Episode 622: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln Part II - Death Wish

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That's when the cannibalism started.

What was that?

Got a tight face today.

You ever have that?

That's what you got to do.

We used to do in acting school, we used to do tony face.

Big face.

Tony face.

Big face.

It stretches you out, right?

Yeah, it gets you gaped.

Yeah, ready to perform.

That's what I need.

From the neck up.

From the bottom down, tight as hell.

Yeah, you are.

Right now, I'm holding my butthole together.

But just for the sake of making sure my organs know to stay up.

Stay up.

Yep, because apparently, if not, they'll just slide right out of you.

If you forget.

Yeah.

Even for a fucking second.

And if it goes to sleep and you're feeling pins and needles, that's the only thing that can actually get in your butthole.

Apparently.

Apparently, that's it.

But that's not what's important now, Eddie.

No?

What's important?

Tell them, Henry.

That the country is not what it was.

Did you just tell yourself to tell them?

Where is blood in the glover?

Yeah, you can just talk.

You don't have to tell yourself to talk.

That the country will never be the hope that it was.

That the nation will never be healed.

That the surrender suffer.

That's the booth song from Assassins.

And the problem is that he really hits the N-word really hard a couple of times towards the end.

So I can't finish the song.

The song was written by a white man, Stephen Sondheim, who may as well have been something else.

But he's Stephen Sondheim.

And he put a lot of N-words in there, but that was just because.

he was Clinton Tarantino of

the last guest on the left, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Marcus Parks.

I'm here with this Soddenberg apologist, Henry Zabrowski.

It's not an apology, it's just

accurate.

So, the way Booth

wasn't a nice guy, he said the N-word a lot.

I'm not saying nurse, I'm saying he said it quite a bit.

And then Sodheim did put it through the songs.

I just wish I could sing more of the songs.

Sure, can you sing the Lee Harvey Oswald songs?

Everybody's got the right to some sunshine.

Not the sun, but maybe one if it's beeps.

It's a great musical, dude.

Oh, yeah.

I'm sad I can't sing DMX.

Oh, yeah.

So again, replace the N-word with fella.

You should try it with your assassins.

Hmm.

Let me work on it.

You'll work on it.

We have Ed Larson with us as well, trying to get Henry to get his Soddenberg love out there.

There you go.

I want you to feel free, man.

Do you like Sondheim?

I don't care.

Yeah.

Sondheim.

Sondheim.

Yeah, Sodenberg.

So Steven Soddenberg.

Traffic.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great director.

Yeah.

Steven Soderberg.

Sonderberg is some man you got cookies from.

That sounds like a baker of some sort that you knew back in New York.

Steve Sonderberg.

Steve Sonderberg.

That's me.

I'll be the one fucking your wife.

Yeah, hi, Duan.

They call me Dr.

Cookenstein online, but to you, I'm Dr.

Steven Sunderbird.

And we are here at part two, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

And this one really puts the ass in assassination twice.

Now, in this episode, are you actually going to explain who this Lincoln fella is?

Yeah.

Are we just going to keep saying that?

We just keep saying this,

Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln.

Like, who was he?

Was he some kind of ex-gamer?

I forgot you didn't go to college.

I really didn't.

I I wrote for the paper.

Yeah, he wrote for the newspaper and he took writing classes at Tallahassee Community College.

So, yes, it's like you didn't.

Yeah, no, I was used to learn math, and I was like, you know what?

I'm just not going to graduate.

Hey, I can't say much.

I have a creative writing degree from Texas Technical University.

So I did not make great choices either.

Hey, most of those degrees were used to write manifestos about killing women.

So just remember that, know that you're past that.

No, we did have,

John Hinkley was also a student at Texas Tech University, except he studied history.

Super creative, though.

Also, presidential assassin.

So, when we last left John Wilkes Booth, Booth was in the early stages of winding down his acting career with the explicit purpose of devoting more time to a conspiracy to kidnap Abraham Lincoln so the Confederacy could ransom the president in exchange for Confederate POWs.

Why did you do it, Johnny?

Nobody agrees.

You who had everything, why did you bring a nation to its knees?

See, by this point, he's...

By this point, in the American Civil War, 1864, the Confederacy was on a near-irreversible downward slide, and John Wilkes Booth had done absolutely nothing in service of defending his beloved institution of slavery aside from talking a lot of shit.

From what it seems like to me, Booth had more or less convinced himself that he was simply waiting in the wings for his moment to step into history, as if his part in the war was simply another stage role.

John Wilkes Booth had been greatly inspired by the pre-war raid on Harper's Ferry led by the abolitionist John Brown, but only in the sense that John Brown had taken matters into his own hands and had fought and died for a cause.

I want to be John Brown, but on opposite days.

Call me John Blue

or Gray.

Gray!

No!

No!

Let's

Now, if you'll remember, John Wilkes Booth had wanted to inspire people just as John Brown had, in the sense that Brown had gathered a small crew to fight against impossible odds.

The difference, though, is that John Wilkes Booth wanted to inspire people to defend slavery, not abolish it.

Super hard.

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean,

not for half of the country.

Time, however, was running out for Booth to make his move.

1864 was an election year, so Lincoln was determined to show America that an end to the war was in sight.

General Ulysses S.

Grant was getting more aggressive in his southern campaign by burning down cities, amongst many other brutal tactics, and a raid on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, while unsuccessful, had damn near resulted in the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

So, sorry, say Confederate loses.

well,

where?

I don't know how to do a goddamn liquor work myself.

Honestly,

I just thought cotton came that way.

So, perhaps seeing that 1864 was do or die time, John Wilkes Booth began having serious discussions with other Confederates to formulate a solid plan for kidnapping Abraham Lincoln in order to trade him for Confederate POWs, thus shifting the momentum of the war.

Do you think it would have helped Abraham Lincoln if he played saxophone

on a big public scale?

Like

Bill Clinton.

Yeah.

I mean, it was great, and he went to McDonald's all the time.

He's very likable.

Do you think he's too, it would make him too funky?

I don't think there were saxophones.

No, I don't think so.

Yeah, when was the saxophone?

That's a whole different show.

When's the show?

No, it's not saxophones.

I just find it crazy to think about Confederacy like as in general.

It's just like they're so lazy that they want slaves, but they're so lazy to protect that laziness, they're willing to die in war.

Oh, yeah, man.

Just work.

I'll kill someone.

Just work.

I will literally kill for my Roomba.

I will kill for my Roomba.

I don't know how to clean the floor.

Well, there's nothing romantic in work.

You know, there's no glory to be had in work and just being a fucking, you know, and just being a guy who's out in a field somewhere.

There is glory in going to fight and defend your homeland, or at least there's glory in the idea of it.

What about that song?

That's the sound of the man working on the chain.

I'm pretty sure they're all prisoners.

Yeah.

It's also sung by black men, which the Confederates do not enjoy.

Unbelievable.

It is.

Now, the plan to kidnap Lincoln first appeared in August of 1864.

That's when Booth began discussing kidnapping plans with two childhood friends from Baltimore.

These two men, unlike Booth, had actually fought in the Confederate Army.

That meant that Booth had begun his plot against Lincoln, whatever it was going to be, a full eight months before the assassination took place, and three months before Lincoln was elected to a second term.

Then I can possibly kidnap Lincoln after the summer musical.

Lincoln's second term, however, had had not been a lock.

Projections said that Lincoln would probably lose, but when the absentee ballots rolled in from the Union soldiers, Lincoln became the first president since Andrew Jackson to win a second term.

Absentee ballots?

I thought those were new.

No, it's been in use for quite a long time.

Lincoln needed to win.

Lincoln had to win, I guess.

Yes.

Yes, you guessed correctly.

Also, it was really hard for him because he wasn't really campaigning that much because he was like in the middle of a fucking war.

Yeah, it was very difficult for him.

Yeah, he's so tall

as well.

Very difficult.

Your facts are on point today, thank you.

I can't even.

Why did you do it, Tony?

Nobody agrees.

He's actually 5'8 ⁇ , but the hat put him over.

Yeah.

Taller.

He actually was mostly skull.

And people don't want to talk about it, which is why he was so easy to kill.

Let's continue.

Confederate media, however, reported that because the soldiers had put Lincoln over, Lincoln had used his tyrannical powers to rig the results and re-elect himself.

As such, a bevy of newspapers began floating the idea of assassination, just putting it out there, while others called outright for some brave soul to commit what they called tyrannicide.

Now, murdering Abraham Lincoln was actually a fairly popular view during and even before the Civil War.

But while today, we're totally used to the idea that there's at least one guy trying to kill the president at all times, no matter who the president is, something you can set your watch to.

The concept of presidential assassination was fairly new to America in the 19th century.

See, before Lincoln, the only threat against a sitting president had occurred 25 years previously, again with Andrew Jackson, when a mentally ill house painter had tried shooting Jackson with a pair of pistols.

What happened?

Hmm?

Got him.

Now he honestly

tried.

Yes.

Apparently, the assassin had been on a long downward slide with his mental health.

And on the day of the attempt, honestly, I just want to say it's more like a maniacal pogo stick.

I do, Billy.

I'm the day after very self-love

stick.

On the day of the attempt, the house painter had been sitting in his paint shop with a book in his hand, laughing, when out of nowhere, he exclaimed, quote, I'll be damned if I don't do it.

The painter then left the shop and easily easily found the president leaving a funeral where he tried shooting Jackson in the back, but both pistols misfired due to damp weather.

So President Jackson beat the guy half to death with his cane and the would-be assassin was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to an asylum for life.

Thanks everybody!

See you soon.

And by soon, I mean never.

I'm going to the looty bit.

That's where I belong.

Enjoy yourselves, everyone.

Have a pleasant fall.

Sounds pretty sane to me.

He's trying to kill our most genocidal president.

Yeah, he was the worst one.

But by the time of Abraham Lincoln, the tenor of the country had changed considerably.

Lincoln began receiving death threats at the Illinois State House before he was even elected president, along with a continual stream of packages containing garbage and poisoned food, as well as what I'm sure was a fair amount of feces.

Quite a large hill of feces.

But he ordered the feces.

Lincoln, however, kept his quote-unquote favorite death threats throughout the years in a special folder, although he never told anyone his specific reasons for saving these letters.

In my opinion, I think Lincoln might have had like a sense of humor about the whole thing, but he also may have just been resigned to the fact that people were going to want to kill any president who threatened the institution of slavery.

This would have been a stark reality for Lincoln because there had been incredible spurts of violence that occurred even in the lead up to the war as a result of the slavery debate.

Chief among these spurts was Bleeding Kansas, which began a full six years before the outbreak of the war.

During this time of turmoil, up to 200 people were killed in raids and battles fought specifically over the issue of slavery because Kansas was trying to figure out whether it was going to enter the Union as a free state or a slave state.

In fact, just before the raid on Harper's Ferry, John Brown had led a raiding party in Kansas with his sons where they seized five pro-slavery settlers from their homes and hacked the settlers to death with broadswords.

Cool.

It's like Baldur's Date.

Yeah, man.

That sounds dirty to me.

That's fucking awesome, dude.

The last person to die by a fucking broadsword is like in these days, it's just some fat anime man.

You know, like, that's fun.

God, it's a father and son activity.

God, I just wish, I wish I could have done that with my dad before he went.

Nothing would have made him happier than chopping up a bunch of fucking strangers with fucking broadswords.

So fun.

In other words, things had been tense, to say the very least, for years.

Once they start chopping people into salad, it's like a fucking problem.

It's not even guns anymore.

You know what I mean?

Like, we're just turning them into literally cotton fetti.

How did they know the swords were ladies?

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

Fuck fucking ass.

You're why the country's in the toilet.

People like you.

I appreciate that.

I'm sorry.

I had an irrational.

It's an irrational reaction.

Well, that's all to say that Lincoln knew how fired up people were on both sides of the debate at all times.

Now, the threats against President Lincoln's life were not just limited to letters.

The earliest, near-successful attempt took place coincidentally in Maryland.

Yeah, I imagine that would be

the lightest threats of death.

Yeah, the letters.

Because the letters are just saying I'm going to kill you.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, that's definitely the least of it.

Yeah.

Well, this first attempt came to be known as the Baltimore Plot.

Can you actually say it properly?

The Baltimore Plot.

The Balmer Plot.

The Balmer Plot.

Yeah.

This plot, however,

was not, this plot was not something that occurred months or even years into Lincoln's first term.

People were trying to kill Lincoln on his way to his inauguration in March of 1861.

This was before the Confederacy was even formed.

A secret paramilitary group called the National Volunteers, who had the stated goal of overthrowing the government by violent force, they intended to kill Lincoln in Baltimore when the President-elect's train stopped in the city on its way to Washington, D.C.

The plan was to create a public disturbance and murder Lincoln in the Fracas.

But luckily, the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency had infiltrated the national volunteers.

They uncovered the plot long before Lincoln arrived in Baltimore that day, so Lincoln ended up skipping the town altogether.

The problem was that the Baltimore plot soon became public knowledge.

The Baltimore papers were quick to call Lincoln the coward president because, they wrote, had there been a threat to say, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Jackson would have crushed the conspiracy by, quote, meeting it like a man.

Yeah, why, by what, hitting a bullet head first?

Like, that's the idea of fucking just coming at these fuckers.

No, you'd probably, no, you would have met it with a man by, no, putting a bunch of Native Americans between him and the bullets.

Like Andrew Jackson would have done.

Cripplingly hammered.

Malincan was quite defensive when it came to these attacks on his courage, and it is speculated that the press's reaction to Lincoln skipping Baltimore was why he had a future aversion to bodyguards or a large security detail.

See, the Secret Service was created, unfortunately, after Lincoln was killed.

As up to that point, bodyguards and security details were somewhat a matter of personal preference from president to president.

Because they used to just walk in the crowd.

Yeah.

They used to walk around wave at people, like kiss a wife, take a baby.

Yeah, there's that famous picture of Lincoln at Gettysburg, and he's standing there.

Yeah, he shouldn't have been.

He shouldn't have been.

He was in fucking danger.

Well, Lincoln, for example, he was constantly opposed to the idea of having a personal bodyguard.

And this is against the wishes of his friends, family, and cabinet members who constantly told him that he needed some sort of protection.

Yeah.

Lincoln did somewhat acquiesce in 1862, about two years into the war, when he allowed a company of soldiers to be assigned to the White House, but they were really bodyguards in name only.

They provided no personal protection, and their duties had more to do with taking care of little Tad Lincoln's goats than keeping an eye on the president.

Man, you know that annoyed the shit out of some guys.

Oh, yeah.

He's like, can we please put a soldier at the front of your home?

I don't need any of these so-called bodyguards.

I just need my glam squad.

I have Ricky Oto, who does my culinary.

I've got Brian Kingsley.

He's doing my interior design.

I've got Randall, who does my clothes.

And I've got old Chiba who works in my Madden scaping.

I will unite this country.

Also, like this might not be true, but I remember when I was learning about Lincoln for historical roast, they said that he would challenge people who heckled him at his speeches to wrestling matches in front of everybody.

If someone started heckling him, he'd just be like, come down here and fight me.

Come on, I dare you

out of him in front of everyone to continue his speech.

Oh, you want to take a shot at all, sticking Lincoln,

time what I call the Greek pretzel.

You want to see what that's like?

And I'll show you where the mustard comes from.

Comes from old Lincoln's back pocket, if you know what I'm saying.

All right, so come get a sample of it yourself.

You want to figure out how he fucking Python like Arthur Abraham Lincoln

from North Way.

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What doesn't belong in my epic summer plans?

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Oh, so hot.

Hot.

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What should be holding me back?

Probably,

I would say you've got problems with, you know, you have acid reflux.

Yeah.

You got some problems consuming dairy.

I can barely swim.

You are afraid of loud noises?

I hate loud noises.

You're afraid of being outside.

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Now eventually, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton did appoint a cavalry detail in 1863 to guard the president when Lincoln traveled the DC area, especially when Lincoln rode from the White House to his summer residence on a plot of land called Soldier's Home.

Lincoln, however, thought that the security detail was unnecessary and intrusive, so he regularly slipped out of their sight while failing to tell any of his aides that he was leaving on his own.

As such, Lincoln often rode back and forth between the White House and his summer residence and soldiers' home alone.

Now, it seems insane to us that a sitting president in the middle of a civil war would take such risks with his own life.

It's to the point where one could make the argument that Lincoln may have had some sort of death wish, or at least didn't care whether he lived or died.

People say this right that he was fatalistic they kind of blame it on his they say he's he was a depressive he was incredibly depressed yeah everyone in his life had died he'd lost multiple children his first wife his mother at a very young age he had a really fucking hard life sounds like no baggage no problems but you know it's all everybody's different there was still plenty of kids and mary todd oh yeah mary todd's right there buddy yeah

well i mean That really has always been the craziest part of the John Wilkes Booth story.

That's the thing that people always bring up in modern times.

The fact that Booth was able to just walk up to the president in a public place and shoot him in the fucking head without running into a single security guard along the way.

But I don't think that Lincoln's small or sometimes non-existent security detail was just about his personal pride.

Nor do I think Lincoln was secretly suicidal.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

I actually think that Lincoln had a small security detail because it may have allowed him to live his life his way.

In my purely speculative opinion, this is my favorite because we get to just speculate and we don't have fucking any sticks in this game.

I think that Lincoln's small security detail and therefore the circumstances behind his untimely death were directly linked to Lincoln's true sexuality.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's finally time to talk about Gay Lincoln.

Gay Lincoln,

I can't

And we're not just being shitheads here.

No, there's four reasons behind this.

The evidence for Abraham Lincoln being gay is extensive, if circumstantial, but I do believe that it is crucial to understanding his life and consequently his death.

And his logs.

Man, bottoming out, Abraham Lincoln after he's already, because you know what his favorite meal was?

Chicken fricassee.

You know what chicken fricassee is?

No idea.

Are you telling me about it?

It's just fat and gravy, lumps of chicken, right?

It's extremely easy to make.

It's like powdered, powdered chicken.

You use like flour on chicken.

You make it into a big sort of roux.

It's gloopy, filled with carbs, and you know for a fact that's like when you're, if you're bottoming Lincoln, it's like getting your tire stuck in the mud.

You're going to need somebody to pull you out.

Oh, you had a homemade catcher's mess.

Oh, yeah.

I'm calling it my black hole.

Well, the first mention of Lincoln's possible homosexuality was in a 1926 biography written by the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sandberg,

who wrote that Lincoln's friendship with the certain male lifelong chum had, quote, a streak of lavender and spots soft as May violets.

Well, spots is where I was cussing them.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool.

I just want you to know.

Don't be freaked out, Mr.

President.

Don't be freaked out.

I'm the same babe you knew.

I've always been this way.

Okay?

Just chill out.

How's your wife?

Shh.

I'm being a fucking bummer right now.

All right.

I'm out with my boys.

I'm hanging out with my boys.

I don't need to hear about MT right now.

All right.

She's somewhere crying into a bonnet.

Well, Abraham Lincoln's so-called chum was Joshua Fry Speed, a guy who had been partners with Lincoln in his general store back in Springfield, Illinois.

This was long before Lincoln was heavily involved in politics.

Apparently, before Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd, he and Speed lived together for a period of four years, a period in which these two men continuously shared a bet.

He had such a nice, peaceful life, him and his partner in their little store and they could have just made like little you know what it's like it's like shit's creek it's just like shit's creepy apothecary and that's also what he called his asshole

lincoln

if he wasn't dead before he's gonna be dead after that is josh speed's face he does have a little like

i'm up to no good smile he does look like a lincoln kisser yeah he's mischievous he's definitely mischievous that's a that's a lincoln kisser and a lot lot of people got a lot of historians, you know, people who really push back hard against the gay Lincoln thing.

Like, they say that it was not uncommon for men to share a bed during this time period.

And they're absolutely right.

It wasn't.

But not for four years.

You're telling me you can't scare up an extra bed in four years?

Hey, Josh, what are you doing?

Get another bed.

Hey, I love smelling you when you sleep.

You're my best friend.

The last thing I want to do is not smell you when we're asleep because obviously we're both wrapped in wool all day long working in the heat and i'm a wrestler i'm a big old gaggly wrestler can you imagine what my fucking just what my chest smells like

i like it

the idea of being within eight inches of ad for all i know you do

i know you do i know you do you showed evidence last night yeah i mean we've had the touch for too long before Yeah, I mean, but it sucks.

It does suck.

You avoid it.

They didn't say he liked sharing the bed.

It was just better than sleeping on the dirt floor.

You're in the middle of a cabin in Illinois.

There's nowhere else to sleep.

Wow.

You think he didn't like it?

I mean, who knows?

I don't know.

I'm a devil's advocate.

Wow.

Yeah.

I think, yeah, I do think that they were fucking.

Yes.

Please make your position clear, Edward.

Make your position clear.

I just like to play devil's advocate.

Good.

It's pretty clear that they were fucking.

Yeah.

Well, furthermore, Lincoln briefly called off his engagement to Mary Todd when Joshua Speed suddenly left Springfield because Speed's absence had sent Lincoln into a deep depression.

Lincoln also signed his letters to Speed as yours forever, while Lincoln's future wife, Mary Todd, got most affectionately, which might as well have been signed your pal, Abe.

Your best friend.

Yeah.

And roommate.

Your roommate, Abraham Lincoln.

Yeah, he did postpone his wedding to marry Todd Lincoln to help Speed move to Kentucky.

That's the gayest thing I've heard so far.

Well, in the letters that Lincoln and Speed wrote to each other, they talked quite a bit about their anxieties concerning their impending marriages.

Specifically, they talked about the anxieties surrounding their abilities to sexually perform with their future wives.

Can I just ask, okay, when I'm going in there,

when they say eat the pussy,

do I use my teeth?

My big wooden jompers.

Do I bite and grip?

That's what I did.

Yeah.

I love you, Josh.

God damn it.

I wish we could fucking just suck it.

I just realized I've never seen Lincoln's teeth.

Oh, you don't want to.

He must look like a fucking grave dark.

Yeah.

I can't imagine what it'd be like near.

Oh, his tongue like a horrific horrific slug and his fucking dark brown gums.

Did he smoke?

I don't know.

But

nothing was good.

No, nothing was good back then.

But you know, he might, I'm sure he had a rotten mouth.

He might have.

I mean,

many men had rotten mouths back then.

Just keep going.

I'm looking up Lincoln's teeth.

Okay.

Well, Joshua Speed was not Lincoln's only known dallions.

In his early 20s, Lincoln hired a 19-year-old man named William Green to work at his store.

But Lincoln and Green also shared a particularly small cot.

Most tellingly, Green also wrote at one point that Lincoln had thighs that were, quote, as perfect as a human being could be.

And I showed Ed my thighs the other day, and I want you to look at them too, only just because you've never said anything like that to me.

And I also believe that my thighs are the best thing that I have.

I've seen your thighs a lot.

I agree that your thighs are the best thing you have.

I just didn't, I didn't necessarily feel like I had to say they were beautiful.

They're pretty good.

Yeah, they're fine.

I mean,

they've got ham-like qualities.

And you like ham.

Like hanging ham.

And I do enjoy ham.

It's just incredible that you can just pull your pants down without undoing your belt.

Hey, X-Critch, Rich.

Years of being a performer.

Got to have access to my ass.

The executives can get it up.

Just so you know, also, Lincoln did have horrible dental problems.

He did lose a chunk of his jaw due to mercury poisoning in his gum rot.

And his dentist, Johnny Greenwood.

Wow.

Johnny Greenwood.

That's incredible.

Just like the guy.

He made indentures out of ivory and gold, and he said they creaked and clacked as he spoke in a

like the souls of the damned were escaping from his mouth.

So he had tusk teeth.

But guess what left extra room for?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, it depends.

I mean, we don't know how big those things were.

Yeah.

They could have been monstrous.

Now, you might say that all of these things with all these guys, they might have just been youthful affairs.

Sure.

You might even say that Lincoln had fully suppressed his true nature by the time he'd become president.

Yeah.

But that discounts the case of Lincoln's aforementioned summer residence, Soldier's Home, which to me sounds like the name of fucking San Diego gay bar that specifically serves Marines.

Yeah, it very much sounds like a buffet that someone rings a bell at.

There's just a bunch of ass hanging out of the windows.

But rough soldier ass, battle-hardened ass.

Soldiers are home.

See, the cottage at Soldier's Home was where Lincoln took his family during the warmer months to avoid death and disease because outbreaks of typhus and dysentery would regularly rip through Washington, D.C.

every summer.

It's a reminder that it's a literal swamp.

It's an actual swamp.

It's fucking idiotic that that's where our nation's capital is.

Manhattan's also a swamp.

Yeah, but Manhattan's better.

It's nicer.

It's also nicer.

Yeah.

But it was.

But this was also where Lincoln went when it was said that he wanted to, quote, get some sleep away from the prying eyes of the public.

And it was also where Lincoln preferred to stay when his wife, Mary Todd, was out of town.

Furthermore, a member of Lincoln's own security detail, Captain David Derrickson, gained a certain notoriety for sharing Lincoln's bed at Soldier's Home when Mary Todd wasn't around.

Hey, just because Derrickson's looking to get his rails split, we don't got to fucking blame him for any of that.

I'm not blaming him for nothing.

I'm just saying David Derrickson was definitely near Lincoln's dickie quite a bit.

Quite often.

Get a taste of Lincoln gets you thinking.

Well, didn't they say

didn't they say they would sleep chest to chest?

No, this is I made it up.

I made it up saying that they slept chest to chest, so that that's why they were called breast friends.

Oh,

yes.

No, I made that up.

No, okay.

Oh, that would have been, you know, I guess that would have been the way to say that they weren't fucking.

I think that's the most romantic way to sleep.

Yeah, chest to chest.

Yeah, facing the other person.

Dead into the eyes of another person.

Feeling the breath of another man on your face is...

I face away from my wife, who I love.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I face away from her.

No, yeah, so do I.

So do I.

I don't want to smell anyone's breath.

No,

especially David Derrickson.

I think Derrickson was sweet as hell.

Civil War dick breath is not what you want to experience.

It's not the American candle I want to purchase.

I think Captain Yankee candle, please.

You're right.

And I heard Captain David Derrickson's nickname was Christmas Cookies.

And he was delightful to smash.

I bet.

I bet.

It's like a holiday.

Every time I remove his brooch.

Now, this all might like.

Now, this all might seem like salacious gossip.

But the point of covering.

It is.

And we like it.

No, no, no.

The point of covering all this is that I think it shows a man who spent his entire existence trying to live two lives.

I believe that Abraham Lincoln wanted to live life in a way that would allow him to be who he truly was, at least some of the time.

Because in 1865, the only way a man was going to be able to be gay in any way, especially if he was the fucking president of the United States, was to live a fair section of his life in secrecy.

If that was Lincoln's goal, then a large security detail, which would make sense for anyone in his position, would have not just increased the exposure of lincoln's private life it would have also made it nearly impossible for him to sneak off by himself to get the sort of privacy that he would need to live at least a sliver of his life as he wanted to live it and it's also like a lot of like homosexual acts at the time were considered to be illegal like they're depending on what's not considered to be they were illegal yeah so yeah you would be putting thrown a prison he had to but he also was a man that really like

you know we always talk about how, like, they're modern guys born into every fucking generation.

They just don't like, how the fuck am I here?

Yeah.

Abraham Lincoln kind of was like that, where he definitely knew that he was a man of the moment.

And he also knew that, like, he tried, like a real man, wanting to live life on his terms.

Yeah.

And so I could see him creating a very extravagant system in order to hide this lifestyle just so that he can be himself sometimes.

Yeah.

But the problem here is that the precedent of a nearly non-existent security detail had long been set by the time John Willkes Booth showed up at Ford's Theater with a pistol.

And while low security may have given Lincoln some happiness, if that was indeed the motivation, it also directly resulted in his untimely death.

And that's how his gayness leads to him getting shot.

That's crazy.

That's technically theory.

Well, I would say it would more like society's fucking society's non-acceptance.

I'm not going to blame Lincoln.

I'm not going to blame Lincoln.

You're right.

Lincoln's not their fault.

Yeah, no.

Except for all the stuff that he did that made people angry, but then again, he did correct stuff because he was president.

Yeah, it was all good stuff.

Yes.

Yeah.

Now, tellingly, John Wilkes Booth's original plan to kidnap Lincoln was in fact to intercept the president while he was traveling from the White House to soldiers' home.

And the Confederacy had even considered pulling it off themselves as far back as 1862.

Although I don't know exactly why they never pulled the trigger on the plan.

They were in full, what's called black flag warfare.

So everybody was on the table.

Everything was on the table during the Civil War.

Yeah, I wonder why.

Maybe they just felt like they didn't want to get that heat back on them.

Could be, yeah.

And it might also have been like, ah, well, that's, you know, that's not chivalrous.

That's not, you know, whatever.

Yeah, they still were in that realm of warfare.

They would literally line up and wait to get shot.

It's fucking crazy.

Yeah, it was stupid.

John Wilkes Booth, however, he at the very least recognized that, like John Brown, he needed a crew.

So, looking for more direction, Booth made his way to the Confederacy's home base in the North in October of 1864, just before Lincoln's second election victory.

This sanctuary was located way up in Canada.

Yeah, you guys are fucking a part of our bullshit, too.

Yeah, you fucking pieces of shit.

Act like you're better than us.

You ain't.

You know what?

The shitty thing is that they can technically say that they weren't a part of it because all this happened before Canada was actually a country.

What was it?

A province.

Hi, Canada, you're absolved.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was basically just somewhere where they can go hide.

Yeah, it's cold, though.

Personally, I was actually, yeah, it's very cold.

Personally, I was actually shocked to discover that the Confederates had built their own little nest in none other than Montreal.

Sidesourzel, POTL, at gmail.com, if you're in the Montreal area and know anything about this, I would love to find out what you guys are.

The idea that it was an entire, it really was a spy haven for the Confederacy.

Oh, Montreal was home to so many Confederate agents that it was called Little Richmond after the Confederate capital.

According to an article in the Montreal Gazette, Montreal during the Civil War was like the Casablanca of its time as it acted as a hub for spies, plotters, and Confederate soldiers on the run.

Meanwhile, like Montreal's the sexiest city in the world, and you can just imagine these horrific hicks from fucking Arkansas just up there being like,

what are they doing with them thin-ass bagels?

What are they doing with them?

What are they doing?

I don't like bagels.

I don't like bagels.

I like bread.

I like flat-ass bread.

Where did the French stand on our Civil War?

No one really came to the South side.

I believe the French were on our side.

Yeah.

Like, I believe the French supported the Union.

I know there were lots of French in the South because of Louisiana and all that shit.

And so maybe that's why Montreal was like a way to be a Confederate hotspot.

That's very interesting.

And also the piracy that was around.

Like, I imagine it all kind of works together.

Louisiana, if I remember correctly, though, was kind of like

in an odd spot when it came to the Civil War, because I know they had started Reconstruction in Louisiana before the Civil War was even over.

So,

yeah, Louisiana, I think, was like kind of a strange place.

Amen to that.

Well, interestingly, especially considering Canada's oft-touted status as a safe haven for escaped slaves, Montreal fully welcomed the Confederates.

Using a vast network of agents, the Confederacy used Montreal as a sanctuary where they could hide out after committing bank robberies in the border states.

Or they'd use it as a base to attempt just these fucking insane plans.

Like they planned to blow up the White House using landmines.

They planned to burn down New York City.

They get came very close.

They burned down P.T.

Bardum's museum, like the fucking the Dime Museum.

Like the New York plot is insane.

They waged biological warfare or attempted to wage biological warfare using clothing that they believed was infected with yellow fever.

Why didn't they just want to kill Lincoln?

I honestly, it's so weird to me that they would do all of this, but they wouldn't kill the president.

Yeah, it is strange to me as well.

Didn't the Canadians burn down the White House at one point?

Yeah, that was during the, that was all 1812.

Whole different it was a mistake.

Some guy sneezed.

It was a whole thing.

It was a whore staring to hole.

There's no reason to get into all that.

I mean, you know, the plot to use yellow fever to wage biological warfare.

I mean, that's not how yellow fever works.

We know now that it's spread by mosquitoes, but the Confederacy still engaged in a plot to kill large numbers of northern civilians and Union troops by using infected clothing sold at auction.

And the whole plan was originated by agents in Montreal.

Now, as far as how official all this was, the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, set up their Canadian outpost in Montreal himself using the modern equivalent of $20 million.

And a Canadian bank operated by Montreal's former mayor helped the Confederates launder money.

The central location of the Confederate operation in Montreal, however, was the city's most impressive and fashionable hotel at the time, St.

Lawrence Hall, and it was at this hotel that John Wilkes Booth arrived in October of 1864.

Booth checked himself in and thereafter spent 10 days hanging out with his fellow Confederates, playing card games and billiards while discussing his kidnapping plan with various Confederate agents.

by the end of Booth's stay, he was, in effect, a Confederate agent himself, although it doesn't seem like he left with any specific orders.

There were a lot of guys like this, it seems like, in the Confederacy.

Like, almost, I wouldn't necessarily say agents of chaos, but more like, yeah, give him some money, see what he can do.

Like, see what he can pull off.

No, it's because it's a perfect example.

It's asymmetric warfare, and it's a perfect place for mercenaries and people that just like to kill other people and do stuff in the shenanigans and do things in the name of war.

Yeah, because they can.

They can get away with it.

And it's a good investment to not hire labor.

Yes.

Booth did actually leave with a Confederate stipend worth the modern equivalent of $30,000, which is no small sum.

No.

But more importantly, John Wilkes Booth also had in his possession a letter of introduction to a Confederate agent in Maryland who could help Booth with the kidnapping of Abraham Lincoln.

That agent's name was Dr.

Samuel Mudd.

Through Dr.

Mudd, John Wilkes Booth would

sounds unreal.

I have to take a shit.

I'm about to become Dr.

Mudd.

I'm about to fucking graduate from shit medical school.

Thank you, Henry.

Now we can move faster.

I can't.

Just like for days, I'd just be like, they call me Dr.

Mudd.

Good morning.

How are you?

I'm interested in slaves.

That just has been going over and over in my head.

Sounds like a Primus song.

It's they might be giant songs.

It's just Dr.

Worm.

Well, through Dr.

Mudd, John Wilkes Booth would begin to put together a crew to enact his plan to kidnap the president.

But when that plan inevitably failed, months later, it would be the same men who would conspire to kill Lincoln instead.

Now, Dr.

Mudd was a slave owner.

Must be Dr.

Mudd.

Yep, I'm just going to be sitting here just as long.

Nothing special.

Nothing to write home about.

Or Dr.

Mudd.

Oh, I'll give you a crew to what my specialty is.

Yep.

He's a Dookie Poo-Poo.

I'm a little bit Dookie Poo-Poo now.

Proctologist, right?

Yeah, yeah, Proctology.

This is our best episode.

We just can't handle what this doctor's name is.

Dr.

Mudd, he conspired to kill the greatest president of all time.

Couldn't care last.

He's like, his name's Poop.

His name's Mike's Poopy.

He's a poop man.

He marks Fox.

He makes his own fun, Dr.

Hall Fox.

Yeah, honestly, what he deserves.

Dr.

Mudd was a slave owner and farmer who owned a plot of land in Bryant Town, Maryland.

But when the state finally abolished slavery in 1864, Dr.

Mudd did not have a business plan that included actually paying the people who worked his plantation.

This is going to devil state my whole poo-poo base

practice.

It's going to fuck up all of my fart science.

This is all I need to do.

My bean farm.

Oh, no, all the precious beans.

Dr.

Mudd's operation, therefore, collapsed, which gave him ample reason to help the Confederacy in any way he could.

As for Booth's plot, Dr.

Mudd's home was perfectly situated as a stopover between Washington, D.C., and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, which meant that Booth could hide at Dr.

Mudd's farm with Abraham Lincoln after kidnapping him.

President Lincoln, I just say, I'm a huge fan.

Can I interest you in some beads?

I'd love to help you.

Do you have any Duke or shit?

Fuck, fart.

Shit, fuck, fart.

Issues, President Lincoln, I'm a huge again, even though I hate, I'm filled with hate.

I'm filled with hate.

I hate everything.

But I'm still, it's just an honor to have you here.

That's Dr.

Mudd.

Yes!

Well, Dr.

Mudd's failed plantation could not be the only stop towards Richmond, nor could it even be the first.

Dr.

Mudd's failed plantation's a great roller coaster ride.

Like a great dark ride at six legs.

Well, Booth obviously couldn't travel with the president tied up on the back of his horse during the day, and Dr.

Mudd was too far away from Washington, D.C.

to reach in a single night.

Booth would need a place to flee immediately after kidnapping Lincoln.

So Dr.

Mudd introduced Booth to a man named John Surratt.

John Surratt operated as a mail agent for the Confederacy by passing documents and letters to Confederates in the North.

Dr.

Mudd was also a mail agent, so they were kind of, you know, connecting links in a chain.

John Surratt's family also owned a tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland.

This tavern had become a center for secessionist activities because of its close proximity to Washington, D.C.

And John Surratt's entire family, including his mother, were all Confederate sympathizers.

Therefore, their tavern had become a well-known safehouse for Confederate agents.

In other words, the Surratt family had a lot of credibility amongst the Confederacy.

So when John Surratt agreed to be a part of John Wilkes Booth's presidential kidnapping plot, Booth's operation gained authority while Booth gained more confidence.

Now, once Booth started to believe in his plot with more fervency, he attempted to bring others into the conspiracy, although John Wilkes Booth was never really worried much about whether or not these other people actually wanted to be a part of his conspiracy.

For example, in November of 1863, just after Booth hooked up with the Confederates officially, he agreed to be in a production of Julius Caesar that included both Booth and his brothers, Edwin and June.

It was a massive, massive deal.

It's like kind of a publicity type, like a stunt.

John Wilkes was in the role of Mark Anthony.

However, John Wilkes Booth had also just lost a lot of money in an oil venture that had gone nowhere.

I would imagine that might be why he agreed to be a part of this stunt production.

And all the other actors, including, I'd assume, his two older brothers, took turns making fun of John Wilkes Booth for his business failures during rehearsals.

Yeah, that's gotta be brutal.

That's gotta sting.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Just getting destroyed by your brothers.

Having lost everything.

I know the feeling.

You're just like, God, I know they're gonna fuck something to say about this whole fucking

well, because Booth had spent like such a long time telling everyone that he's gonna make so much money on this oil deal.

Like they gotta get in on this.

They gotta help, you know, and then it just all goes fucking bust.

But during the teasing during one rehearsal, Booth turned to a friend of his, a fellow actor named Sam Brooks, and whispered that he had a better speculation than oil at hand, one that no one would laugh at.

Now, Sam Brooks didn't think much of this aside, but I would imagine he may have at least humored Booth's comment, because a month later, Booth showed up at Sam Brooks' front door and told him that they had something to discuss.

The two of them took a walk, wherein Booth revealed the entire plot to kidnap Lincoln and whisk him away to Richmond.

Then, both asked Sam Brooks if he wanted a piece of the action.

This would be a similar situation to, say, Charlie Sheen dropping by Rob Lowe's house to ask if you wanted to help him kidnap George H.W.

Bush.

You might say yes.

Yeah, well, Rob Lowe's the perfect person to put in there, by the way.

That's who I'd ask.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because he was a big Democrat.

He used to sit there.

He used to go to all the rallies.

He was a big Dukakis guy.

He also did the thing where he just.

I'm going to say this to both of you.

Have you ever concrete plan to kidnap a politician?

Don't tell me.

Yeah, I don't want to know.

And I'm also not going to use you.

Just go do it.

Yeah.

No, you're the worst person to use.

I'm the distraction.

Yeah.

I dress up like a lady.

I go in.

I wear my tube top.

I fall over a chair.

My tits fall out.

I go, oh,

no.

You got a big mouth.

Your mouth's too big.

Yeah.

We're never going to get there.

I'll use it.

Live from North Land.

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What should be holding me back?

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Now, Brooks was, of course, horrified and shocked when Booth laid out his plan, and he refused Booth outright.

Booth, of course, got angry and indignant and told Brooks that he would ruin him and send Confederate agents to get him if he didn't join the plot.

But Brooks at least had the good sense to stand his ground.

So Booth left and told Brooks on his way out that he'd kill him if he told anyone.

Booth continued to send Brooks threatening and desperate letters for months afterwards, but Brooks still had to continue performing beside Booth and his brothers in Julius Caesar and was unable to tell anyone about Booth's insane plot because he truly believed Booth would have him killed if he did.

Now that's acting.

Exactly.

That was the real time he could do.

It's a note.

Like, you know, you see the director being like, you know, John, I was saying we could try.

And he was going like, no, don't, don't.

I'm pushing.

I think you're doing great, Johnny.

Johnny, I think you're doing great.

Now,

I'm sure some of you are thinking at this point that there are quite a few people involved in this plot, too many to keep it a secret.

But this was all a part of Booth's plan.

Booth wrote and spoke to a great many people about his plot to kidnap Lincoln outside of the actor Sam Brooks.

But Booth was actually quite clever in the way he did it.

So the union was not shy in any way about imprisoning people suspected of being Confederate spies indefinitely.

That's what the whole suspension of habeas corpus was about.

So Booth would approach people about joining his conspiracy in a way that would entrap these people if Booth was caught or if they tried ratting him out.

Booth would write letters to people suggesting that he needed help with a, quote, mysterious speculation, hinting that he was talking about an investment.

But when an interested party would write back, it created a paper trail implicating the person in the mysterious speculation, which was, of course, the kidnapping plot.

With the letters in hand, Booth could blackmail possible co-conspirators, telling them that they would all hang together if they betrayed him, and that he had facts in his possession that would ruin them for life.

Basically, John Wilkes Booth was engaged in a 19th-century version of an email phishing scheme combined with that whole I've seen your porn and I'm going to tell everyone about it scam that Henry's mother almost fell victim to a few years ago.

Henry Thomas, how do they have nudes of me?

I don't know how they did it.

I went and I looked everywhere and he was like, oh, is there cameras in the soap?

Is there cameras inside of me

I got one of those emails once it's like I have video of you I hacked and I have video of you masturbating and I'll share it with anyone and I'm like if this is real like nobody wants to see this yeah they're all gonna be so disgusted

everyone's just gonna make a face

all right

now after Booth failed to bring his fellow actor into the mix he moved on to another recruit who was motivated not by ideology, belief, or fame, but pure financial gain.

This recruit was a German immigrant named George Atzerott.

This was Booth's man on the water, his boat guy.

Who's my boat guy?

Yeah, everyone needs a boat guy.

Everybody's gotta have a boat guy.

Honestly, I'm kind of mad that we don't have a boat guy.

If you want to be our boat guy, we are taking applications.

SidestoriesL-P-O-T-L-H-Gmail.com.

I want to see a picture of your boat.

You need to be able to.

It needs to be your boat.

Because that's the problem.

The problem is that we don't have a boat, so you're going to have to provide the boat you're the boat guy yeah and i'm gonna need at least a copy of your criminal record now some laws are are allowed to be broken but i just need to know which ones you've broken you actually must

have a criminal record

but a fun one yes yes well george atzerott was tasked with ferrying lincoln across the potomac river on their way to richmond after the kidnapping attempt atzerott was sort of the ghoul of the group described as grimy and consumptive a man who would go years without changing his clothes, then brag about that fact.

No, he's a German immigrant.

Can you smell me from the offer, sir?

Much better.

Can you?

Can you smell my stink?

Yes, I can smell you quite well, George.

Good.

That's good.

Wait on the water.

Yes, it's funny, right?

How even on the stinky water, I'm stinkier.

Stinky water.

I'm the stinky water of the ship.

I'm so stinky.

I'm the stinkiest and more ponet.

Even worse than Dr.

Mudd's practice.

Take me to Dr.

Mudd.

Well, Atzerot also had a spinal curvature which stooped his posture, and he always walked with his head in that permanent new metal tilt to the side.

No.

Do you think he couldn't take his clothes off, and that's why he never changed?

I cannot remove the buttons because it is too complicated for my two-fingered hands.

This is the best sailor they could find.

I do boats.

I don't do clothes.

Atzerott was also an alcoholic.

He had absolutely no beliefs in anything.

Also, that is important to remember four-hour, you have to be an alcoholic to be your boat.

And have no beliefs in anything.

Yeah.

Yeah, you definitely, nihilists only.

Please.

So when Atzerott's carriage painting business failed at the start of the Civil War, he made his drinking money by ferrying men and supplies across the Potomac for the Confederacy, which is why he was the perfect person to ferry Lincoln in Booth's plot.

It did, however, take both John Wilkes Booth and his Confederate darling, John Surratt, to convince Atzerat to join the conspiracy.

But join Atzerott did, and the crew continued to grow.

Now, John Surratt actually ended up being the key member of Booth's crew, because besides his extensive Confederate contacts, Surratt ended up recruiting the majority of the people involved.

Through Surratt, Booth also gained a local geography expert, a hunter named David Harold.

Harold also had access to pharmaceuticals like chloroform, which would be very helpful in a kidnapping attempt.

The final addition to the crew, though, was the muscle.

Booth rounded out his team with the final addition of a powerful 21-year-old Confederate soldier named Lewis Powell.

Powell would prove to be one of the most violent members of Booth's cell when the plan changed from kidnapping to assassination.

He does seem like the only one worth anything.

Powell?

Yeah, of their team.

What do you mean?

Oh, you mean like as far as he goes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's just strong.

Yeah.

I mean,

the boat guy, he'll, I mean, all he is a boat guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And,

well, I mean, really, in the end, the only successful one was Booth.

Also, I will overcome Lincoln with my stink.

He will never be able to deal with how smelly my burners is because of his need to inspect it.

Guys, I don't know.

Harold, we're going to get to a lot later, right?

Yeah, okay, good.

Now, Booth's kidnapping crew was fully assembled by January of 1865.

But while you might think Booth would be at the height of his confidence, it seems like the impending reality of having to actually do something towards the war effort was making Booth a little crabby.

Whereas before, he'd been described as a chronic optimist with a passion for life, his personality drastically changed at the beginning of 1865.

He turned distractible and short-tempered.

Booth in the past had spent his time either acting or socializing, but he was beginning to drop out of performances with more regularity, and he'd stopped attending social functions by using increasingly outlandish lies as excuses.

But while Booth's acting work was slowing to a crawl, he decided in mid-January that he might as well use his strengths if he was going to successfully kidnap the president.

Tap!

It's mainly tap,

impressions,

and jumping.

That's what I do best.

I think I can use them all.

Classical and modern tap.

Classical.

Tap, tap.

One foot at a time.

The true way.

Not this new jazzy African way.

I like to do the old-fashioned man way, the old white man way.

One foot, one tap.

He was a triple threat, but it was, I'm going to kidnap you, I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to stop the union.

Well, in mid-January 1865, Booth changed the kidnapping plan from capturing Lincoln during transit to abducting him from the audience during a performance at Ford's Theater.

I will dress as a high society woman, and I will sneak my way into his chambers.

And thereupon arts obviously succeeding in uh

totally, I have to erotically

accept him to my wills.

But then once that is over, then I will have Lincoln in my grasp.

Now, Ford's Theater, whether it was for the kidnapping or the assassination, it was not an idle choice made by John Wilkes Booth.

In many ways, Ford's Theater worked somewhat as Booth's home base.

Since Booth was a traveling actor, he didn't have a permanent home.

And since the owners of Ford's Theater were good friends with Booth, they allowed him to use the building as his mailing address.

That meant that Booth knew both the people who worked at Ford's Theater and the theater's layout exceedingly well.

When Booth brought his plan to snatch Lincoln from the theater to some of his co-conspirators, they thought that the idea was, in a word, stupid.

For them, the essential part of the plot, the very thing that made it work, was that they would capture Lincoln in an isolated spot away from the city.

Yes.

But think about the splash we'll make when Broadway finds out that we have kidnapped Lincoln in front of the biggest house I've ever been in front of.

Ha ha!

Excellent in theater.

Who's wrong, everyone?

This is literally the equivalent if we wanted to kill Obama back in the day and he had come to the creek.

Like, literally.

I did know that place inside.

I knew every fucking square inch of that place.

Oh, yeah.

We could have offered him some molly in that back room.

He never would have come out.

Now that he's fucking Jennifer Anderson.

I'll get there.

That's another show.

Oh, that's into well.

That's the new one.

That's old proclamation.

Jennifer Anderson, and then some guy tried to kill Jennifer Anderson, I think, to get at Barack Obama.

But that's a whole long story.

It's a whole lot of money.

Oh, that's very true.

Yeah, but that's what you think, huh?

Oh, it's what I know.

No?

That's what I know.

But while Booth was having to convince people that his plan was sound, his window for saving the Confederacy was rapidly coming to a close.

By early 1865, it was a foregone conclusion that the Confederacy was in its last days because their food, manpower, arms, and supplies were nearly gone.

In fact, the Confederacy was desperately trying to negotiate an end to the war.

Although, even after losing hundreds of thousands of men to combat and disease, even though their cities were on fire, they were still stubbornly holding out for a compromise that let them keep their slaves.

Well, after they lost all their arms, they're going to need the slaves.

That's the problem.

Yes, Edward.

Yeah, that's right.

Yep, that's very true.

Oh, very much so.

Well, just the idea of this whole war has been fought on this one one thing.

And it's like, now, listen, we're as done with this war as you are, and we are as sick of the bloodshed as much as everybody else.

But can we keep our human channel?

Like, listen, I know if you find this whole thing seems to be a misunderstanding, and I know that it is the reason why the war began

in the first place.

But what say we just stop the fighting part and just act like nothing happened?

That would we'd be all fine with that.

We're all fine with that.

Now, Abraham Lincoln knew exactly what the score was here, so he wasn't going to stop until this shit was done.

So, whether John Wilkes Booth knew it or not, the war was all but unwinnable for the South by the time Lincoln's second inauguration rolled around.

Lincoln's second inauguration, however, gives us occasion to talk about one of the other incredible coincidences when it comes to his assassination.

And this coincidence may also be one of the assassination's secret motivations.

Now, this is even more salacious than the gay stuff.

Yeah, no, no, this is super salacious, but it is also extremely interesting, and it might be a bit of a motivation.

See, John Wilkes Booth actually attended Lincoln's second inauguration, but he was only able to do so using a ticket provided by his secret fiancé, Lucy Hale, who is one of the more unfortunate innocent bystanders in this tale.

Lucy Hale was basically an attractive society girl who'd caught the eye of John Wilkes Booth.

But ironically, Lucy Hale was also the daughter of an outspoken abolitionist senator from New Hampshire.

The only thing I want to free, good sir, is your daughter's pussy from her underwear.

I'm sorry.

You made your, you cracked yourself up with that one, I saw her.

I really did.

Regardless of her father's views, however, Hale began receiving romantic letters from Booth in the first years of the war, and the two of them courted in secret for a long time before they were finally secretly engaged.

I want to ask you, Lucy, if you want to form a confederacy of our own.

What's the point of getting secretly engaged?

It means nothing.

Well, I think getting secretly engaged back then means that you tell each other, but you don't tell your parents.

It's not real.

Yeah, that's what it is.

He's lying to the woman.

Yeah.

Well, surprisingly, Booth never talked with Lucy Hale about his extremist political beliefs in all the time they were together.

Although, I would imagine Booth was smart enough to not talk about how awesome he thought slavery was to the daughter of a fierce pro-abolitionist.

Tell me, Johnny, I know we're about to go to sleep, but what do you think about slavery?

I'm thinking right now on pinny to your thoughts.

Think it's

horrible.

Fuck.

Yeah?

Because if not, you won't see none of these.

You won't get none of this either.

I'm not going to get none of these.

I despise slavery with all the fire of God's reign.

Get to chomping.

I learned how to teach a man to eat pussy from Abraham Lincoln.

But the incredible coincidence here is that long before John Wilkes Booth had courted Lucy Hale, Lucy had previously been courted by Robert Todd Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln's eldest son.

Does her vagina have no loyalty?

Does her vagina not think about the goddamn country?

Well, Robert Todd and Lucy Hill had remained friendly.

And tellingly, John Wilkes Booth had become enraged one night when he saw his secret girlfriend dancing with the president's son.

That's my secret girlfriend.

That's mine.

Dude, I love that fucking Lincoln's son was clipping her, dude.

That's fucking awesome, dude.

Yeah, because he was like a cool guy, Lincoln's son.

Yeah,

Robert Lincoln.

Yeah, Robert Lincoln.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bob Lincoln.

Did you kill Bob Lincoln?

He was the one who wanted to fight in the war, but they were like, nah,

you're going to stand next to this general.

Yeah, wasn't he?

Yeah, he was played by

Joseph Gordon Levin.

Joseph Gordon Levin.

Yeah, yeah.

He's very attractive.

Who loves to fuck people's girlfriends.

He loves to fuck people's girlfriends.

Actually, he was fine.

Robert Todd Lincoln definitely looked like him.

That's for fucking certain.

Man, do you think this had anything to do with him wanting to kill Lincoln?

I

maybe.

I don't know.

It didn't help.

It definitely didn't help.

Yeah, it definitely didn't help.

But perhaps an even larger coincidence was what Lucy was doing the day Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

See, Lincoln had just appointed Lucy's father as ambassador to Spain.

And since Lucy planned to join him, she was brushing up on her Spanish.

Lucy's Spanish study buddy, who she was studying with on the day that Lincoln was killed, was none other than Robert Todd Lincoln.

Oh, the most Spanish of the president's sons.

This is called an enchilada, Lucy.

This year is called a burrito supremo.

And this here is the ancient Mexican art of frijole confritos.

Your Spanish definitely is stuck to only food.

Over here is another incredible Spanish area thing called a neponata.

Here's another thing over here.

Just come here and kiss me.

Now, Lucy Hale became somewhat infamous because John Wilkes Booth had her picture in his pocket when he killed Lincoln.

But Booth also had pictures of four other women.

Booth was a ladies' man, as we said last episode, and such was women's attraction that a jealous ex-girlfriend, who also happened to be a fellow actor, she once tried stabbing John Wilkes Booth to death.

But that's all to say that Booth had many sides that he showed to many different people.

So I do agree with most historians when they say that Lucy Hale was just as shocked as anyone else when her secret fiancé murdered the president.

Probably would have been a good idea to keep that secret a secret at that point.

Yeah.

Well, the problem was that they found her picture and she was popular.

And so they went to her and be like, so why does John Wilkes Booth have a picture of you?

Because they used to give pictures as like a gift from person.

Like she would have given him, she would have needed to have given him that picture.

And she was also by the time of, you know, around the time of the assassination, they had started to be seen in public together.

Like, I think, you know, he had even had dinner with Lucy Hale's like mother.

There was rumors that he had dinner with Lucy Hill's mother and Lucy Hale herself on the night that he killed Lincoln.

He was like, I got to get going.

I got something to do.

But I don't think that he knew that she was studying with Robert Todd Lincoln that day.

I think it was just a complete and total.

And he'd already planned to kill Lincoln that night anyway.

So, yeah, it's just an absolute coincidence that John Wilkes Booth's secret girlfriend was hanging out with the son of the man he was killing.

Well, I'll tell you what's definitely, Finito, your tutoring sessions with that son of a bitch's son.

Oh, they are Estapio.

Oh, they are Overto.

Now, even even though the Civil War was obviously a lost cause for the South by this point, Booth doubled down on the kidnapping plot.

To confuse everyone about his continued plotting, Booth constantly lied to friends, family, and even his co-conspirators about where he was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with.

Booth was also draining his finances at a rapid rate because he was paying for all of his co-conspirators' room and board in addition to buying them all fine suits to make them look respectable.

To throw everyone off their trail, the co-conspirators all stayed in Washington, D.C., using fake names, just waiting for Booth to give them the go-ahead.

Hello, my name is

Robert Spaghetti.

Yon, my name is Mr.

Mr.

Stinkle.

Ah, it's my, that's my state.

I am Mr.

Ronald Spaghetti.

Ronal Spaghetti.

Oh, it says Ronald Spaghetti.

Are you guys related?

Ronald Spaghetti and Bob Spaghetti.

No, it's a total coincidence.

Total coincidence.

We're both

from the same town.

The town of.

Pasta Rivolio.

Passa Rivolio.

Italy.

With the meatball brothers.

Yeah, yeah.

It's weird because you sound German.

No, I'm very old, Eastern Italian.

Shaisa.

Now, while you may think that the plot to kidnap Lincoln was simply a plan that lost steam, Booth and his gang of Confederates did make a bona fide attempt at snatching the president in the spring of 1865.

See, in those days, theaters would announce Lincoln's visits ahead of time because it increased ticket sales.

So when Booth got word that Lincoln had tickets to an upcoming performance at Ford's Theater, he finally set his kidnapping plan into motion.

On March 15th, Booth gathered his team at Ford's Theater in anticipation of Lincoln's visit, where Booth familiarized them with both the layout of the theater and his grand plan itself.

On Booth's cue, one of the co-conspirators would rush the president's box and seize Lincoln, while Booth and another accomplice would follow him with handcuffs.

Once properly seized, Lincoln would be lowered from the box to the stage with, I suppose, a rope or something similar.

When he has very long clothes on, we'll strip him down to the very bottom of his nudes.

And then we will tie those clothes together into a tether.

Throw him over.

Yes, I can see it now.

Like a giant chandelier, Lincoln will swing above the the audience.

No, that CR plot is a most righteous one.

You throw him and I will catch him.

That was the plan.

He was apparently shamed like a spear.

Well, another collaborator was supposed to be waiting to catch Lincoln.

He was going to be down on stage.

He'd come from backstage and catch Lincoln to make sure he didn't die, going head first.

And that's why I'm bringing the basket.

I got the basket because I got measured it to the president's wood.

Booth, two other guys, they would leap down after him using Booth's patented stage stunt techniques.

It's a one, a two, and a jump.

It's not easy.

So remember, that's what Booth was known for.

He was the action star.

He was a stunt man.

I jump.

Yeah.

And tap.

One foot at a time.

All the guys, once they were on stage, they would surround the president and hustle him out of the building, where a carriage would be waiting in the alley to whisk them all out of the city as fast as possible.

It's like we've already done it.

The co-conspirators were not exactly sold on Booth's plan, and not just because it was obviously really fucking stupid.

You want us to just get him.

So that's the big great plan, Booth.

Get him.

Yeah, get him.

Really, their biggest problem with the plan was the endgame, the idea that Lincoln could be exchanged for a large number of Confederate POWs who could turn the tide of war.

The reason why they had a problem with this part is because there had already been a big POW exchange between North and South earlier that year that had accomplished nothing.

And a thousand more Confederate POWs had been freed on the very day that Booth was pitching the plan to kidnap the president for this very purpose.

I mean, and also, that's not even to mention the fact that these, we're going to get into it, I think, in episode three or four when we talk about the men who haunted Booth, but these Civil War POW camps were hell on earth.

Oh, I can't even imagine.

Just the nice houses were bad.

The living in a house as a rich person sucked.

No, the men would come out of these,

if they survived, they would come out of them ghosts.

Like, not just malnourished, but mentally broken.

Yeah, they're not going to win a war for you

at this point.

First of all, they got caught.

Yeah.

And secondly, do do you have any idea how long you have to hear

drives you crazy yeah was it as andersonville wasn't that where they kept everybody i don't know oh okay well i think it is and i'm usually wrong

well i do know that louis andersonville is where they put all the fat guys that was a fat cat they're trying to get him loose with it was a huge it was wonderful now booth ignored the fact that his plan was utterly pointless and senseless but he was also charming and highly convincing after arguing with his co-conspirators from dinner time until five in the morning, Booth finally wore them down and he convinced his compatriots that they would definitely be kidnapping Lincoln somewhere, somehow by the end of the week.

Two nights after the meeting with his co-conspirators.

It's just such a funny time period to wrap it up in.

By the end of the week, we will have the Confederacy back.

It's not easy.

End of the week, business day or weekend?

Latest Saturday morning.

Two nights after the meeting with his co-conspirators, Booth stopped by Ford's Theater.

There, Booth was told that President Lincoln was scheduled to visit some wounded soldiers at a nearby hospital that very night.

This fact was known to the people at Ford's Theater only because members of another theater's company were scheduled to perform at that same hospital.

Now, Booth saw the potential here because because the road out to the hospital was rural and lightly traveled.

Plus, it was close to the Eastern Branch River leading to Maryland, so Booth and his compatriots could be on their way to the Confederacy within minutes of capturing the president.

I knew our boat guy wasn't a mistake.

And so, Booth sent word to his crew that they were going back to the original plan.

Fully stocked with supplies, tools, and guns, the kidnapping crew were instantly in their saddles on their way to snatch the president, whether it was going to actually do any good for the Confederacy or not.

Now, do you snatch Lincoln or do you cock him?

Depends on if you want to keep him.

Now the plan, which sounds exceedingly confident, was to capture the president's carriage and somehow outrun the cavalry before reaching the river.

The kidnappers would then remove the wheels from the carriage so they could secure it to a boat to ferry it across the water, where the next phase of transporting Lincoln to Virginia could begin.

Booth, of course, rode ahead of everyone else to do a little recon at the hospital, because he had a good friend who worked as a doctor there.

But when Booth arrived, he was told that the president had changed his plans at the last minute and wasn't expected to come.

Now, Booth's crew were both angry that their plan had been aborted and extremely worried that their plot had been uncovered.

But as it turned out, Lincoln had just decided he had more important business to attend to that night night than visiting injured troops.

Dick.

Yeah, fuck that guy.

I wonder what happened to that fucking asshole.

Well, Lincoln had changed his plans in order to meet with the governor of Indiana.

But in yet another absolutely stunning coincidence, Lincoln actually had that meeting at the very same hotel where John Wilkes Booth was living at the time.

Yes, and is this where he fucked a guy named Kennedy?

Is this this then or when is it later?

He's so far up his own ass

that he doesn't even know the guy he's trying to kidnap is in the next room over.

The most famous man on earth at this point.

We will find him somehow.

We will smoke him out.

Like, as like Abraham Lincoln's walking by.

We will find the president and we will

change him.

Sorry.

Winning a Nazi.

Now the conspirators, understandably discouraged, especially after finding out that Lincoln was basically at Booth's house while they were planning to capture him in the woods, they all went their separate ways for the time being.

As for Booth, he returned to Ford's theater, but not to further the kidnapping plot.

Instead, Booth was set to perform the night after the failed attempt in a benefit performance of a play called The Apostate, which culminates in the murder of a tyrant and the suicide of his assassin.

April 18th, 1865 would mark the last time that John Wilkes Booth would ever perform on the stage.

Because just a little under a month later, John Wilkes Booth would himself become America's first successful presidential assassin.

Now there is no hard evidence of when Booth changed his plans from kidnapping to assassination.

Because while Lincoln was killed on April 14th, Booth was still sending telegrams discussing plans for Lincoln's capture on March 27th.

Partly, though, Booth abandoned the kidnapping plot because some of his co-conspirators just weren't feeling it anymore.

Dude, it was too long.

All right, the Civil War is over, buddy.

We want to move on.

Yeah, well, at this point, it's not over, over, but it's basically over.

It's getting there, and Booth's plan is a lot of risk.

Well, it's all risk, no gain.

Yeah, because you're going to just have the president, and there's just, and that's nothing's going to happen.

You're just going to get murdered.

Well, I think not only are you going to get murdered, but Grant and specifically a man, a little general named Sherman,

is going to fuck you up.

Yeah, they are going to fuck you up even worse than they've already been fucking you up.

They'll kill Lincoln.

They will kill Lincoln themselves.

None of them liked Lincoln.

It's kind of like the Kennedy thing.

No one liked Lincoln.

Well, no, that's not true at all.

Well, people respected him, but he had enemies as well.

His cabinet loved him.

Yeah.

He won two presidential elections.

Absolutely.

I will say.

He didn't have a cabinet.

He needed a full-on walk-in closet.

They never left.

But

I will say, if they would have gone through with this kidnapping plan, the chances of Lincoln just beating the shit out of them in the box.

Everybody.

We need to write this.

We need to write this in Glorious Bastards movie where Lincoln is brought in and then Lincoln slowly but surely takes the team down both by force and by charm.

Winning him to the side and having to fight John Wilkes Booth in the end.

I could see him getting completely naked and be like, let's go, fuckers.

Yeah.

This is one log cabin Republican.

It ain't going that easy.

I want the movie where they take him all the way back to Richmond.

Lincoln wakes up in Richmond.

His eyes just pop open and he single-handedly fights his way out of the Confederacy and just takes it down himself.

Abraham Wick.

Yes.

God, that'd be awesome.

Well, the member of the team that left after John Wilkes Booth, after just everything didn't work out, was John Surratt.

I mean, John Surratt, he was basically the guy who brought the team together.

He had the strongest connections to the Confederacy.

So when he rejected Booth's final plan, it was over.

Like,

they didn't have their guy anymore, the main guy.

And wasn't he the money man, too?

Well, Booth was the money man.

man well he was the he made it a legit capital c confederate action you know what i mean like yeah

basically surratt had finally seen through booth's bullshit and he had no intention of remaining under booth's influence he's an actor yes but unfortunately for surratt and his family booth had no intention of letting lincoln go But most unfortunate of all at this point in the story, deservedly so, was the Confederacy.

The Appomattox Campaign, which was General Robert E.

Lee's last desperate attempt to defend the Confederate capital of Richmond, it was well underway by March of 1865.

By April 9th, the Union had guaranteed defeat for the Confederacy by cutting off their supply lines and basically burning the Confederate capital of Richmond to the fucking ground, which was in effect a final spiritual defeat for every Confederate citizen and sympathizer.

But few people were more shattered by the loss at Richmond than John Wilkes Booth.

But for Booth, whose whole life was a performance, this was all mere prelude to the final dramatic twist.

See, in addition to his admiration for John Brown, Booth was obsessed with heroes of literature and mythology who fought to the death in their final attempts to defeat tyranny, men who kept going when all the odds were against them because they believed in their cause.

Interestingly, one could actually make the argument that Shakespeare was a massive inspiration for Booth,

like others might make the argument that a movie or a TV show today might inspire a violent crime.

See, in the estimation of both John Wilkes Booth and most Confederates, Lincoln was a Caesar in need of a Brutus.

Like Lincoln, Julius Caesar had won a war by using self-declared wartime powers.

For Caesar, the power was martial law.

For Lincoln, he'd suspended habeas corpus for the duration of the war in order to protect the Union against Confederate agents.

That meant that anyone could be imprisoned indefinitely without trial.

Now, Lincoln had no intention of continuing the suspension of habeas corpus after the war was over, but Booth had convinced himself that Lincoln was going to become even more of a power-hungry tyrant after the South's defeat.

And it seems like Booth had also convinced himself that he was the only man who could stop him.

It's the only thing that literally, it's what drove him.

It's the only thing that gave him purpose in this life.

Now, unlike the kidnapping plot, Booth kept his assassination plans close to his chest, although he was becoming more open about his hatred towards Lincoln.

For example, in a visit with his brother Edwin, John Wilkes went on and on about the fall of Richmond and how awful it was for the future of the country.

Now, Edwin had remained loyal to the Union throughout the war, so he was pretty much at his wit's end with his brother's stubborn and frankly evil loyalty towards the South, which Edwin had never understood.

Because he's just a fucking pain-in-the-ass little brother.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He probably just got made fun of too much by his brothers, and they chose the other side out of fucking.

He was a contrarian, very much so.

Yes, and a lot of this really is about kind of what we see now, which is when people go find,

when annoying

shitheads find a new community to go join because they'll accept anybody.

The people in the pro-slavery unit were just very excited to get a theater star that wants to be part of the movement.

And so they'll take anybody because

they have no sense of quality and they're bad people.

Also, he's like fucking crazy at this point.

I have so many weird theories that obviously have no water, but I was like, he's a stunt man.

He's always doing all this crazy stage fighting and stuff like that.

And then one day he like turns, like you said, and he becomes a different dude.

Could have easily had a head injury.

Dude,

I view him very similar to like a fucking steven segal that went from a he's not now he's like a technically he was a real police officer he because he cosplayed eventually they gave him a fake little deputy's badge and now he's over in russia like he defected to russia just to be important yeah yeah

well edwin and john wokes booth never reached common ground and that argument was the last time that edwin would see his brother alive from there booth visited new york where he met up with sam brooks the actor friend that Booth had tortured for months with threats of blackmail.

Booth went on and on about how he'd missed his chance to kill Lincoln during Lincoln's second inauguration.

And when Brooks told Booth that he was crazy, Wilkes simply whimpered,

I could live in history.

Tells you his exact fucking motivations.

He just wanted to be famous.

He wanted to be famous.

He's just another bottom-down fucking actor.

Yeah.

And there's also the, you know, they say that, you know, his

career was not on a downward slide at the time.

And that's true.

It wasn't.

But it also was never as big as his brother's or his father's.

Some say it was his voice had gone.

Some say it was booze.

Some say you killed a country, John, because of bad reviews.

No, it was not bad reviews.

Oh, stop, Sanheim.

That's his liberties.

That's afraid of Liberty.

I know it's his liberty.

Well, that's some say.

So he's not saying that it is.

Why did you do it, Johnny?

Nobody agrees.

Also, I imagine he's pissing everyone off.

Yeah, he's a bad guy.

And that's the thing.

He's getting into that cycle that a lot of these people get into.

James Woods.

Where they're

John Voigt.

Yeah, they're pissing people off

and them being.

It pisses them off that other people are getting pissed off for them saying foul shit.

Like they don't understand why other people are like, hey, that's not cool.

And so it's just this never-ending cycle.

And then before you know it, they're fucking just absolute monsters.

Now, much to Booth's chagrin, Robert E.

Lee effectively ended the Civil War when he surrendered his forces to Ulysses S.

Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse.

But Lee did so on the very same day that Booth returned to Washington, D.C.

from his trip to New York City.

And while the rest of the city partied with an energy that only comes from the end of a war, Wilkes was openly depressed and spent time at the shooting gallery before meeting up with one of his Confederate buddies to commiserate.

Now it seems as if Booth had pretty much given up.

But Booth and one of his co conspirators in the kidnapping plot attended a speech made by Lincoln just a few days later, and this speech very well could have given Booth the reason he needed to simply kill the President.

The speech began with Lincoln saying that the government planned to follow a path towards reconstruction in the South that had already been successful in Louisiana.

Booth, of course, believed that Lincoln secretly planned to further destroy the South.

Although, ironically, as we'll get into later, the South would have been far better off had Booth just done nothing.

Oh, yeah, because that's where the conspiracy comes in.

We'll go into a little bit, that they believe that the cabinet itself was running some we got to kill Lincoln from the inside like plan because they thought that Lincoln was being extremely generous to the South.

But for Booth and his compatriot, what made them believe more than anything that Lincoln was out to destroy not just the South, but America itself, was when the president said he wanted to give voting rights to some black Americans, limiting it mostly to just those who'd served in the war, slow-rolling it, as it were.

What Booth heard, however, was that Lincoln was giving citizenship and full voting rights for every formerly enslaved man in the country, which was pretty much, in Booth's estimation, the worst thing Lincoln could have possibly said.

Would you let an Ottoman vote?

Would you let a Shovel vote?

You joke, but those were the actual arguments that they made.

Oh, I know.

And this was what seemingly sent Booth fully into murder mode, because Booth was heard to say after the speech that now, by God,

he was going to put Lincoln through.

Now, after the speech, Booth went to Ford's theater, hoping to find some like minds in his peers.

But after hearing Booth launch into a racial slur-laden tirade against the North and abolitionists, Booth's fellow actors decided that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to hang out with John Wilkes Booth anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe think that he's a fucking pain in our fucking ass.

Yeah, yeah.

Same it for the stage.

Hey, buddy, hey, wait, hey, wait for later on when Steven Somheim writes a musical with a bunch of words in it.

Something like that.

But while his actor friends were abandoning him, Booth found solace in the same place where most actors end up after they start saying foul shit that their friends just can't ignore anymore.

Booth returned to his fellow extremists, his former co-conspirators in the kidnapping plot.

And before long, almost all of them were fully on board with assassination.

Sadly, though, from a historical point of view, at least, there is no evidence as to what Booth said to his co-conspirators to convince them to participate in the assassination of the president and much of his cabinet, or if Booth even had to convince them at all.

Pussy says, What?

Pussy said, what?

What?

You're a pussy.

But means I got to kill the president now.

Yeah.

God damn it.

Yeah, God damn theater, your rules.

There's a theater rule about her.

Well, all we know is that by mid-April, Booth and his co-conspirators had a very simple plan to kill Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State William H.

Seward, and Vice President Andrew Johnson.

They were going to do all of it in the same night at the same time so the perpetrators could escape south together using the Potomac River once the deeds were done.

And it's there that we'll pick back up next week for part three of our series with the actual assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the beginning of the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his collaborators.

There's plenty of conspiracy theory to go around.

We're going to go, we're going to be bringing up quite a bit of that.

Like, there's more of like the whole hunt for John Wilkes Booth is its own fucking episode it's insane and we're also going to be getting heavily into the man who took john wilkes booth down who has become one of my new favorite characters in history no i'm excited this guy is

out of his mind hell yeah i smell a possible candidate for march madness 2026.

yeah

yeah

john wilts booth in there man

uh thank you guys so much go to our patreon.com go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left to go watch us talk.

And then you can also see last stream on the left live every Tuesday at 6 p.m.

PST.

One thing I do want to tell all of you is go to our new YouTube channels.

We have a brand new YouTube channel that is where all of our comedy content they were making through the Twitch channel was going.

And it's now going to be going on YouTube.

I believe it is at LPN TV.

Yes.

And so you go on YouTube.

That's the name of it.

Go follow that shit.

All right.

Because that's where we're going to be putting all our new stuff.

And you're going to see, that is where we're going to be streaming

last podcast on the left, Beyond the Veil with Psychic R.H.

Davis.

June 20th, it's going to be both live streamed and in person.

Tickets are going to be there.

You're going to see we're going to be doing it in conjunction with the Mystic Museum here in Burbank, California.

And this is going to be a very special night that you're not going to want to miss because you're going to get spooked out.

Yeah.

Yes.

And by live stream, it means you're going to piss yourself.

Yep.

Because it's going to be spooky spooky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

With Dr.

Juice.

Also, when that last time I got spooked out, I had to call up Dr.

Mudd.

Also, on the YouTube front, a lot of the people have their own channels now.

No Dogs has their own channels.

Foreign Report has their own channels.

Someplace underneath, Who's the Bitch?

They all got their own channels.

So if you want to follow those shows, go follow them respectively on YouTube.

Also, catch us live Saturday, June 28th.

We're going to be in Atlanta at the Coca-Cola Roxy.

It's going to be a fucking blast.

And then Salt Lake City on July 12th.

Very excited for my first outdoor live amphitheater show.

Yes.

Then August 8th, we're going to be in Charlotte, 9th, Durham, North Carolina.

September 20th, St.

Paul, Minnesota.

October 11th, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

October 25th, Oakland, California.

November 29th, Cleveland, Ohio.

And December 12th and 13th, we'll be in Portland, Oregon.

And keep your earbulls tightened because we've got some side story shows that are gonna be announced pretty soon.

Oh, yes, we do, and they are gonna be fun, special events.

We have to figure out, too, when we do the dad's garage shows.

One of those shows is going to be short-form improv, and the other one's going to be long-form improv.

Oh, is this how you're throwing this at me?

It's just telling me so I can't say no because

I know a bunch of people are listening.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, great.

I can't believe all this fucking time you're getting me to do improv.

You have to.

You're after everything.

After you're like, I finally achieved success.

Yeah.

Now you have to do improv.

Yeah, now now you got to do improv.

Yeah.

Have fun, man.

I'm going to be hanging out in my fucking hotel room.

I'm going to show you.

We're going to have a good time, Eddie.

You're going to like the way you look.

Also, I want to give a big shout out to bring her back.

Go see this fucking movie.

We interviewed the Filippo Brothers.

It came out a week ago, I guess, or yesterday, depending on how you listen to this show.

But go listen to that interview and go see that fucking movie.

It was unbelievable.

The best horrible scared the living shit out of me, and I watched it on my computer in the morning.

It is going to be pretty close to sinners for best horror movie in the world this fucking year.

Because it is, that movie is truly frightening and upsetting.

And those guys couldn't be funnier about it.

Yeah, they're hilarious.

Yeah, because they did a Talk to Me, right?

Yes.

I love Talk to Me.

I haven't seen the new one yet, but I love Talk to Me.

Yeah, Talk to Me's with the new one.

New one's truly just, it's everyone's worth snack.

Yeah.

It's great.

Well, hail Satan, everyone.

How game?

Hail the Union.

I love you, Yankee candles.

Andersonville was a Confederate prison that killed a lot of Union soldiers.

Hey, man, we'll get you.

If you try to rise up, we're going to fucking get you again.

I've seen the coming of the glory of the Lord.

It's going to get hammered in the desert.

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