They take him outside, which isinteresting.
They take him outside beforeanyone knows where to put him
and finally someone yells bringhim here.
And it is right across thestreet.
(11:40):
And they bring him into thehouse, take him all the way
through the house to the backroom and lay him on a bed.
He doesn't quite fit in.
Now, they don't know where he'swounded besides the head, so
(12:00):
they completely strip him of hisclothes and basically examine
him and find it's just a woundto the head, but it's, it's
mortal, I mean it's, and helingers for quite a while.
Until what is it?
722 in the morning and thenStanton, who was basically
(12:29):
running the show, who basicallysays I'm in charge.
He's like he takes over thegovernment.
Very much familiar when Reagangot shot, if you remember that,
that whole thing, alexanderHiggs.
Yeah, alexander Higgs, I'm incharge.
And he proclaims now he belongsto the angels or now he
(12:53):
belonged to the ages no one'squite sure what he said and two
coins are put over Lincoln'seyes as he's laying in that bed
the Peterson house, as I recall.
I have something here actuallyfrom that.
This is a photograph of the bedhe was in and the pillow, with
(13:29):
the bloodstained pillow, takenby the occupant of that room who
happened to be a photographer,and next to it is a strip of
wallpaper from that room.
Wow, is a strip of wallpaperfrom that room.
Wow, that wallpaper was takenout in the 1890s and was from a
(13:56):
collection owned by a professorLatimer of Columbia University
and he had a lot of Lincolnstuff that he had and that came
up for auction and I wasfortunate to get a little chunk
of it, which was kind of cool,nice and.
(14:16):
But that Peterson house becomesa place of pilgrimage and
anything dealing with it.
The place is ravaged.
People are tearing pieces ofthis and everything else.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Who else was attacked that night simultaneously?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Seward.
Seward was attacked.
Seward was attacked by pain andit's an interesting thing, the
thing that saves Seward he hadbeen injured a few weeks before
in a carriage accident, that'sright, and he was wearing the
steel cage that was holdingeverything in place and pain
(15:01):
came announcing.
He was from the drugstoredelivering medications for
Seward and they said well, youcan't see him.
And so he attacks Seward's sonwith his gun, doesn't shoot him,
he hits him with it andbasically fractures his skull
(15:22):
and tears the skull right to thebone.
Really, this guy, payne, is amonster of a guy Monstrously
strong, not exceedingly bright,but he goes in, works his way
into the bedchamber where Sewardis lying in his bed in this
(15:45):
cage, and then just startsslashing him and the only reason
that he isn't killed is becauseof that cage.
The cage deflects the knife andhe slices part of his face away
.
Terrible injuries and they werethinking he was going to die.
(16:05):
But he survives.
But he is disfigured the restof his life and he will only
pose with one view that totallyhides the other side of his face
, which is just very disfiguredfrom all the knife damage.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So and someone else was attacked.
I mean, there were plans to geteverybody, but some people
backed out, right?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yes, the guy who was going to attack Johnson.
I can't think of his name offthe top of my head.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But he got scared and backed out right.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
He got drunk oh happens and then chickened out,
although he did leave a note forJohnson with his name, which
was kind of interesting.
Just the brightest thing.
I'll get you next time.
Yeah, and it's an brightestthing, I'll get you next time.
(17:05):
Yeah, and it's an interestingthing.
Think, had he done it, it wouldhave put the entire government
in chaos, and I forget who wouldbe next in line at that point.
Speaker of the House.
Yeah, okay, the Speaker of theHouse.
(17:25):
Okay, I don't know who in lineat that point.
Speaker of the House.
Yeah, okay, the Speaker of theHouse.
Okay, I don't know who that wasat that point.
Off the top of my head, I can'tthink of it either.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
And then the President of the Senate and then
it goes after that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
But Secretary of State goes around Lincoln's dead
and his body's collected andbrought to the White House and
he is embalmed and I think he'sthe first president to be
(17:57):
embalmed, because otherpresidents beforehand were
basically just cleaned up andburied Right Lincoln's embalmed.
He was very fascinated with itbecause his son, willie, had
died in 1862, and he has Willieembalmed.
(18:22):
And he has Willie embalmed andLincoln would go to the cemetery
often and go to the mausoleumwhere his son was basically put
for a while, open the casket andjust look at his son and he
(18:43):
would do that over severalmonths and just talk to his son.
It's kind of macabre if youthink about it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Oh, he was that, well , yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, lincoln could depress a hyena.
I mean there is that kind ofthing.
I mean he had that in him.
So he is dead.
He is embalmed.
They find the bullet when theybasically open.
They do an autopsy and theyopen the cavity of the brain and
(19:19):
they weigh the brain andeverything and the brain, the
(19:40):
bullet falls out of the brain,making a clicking sound.
Lincoln, who always had issues,emotional issues, what?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
She had lost, had them before the death of her son
, oh yeah, she had them beforethe death of her son.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
But Willie really kind of pushed her almost over
the edge to a point wherePresident Lincoln took Mary to
the window and he pointed overand he said do you see the
asylum down, yonder, mary, Ifyou get much sicker we might
have to take you there.
I mean she was a, she was abasket case once, once her
(20:25):
husband was killed.
I mean she's never right afterthat.
It's sad.
I mean she is a very sad case.
Brilliant, brilliant, verywell-educated, spoke several
languages.
Um, she just uh.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
The white house, the presidency for which she was
such a strong putcher for, uh,he didn't want it was the
greatest detriment to her life.
Even their whole courtship wasbizarre, if I remember correctly
.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, yeah, he takes her out dancing and says you
know, I, I, you know I guess I'mdancing in the worst way.
And she said, yes, mr McGee,but she was also courted by
Douglas, right, you know, shewas a pretty hot tomato in her
time, you know, hot tomato inher time, you know, and she was
(21:24):
very rich in her very wealthyfamily and beautiful in those
days and she had very prettyshoulders.
She would always show off hershoulders, which was very daring
in those days.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
She was very short, right, she was 5'4" and she was,
was it him?
He was infatuated with someother woman before her and that
sort of broke him up the firsttime or something.
I don't remember the entirestory.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
He got kind of cold feet.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And you know he often did what his friend Speed did.
Speed got married and told himhe's very happy and that kind of
pushed Lincoln along to finallyget married.
But Lincoln had problems beforewith other women and I can't
(22:33):
think of the names off the topof my head.
But here's something veryinteresting here.
Here's another set of books.
This is the three-volume set byWilliam Hernon, who was
Lincoln's law partner, and it'scalled Hernon's Lincoln and a
(23:06):
lot of people didn't like thebook because it made Lincoln a
little too human.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Now, the fellow that worked with Herndon was Jesse
Weik Weik W-E-I-K.
How do you pronounce that?
I guess Wieck.
This is autographed by him,which is kind of interesting.
(23:38):
And in these books he suggestslots of things about Lincoln and
he interviewed everybody.
Lots of things about Lincolnand he interviewed everybody and
a lot of people didn't likethese books because it just made
Lincoln seem very human, whichI see no problem with.
But he also suggests thatLincoln might have caught some
(24:02):
venereal disease from seeingvarious women.
He suggests that in the bookhere that he might have passed
to Mary.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And that's what could have made her yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
It's just a suggestion.
We don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Who knows?
No one knows, but not even surethey knew at the time.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
But this is a fascinating there's a little bit
of a caveat to these bookswhich I got these from the
library of the entertainer JimmyDurante.
Really he was an avid historyfan and these were from his
personal library.
Just kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
So just to finish up on the funeral.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Oh sorry.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Just to finish up on Booth for a minute.
So Booth runs away, has abroken leg.
Sooner or later he finds adoctor to set it right.
Yeah, and his name happens tobe Mudd.
Yes, and that's really wherethe phrase comes from.
(25:24):
You know, at that time periodno one wanted to be called Mudd.
That's a kind of unfortunatestory.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You know, you think about it.
He had no idea, but he knewthat Booth wanted to get rid of
Lincoln.
He was aware of that but he hadno idea that anything had
happened.
I don't think Booth told himanything had happened.
He set Booth's leg and wasbasically charged as a
(26:01):
conspirator.
And he does get released earlybecause he does help a lot of
prisoners during an epidemic andhe doesn't live that much
longer after that.
A very fascinating thing thecommentator, the newsman Roger
Mudd, was a direct descendant.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I did not know that.
I did not know that.
Well, what's interesting aboutMudd too is, if you think about
it, you know, the oath of beinga doctor is to treat the patient
.
That's right in front of you,right?
Yes, indeed.
So to pick and choose you don'tpick and choose patients that
basically, you're going to facemore than criticism.
(26:46):
You're going to faceprosecution by following your
Hippocratic oath, and that's thedeal.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, indeed, indeed.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So Now I know you want to get to the part where we
came here to talk to thefuneral.
This is our preamble.
Yeah, it was our preamble Anhour and 20 minutes in, and now
we're going to talk about whatwe came here to talk to the
funeral.
This is our preamble.
Yeah, it was our preamble Anhour and 20 minutes in, and now
we're going to talk about whatwe came here to talk about.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
This is fun.
I enjoy this.
This is great to talk aboutthis stuff and I hope we can do
this with a number of presidentsand historic events, because
it's great to share theknowledge back and forth and
have this kind of a wonderfulconversation.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Well, I think about at this present time.
I think a lot about presidentsignoring the United States
Supreme Court's edict, and Ithink about the American Indians
yes, I'm thinking of AndrewJackson Andrew Jackson, correct,
(27:52):
and I think about that himtelling the United States
Supreme Court well, you may have, but how are you going to
enforce it?
It's unbelievable.
So I think about that, but Ican edit that out too.
So the funeral, yeah, well,lincoln's unbelievable.
So I think about that, but Ican edit that out too.
So the funeral, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Well, lincoln's dead.
He has a special casket madefor him it's called a coffin in
those days because it'swedge-shaped and he is, as I
said, embalmed, made up, dressedin his second inauguration suit
(28:34):
and laid out in the White House.
And then there's a period ofpublic grief.
Also, it is well known at thatpoint that Robert E Lee is
terrified over the fact thatLincoln's been killed and he
(28:58):
starts sending letters to peoplesaying you know, this is not a
good thing, this is the worstthing that could happen to us,
because it looks like the Southhas done this.
And he tells don't do guerrillawarfare, don't fight, just give
(29:19):
up, end, stop this.
And he does all this In 1865,the whole country was absolutely
in shambles.
You know, lee surrenders onApril 9th, April 14th, 15th,
lincoln's murdered Seward isnearly murdered.
(29:42):
You have a vice president whois strongly disliked by the
political class.
He had a little issue at theinauguration.
He was suffering from the fluand someone suggested that he
have a couple of few snoots ofalcohol to help him feel better,
(30:06):
and it goes right to his headand he becomes a Tennessee
rambler hall to help him feelbetter.
And it goes right to his headand he becomes a Tennessee
Rambler.
You know, and it was said itwas interesting to watch Lincoln
at that.
He was trying to find a way tofit his six foot four frame
under the chair so he couldn'tbe seen.
And Lincoln never speaks toJohnson.
(30:29):
I mean he's just there forwindow dressing, basically, and
Lincoln never speaks to Johnson.
I mean he's just there forwindow dressing, basically, and
suddenly he's the president andLincoln, as I said, is dressed
up and then we start the threeweeks of funeral.
(30:52):
Think about that Three weeksLincoln travels with an embalmer
Because the body doesn't holdup that well.
Right, you know he's dead andtherefore all of the wounds, the
(31:16):
face keeps turning black fromthe wounds and they're
constantly chalking the face.
And they had done this a littlebit before with two individuals
John Quincy Adams had done manystops and they kept him under
ice, and Henry Clay.
(31:37):
Henry Clay had done somewhatthe same thing, but nowhere near
as long as this.
And what the funeral route waswas a reversal of his route,
coming from Illinois toWashington in 1861, with all the
basic same stops.
And so in each one of thesestops he is brought out, cleaned
(32:05):
up the changes, collars andstuff like that to make him look
presentable and then thousandsand thousands of people view the
body.
This goes on from state to stateto state to state till May.
And by May Lincoln is looking alittle bad.
(32:33):
In fact the lips had kind ofshrunk a little bit, so there
was kind of a toothy grinstarting to show and they had to
kind of fix that.
It was really getting kind ofhorrendous.
And so finally and I think itwas in early May, may 4th or so
(32:54):
he's finally interred in atemporary revolt in Illinois.
There was a big battle inIllinois when are we going to
bury him?
And they said Chicago.
And Mrs Lincoln gets her stufftogether more or less to argue
(33:14):
and she said no, it's going tobe Springfield, illinois.
And they said no, it's going tobe Chicago.
And she said if you keep thisup, I'll have him buried at the
Capitol.
She basically tells him to shutup.
And she said he was there atthe opening of the cemetery and
(33:38):
said this was a beautiful placeand this is where he will be
interred.
And eventually he was.
He was interred in a temporarytomb.
He was interred in a temporarytomb and right from the start
(34:03):
there are threats and weakattempts to steal his body.
Now this goes on for years andwhat they do periodically.
Every few years they open uphis coffin and look inside to
see if he's still there.
They look at him and they saythat's him.
And then they close it.
(34:23):
They finally create the tomb andhe's interred there and then,
on election night, 1876, wheneveryone's busy politicking and
voting, a team of grave robbersbreaks into the tomb.
Now they had found out about itbecause they were loudmouths in
(34:48):
the bar.
Now, they had found out aboutit because they were loudmouths
in the bar and they were inSpringfield.
They were telling people thisis what we're going to do.
Blah, blah, blah.
And they break in, they getinto the tomb and he's in a
sarcophagus, basically in thetomb, and they break it open and
(35:13):
then they start pulling hiscoffin out.
What they did not know was thathis coffin was lead-lined, it
was heavy, it was like 500pounds, and it just falls to the
ground.
They can't really.
They're just dragging it.
They can't get anywhere.
(35:36):
And at that point they'recaptured.
But this was rather upsetting.
And there was the old guard atthe tomb decided we have to hide
him.
So what they did?
They struggled and brought hiscoffin to the basement of the
(35:58):
tomb and there was a pile ofgarbage and they put him under
the pile of garbage and that'swhere they keep him and nobody
knows where he is.
And people are coming to thetomb and looking at the empty
sarcophagus and he's not there.
(36:19):
He's down in the basement underthe garbage, broken pieces of
wood, this, that and anythingelse.
When Mary Lincoln dies, she isput under the garbage as well,
and then Tad is buried already Ishouldn't say I should say
(36:40):
entombed already in the wall.
Eventually Mary Lincoln is putinto the wall and then Abraham
is kept where he is andeventually, since there are lots
of problems with the tomb andthe tomb starts falling apart,
now they got to take all thecoffins out again and they take
(37:03):
them all outside and put them inan underground vault and they
keep them there for 15 years orso and they totally tear down
the entire tomb and rebuild itagain.
Finally, in 1901, september of1901, to be exact they take the
(37:38):
coffins out of the ground againand put them in front to make
sure they get everything alltogether.
And what they do in 1901, thinkabout this this is 36 years
after he has died.
They open his coffin again andthey bring all the people around
(38:02):
to take a look at him,including a young boy, by the
way.
And Lincoln is recognizable.
The pillow has shifted, hishead's fallen backward.
He's changed kind of color.
He's become kind of dark.
It was said he looked like astatue of himself and he had no
eyebrows at this point, but thebeard was there and the mole was
there and the young fella and Ican't think of his name lives
(38:25):
until 1963, 64.
They did a thing in Lifemagazine and he said as a young
boy I slept with Mr Lincoln manytimes after seeing that.
I kept seeing that image.
But he was the last livingindividual to have looked upon
the face of Lincoln and that wasin the 1960s.
(38:46):
He died, if you think about it,nearly 100 years later after
his death.
Lincoln is buried, incidentally,in his mausoleum and it all
deals with Robert Lincoln andalso with Pullman.
The Pullman Coach Company is avery successful train company
(39:13):
bringing train cars, sleepingcars, and the Pullman strikes of
the 1880s and 1890s areterrible.
They bring the National Guardand they just shoot employees
that are striking.
Mr Pullman thought that when hedied people would steal his
body, so he had a special cagemade for his coffin, his casket,
(39:38):
which is put 10 feet into theground and then coated
completely with cement.
Coated completely with cement.
Then on top of that was a10-foot square piece of
(39:59):
limestone marble, whatever itmay be over that to basically
make sure no one got near him.
Okay, now here's the interestingthing to basically make sure no
one got near him.
Now here's the interestingthing.
Robert Lincoln was so impressedby that, that burial which took
place right here in Chicago.
I've been to the tomb, thePullman Tomb.
(40:20):
I'm always thinking about itevery time I go there.
I'm sitting there saying therehe is, mr Pullman.
He's 10 feet down underneathall that stuff encased in cement
.
Robert Lincoln says this is theperfect thing to do with my
father.
So they examine the body onemore time just to make sure he's
in there, and then they put himin a cage, fill that whole void
(40:44):
with cement and then build thefloor over that.
He has never been touched.
Since he never will be touched,he is encased in probably about
10 feet of cement.
He's safe, never to be touchedagain and never to be bothered
and looked at again, which Ifind rather macabre, actually
(41:08):
again, which I find rathermacabre actually.
Right, that's more or less thefuneral.
I mean there's a lot of thingsthat do take place.
I have something here.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
I remember a picture on a documentary on Roosevelt.
There's a picture of theLincoln funeral in New York City
, yes, yes, and in thebackground you see the Roosevelt
Mansion.
In the background in the windowyou see Teddy Roosevelt sitting
there and he talks about it agreat deal as an adult.
(41:46):
The effect that seeing theLincoln funeral had on him.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yes, that's very true .
And you know, the interestingthing was his Secretary of State
was John Hay and John Hay wasAbraham Lincoln's private
secretary and he always wouldsit and talk to Hay about
Lincoln, sit and talk to Hayabout Lincoln.
(42:11):
And when Roosevelt won theelection in his own right in
1904, for his inaugural speechon March the 4th, John Hay
presented Roosevelt with a ringand in the ring were hairs of
Abraham Lincoln and he wore thatwhen he gave his inaugural
(42:33):
speech.
A fascinating thing.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Yeah, I knew he was obsessed with Lincoln, but I
didn't know to what extent.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
And Hay really liked Roosevelt.
You know they live right acrossthe street.
It was the Adams and HayMansion and they lived together.
I think they called themselvesthe Four Hearts or something
like that.
It was a name for their groupand they would sit and play
cards all the time.
All kinds of variouspersonalities would come there.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Roosevelt hated Italians, so I can't be too.
Though I really like him andeverything he did, I can't
really support that all thatmuch.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
But the thing is that he would constantly talk to
Harry about Lincoln and heyLoved in many regards Theodore
Roosevelt he thought he was, hewas just fascinating.
And he said he always haddreams and in his dreams he
(43:35):
always heard the voice ofRoosevelt in his dreams.
And he said and this is afascinating thing, he wrote
about it.
He said I have always dreamtabout everybody and I'd never
dreamt of Lincoln.
And then in 1905, he said Idreamt about being in the White
(43:55):
House and he said the voicewasn't the voice I was used to.
He said, but I recognized it,it was Lincoln.
And he said John, you lookterrible.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Now, that sounds like Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
And you need to take a rest.
But John Hay would die a fewmonths after that.
But he is very famous as asecretary.
There's a photograph of Lincolnwith his secretaries, nicolay
and Hay, who wrote a book aboutLincoln.
And this is one thing I justwant to mention quickly because
(44:36):
I know we've talked a lot here,and that is that Robert Lincoln
becomes more or less the HayesBureau for Abraham Lincoln.
He wanted to basically have theapproval on anything written
(45:01):
about his father.
He controlled the narrative.
Yes, the Nikolai Hayesbiography of Lincoln was
carefully purged by Robert ofanything he disagreed with,
carefully purged by Robert ofanything he disagreed with.
And they didn't dare doanything that would offend
(45:24):
Robert because then theywouldn't get any more material.
Not only did he have thateffect, but the president of
Columbia University went tovisit him one day and found him
by a roaring fire burning hisfather's papers, and he finally
(45:45):
convinced Robert to stop.
But how long had he beenburning papers?
We know he destroyed all theletters between Mary and Abraham
.
What did he destroy?
He finally destroyed everythingthat didn't make his father
(46:07):
look like the God that he's beenmade into, lincoln.
It's hard to look at Lincoln asa human being.
You think about it.
I mean, we've kind of made himinto, as I said before, he's
been pasteurized, all thedisagreeable elements have been
(46:28):
kind of removed.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
His humanity has been removed.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yes, it was said about Lincoln with his
photographs that they're allLincoln and there's many
pictures of Lincoln but there'sno portrait history, his
(46:55):
available history, that we havelots of images of Lincoln
throughout his life but wereally have no great portrait
because it has been expunged ofvarious parts that people felt
were not necessary to thenarrative.
And I think that's important.
(47:16):
With Robert, robert Lincolncarefully, basically curated his
father's collection to such adegree that the only thing that
remained was what Robert thoughtshould remain.
It would be fascinating to beable to look at what Robert
(47:41):
destroyed.
It would be fascinating to seea little bit more of who Lincoln
was.
Lincoln kept no diary.
Lincoln basically kept hiscards close to his chest.
He was very private on his ownthoughts excuse me, own thoughts
(48:04):
.
He never let people truly knowwho he was and he would be
different people in front ofdifferent groups.
It's an interesting thing.
I mean Lincoln has become andhe's got his own temple more or
(48:27):
less a god to the American ideal, the American history, the
history of America, of theUnited States, I should say we
have made him one of the gods inits pantheon.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Well, it's funny you say that to some extent.
I mean, we remember all thethings that he did.
And when you look at and Ithought it was always
interesting in Spielberg's filmof Lincoln, where he doesn't
really portray him as this, youknow, flag waving, always do the
(49:06):
right thing kind of guy, butmore like that He'll.
He'll do whatever it takes toaccomplish the goal he's after
and what he thinks is in thebest interest of the country.
He'll make a deal, He'll pay aguy off, and that's how politics
was done in those days.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So it's a little bit taken out of context.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
You know, paul, what was the guy's name?
You know the guy that had thebridge or the toll?
I forget that.
You see in the movie that hetalks about and there's all
kinds of people that he tries toget to vote his way to pass
(49:52):
that amendment.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
Oh yes, as I said early on, he's a master of
doublespeak.
Oh yes, as I said early on,he's a master of doublespeak.
And when he met with theConfederate delegation.
He made sure he wasn't inWashington.
(50:13):
And the interesting thing,there are no official notes to
that meeting.
But Alexander Stevens, who wasthe vice president of the
Confederacy, was at that meetingand the fellow with him, I
can't think of his name, didwrite down things that Lincoln
(50:36):
said and it's interesting whenyou read it.
It's like basically he'ssitting there doing a little
horse trading, you know, and hesaid tell you what, drop your
arms and come back to Congressand vote against the 13th
Amendment and we can put slaveryoff.
(50:58):
We can put slavery off, youknow, for a couple of years.
I think he even offered thefact to 1900.
We can gradually do slowemancipation.
If you folks come back rightaway.
Now that's what Lincoln wassaying.
(51:18):
He probably might not havemeant it, he was probably doing
his thing.
It's fascinating because whathe was doing was saying let's
just stop.
We're old friends, let's juststop this.
Come back in Now.
We're lost on this becauseLincoln is removed.
(51:41):
We'll never know how Lincolnwould have dealt with the
radical Republicans, how Lincolnwould have dealt with the South
, how Lincoln would have dealtwith many things.
He said let him go, easy boys.
Lincoln would have dealt withmany things.
He said let them go easy, boys.
But would he keep to that?
(52:01):
He said he gave a parable, asyou said, with Jefferson Davis.
He says let them run away.
Basically, let them run away.
He said don't hurt them,that'll just make things worse.
And his idea of reconstructionwas quick, basically, get 10% of
(52:24):
the population to agree to theunion and bring them back.
Now, of course, that didn'thappen at all and basically they
became an occupied nation whichcreated animosity which well
(52:44):
continues to this day to adegree.
Speaker 1 (52:47):
Absolutely, I don't go there.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Well, one more thing I'd like to say about the
funeral.
So I don't know if I mentionedthis to you, I may have.
So a friend of mine actually afriend of my ex-father-in-law
grew up in Boston and his motherwas one of the infamous
secretaries to John F Kennedyand all through the White House
(53:17):
years, and all through the WhiteHouse years through when he was
in Congress, his mother workedfor the Kennedys as they were
back then, and when Kennedy wasassassinated, jacqueline looked
(53:38):
to her to help her figure out.
And this is this is a story,goes from what I hear from him
his mother's past, but I've seenher papers and her photographs
and notes and their, theirunbelievable artifacts that, um,
they had long conversationsabout and long investigations
(54:04):
into.
The only funeral of anassassinated president they
looked to was Lincoln, andthat's why it was so similar the
funeral procession, the casket,the horse, the whole thing.
Obviously he was buried inArlington and he was buried in
(54:26):
the spot that he actually pickedout, that he said he would like
to be buried there, which was alittle weird in itself.
Yeah, but, and she also helpedJackie write all the condolences
.
Thank yous for the condolences.
So she was involved in thatwhole situation and they really
looked to Lincoln.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Yeah, lincoln's funeral, and there again, I mean
, it was very grand and it was agreat spectacle, let's put it
that way, right.
And Kennedy's?
Yes, I've heard that before.
I've heard about the that assoon as she was riding back in
(55:13):
the jet with her husband's body,she was already, and it's
interesting, here she is in thisbloodstained outfit and she's
already figuring out what to do.
You know she's already figuringhow to create the illusion of
Camelot and how about that.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
She has a birthday party for her son.
The next it was the next day ortwo days later, so that
business would, so things wouldbe as normal.
Now you're still in the WhiteHouse.
You have a new presidentJohnson, whatever his role, I
mean, I still can't get over thepicture of him winking at his
(55:54):
friends in the airplane whenhe's getting sworn in.
So that's a whole other andwe've talked about that at
length already, but I'm glad totalk about it with you.
So I think that justdemonstrates and a good place to
end it is the effect thatLincoln had on the future, on
(56:15):
future presidents.
Lincoln had on the future, onfuture presidents, on future
America and how we deal withthings of great, great turmoil
and disagreement.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
I'd like to close with just two things here.
Sure, these are from the time.
This is the memorial address toAbraham Lincoln, read before
Congress.
Wow, all of this was donebecause we had a civil war going
(56:52):
on.
Still, to a degree, everythingwas done in 1866.
And this is the funeral programin New York City.
And if you let's see if I cando this gracefully it's kind of
(57:28):
fragile.
I gotta kind of.
This is the wow, wow.
This is an amazing book andit's filled with images and
they're all drawings.
Of course they couldn't theycouldn't reproduce the
photographs and printing inthose days very well, but all
the various things taking placeand pictures of the funeral, etc
.
And this whole book was puttogether after the event and
(57:52):
it's just filled with every bitof information about his funeral
.
And in closing, the last thingto show you is what I'm going to
be working on, a documentary on.
Is this?
This is Abraham Lincoln'sfuneral march and the martyr
(58:25):
president.
Pretty amazing.
We're going to have thisorchestrated and it's going to
be played.
It'll be interesting to hear.
I look forward to it.
Yeah, and with Lincoln, inclosing, with you, I just wanted
to say Lincoln, as I said, isvery much like, basically, the
(58:49):
base of a tree and there's amillion branches going out in
every which direction, and inevery one of those you could
find something to talk about orshare or investigate with
Lincoln.
He was an amazing individual,put into a situation that no
president has ever been put intobefore or since, and basically
(59:14):
kept the nation together throughpure tenacity.
If you think about it, as hesaid to Horace Greeley, if about
freeing the slaves, if I cansave the union and free the
slaves, I'll do it.
(59:35):
If I can save the union andfree some of the slaves, I'll do
it.
If I can save the Union andfree some of the slaves, I'll do
it.
And if I can save the Union andfree none of the slaves, I'll
do it.
Lincoln was focused on savingthe Union and for that we should
be very thankful.
Speaker 1 (59:57):
Well said.
Thank you very much.
That's the end.
It's probably going to be atwo-parter, I think, and I
appreciate it.
We're at an hour and 52 minutes.
My goodness, so it went veryquickly in my mind.
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
There's so much more to talk about.
Right, it feels like we justscratched the surface.
I'm not sure we talked aboutanything we wanted to talk about
, but it was a real pleasure.
I really enjoyed it and I thinkthat's a great idea.
I think we should do one onother presidents, sure.
Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
I think that would be great, that would be great.
The McKinley funeral.
Interesting thing I have thefuneral booklet for William
McKinley put together by theminister who officiated the
funeral.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
It's amazing, it's a one-of-a-kind item, so that will
be our next thing.
So I thank you all.
Thank you, jack, for thehundredth time.
It's awesome to talk to youover those things.
I'm so happy to put this out.
I'm going to try to do it in atwo-part, and we look for other
conversations of historicalevents.
Right now we're onassassinations, but there are
(01:01:08):
many other things, because thehistory of America is what we
need to get through the times wehave.
There's no question about it.
So thank you again.
All right, speak soon.
Thanks, take care, bye, bye.
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