Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Plot to Steal the Body of Abraham Lincoln

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

The 1876 plot to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln is one of the strangest and most audacious crimes in American history. The scheme aimed to ransom the corpse of the assassinated president in exchange for the release of a jailed criminal and a huge sum of money.  Although the attempt ultimately failed, it triggered years of secrecy, multiple reburials of Lincoln’s remains, and the creation of a private guard to protect the tomb. Learn more about the plot to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Mint Mobile Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/Ds7Rx7jvPJ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Disce aliquid novi cotidie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1876 plot to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln is one of the oddest and most audacious attempted crimes in American history. The scheme aimed to ransom the corpse of the assassinated president in exchange for the release of a jailed criminal and a whole bunch of money. Although the attempt totally failed, it triggered years of secrecy, multiple reburials of Lincoln's remains, and the creation of a private guard to protect the tomb. Learn more about the plot to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison.

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than if someone had tried to do the same thing with, say, the bodies of Zachary Taylor or William Henry Harrison. When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, it truly shocked the country. He had led the nation through its worst period in history, and just when the conflict was over, his life was taken in one last vindictive act. After the assassination on April 14, 1865 at Ford's Theater, his body began one of the most elaborate funeral processes in American history. Lincoln died the following morning on April 15th in a boarding house across the street from the theater. Within hours, preparations began for a national mourning ceremony

that would allow citizens across the country to pay their respects. Lincoln's body was first placed in the east room of the White House, where a private funeral service was held on April 19, 1865. The ceremony was attended by government officials, military officers, members of the cabinet, diplomats, and of course, Lincoln's family. Outside the White House and throughout Washington, tens of thousands of people gathered in mourning. After the service, a solemn funeral procession escorted the coffin to the United States Capitol, where Lincoln, lay in state in the capital rotunda. During the next day, an estimated 25,000 people filed past the coffin to view the fallen president. Following the Washington ceremonies, Lincoln's body began an extraordinary funeral journey by train. The funeral train retraced much of the route Lincoln had taken

when traveling to Washington for his first inauguration in 1861. The train carried both Lincoln's coffin and that of his young son Willie, who had died in 1862, and whose remains were being returned to Illinois. The route stretched nearly 1,700 miles and lasted from April 21st to May 3rd, stopping in major cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Chicago, before finally reaching Springfield. At each stop, Lincoln lay in state in prominent public buildings. while massive crowds gathered to pay tribute. The scale of the public mourning was unprecedented in American history.

In New York City alone, more than 150,000 people reportedly viewed the body, while the funeral procession through the city drew crowds estimated at over a half a million spectators. There's an interesting fun fact about the funeral procession in New York City. A photograph taken during the procession on April 25th, accidentally captured a future president, a young Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was only six years old at the time. He was watching the procession from the second floor window of his family's home on Union Square along with his brother. Decades later, historians studying the photograph realized that two

small boys leaning out the window matched the Roosevelt residents at the location and corresponded with the Roosevelt family's accounts of watching the funeral. Across all the cities on the route, historians estimate that roughly 1 million people viewed Lincoln's body directly as it lay in state, and perhaps 7 million Americans, about one-third of the U.S. population at the time, watched the funeral train pass or participated in memorial events along the route. In terms of the total percentage of the American population, the funeral procession of Abraham Lincoln might have been the most. most attended event in American history. So the public, at least in the north, loved Lincoln, especially after he was assassinated, and soon after his death, he became legendary and a secular saint. At the end of his journey, he was interred at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois,

his hometown. Construction of the Grand Lincoln Tomb began in 1871 and was completed in 1874, at which point, Lincoln's coffin was placed inside a marble sarcophagus in a burial chamber behind a locked steel gate. At this time, tomb security was minimal. Visitors were allowed to tour the monument and the coffin was accessible within the structure. The plot to steal Lincoln's body originated not in politics, but in the world of organized counterfeiting. In the 1870s, counterfeit currency was a major problem in the United States, which is why the United States, which is why the United States, state secret service had originally been created. A Chicago-based gang led by criminal James Big Jim Kinnelly ran a large counterfeiting

operation. Their most valuable member was the master engraver Benjamin Boyd, who produced the plates used to fake print banknotes. When Boyd was arrested in 1875 and sentenced to 10 years in prison at Joliet, the gang's business collapsed. Kinnelly devised an extraordinary plan to free him. the gang would steal Lincoln's corpse from his tomb and hide it in the sand dunes near Lake Michigan. They would then demand Boyd's release and $200,000 in ransom, a huge sum equivalent to millions of dollars today.

To carry out the crime, Kinnlelly recruited several accomplices, including Terrence Mullen and Jack Hughes, and later enlisted the support of a professional body snatcher named Louis Swaggles. The conspirators, however, made a fatal mistake. Sweggles was actually a government informant working with Patrick D. Terrell, head of the Secret Service office in Chicago. When Sweggles reported the plan, Terrell alerted Washington and consulted with Robert Todd Lincoln, the president's only surviving son. Robert Todd Lincoln reluctantly agreed that the authorities should allow the plot to proceed so the criminals could be caught in the act. Secret service agents, local police, and detectives prepared in ambush at the tomb. And just as an aside, because I don't know when else I'm going to mention it,

Robert Todd Lincoln's story is an interesting one. He had a connection with not one, not two, but three presidential assassinations. First, of course, his father was killed, and he was at his bedside when he died. Second, he was the Secretary of War and happened to be standing next to James Garfield in 1881 when Garfield was shot by Charles Gatot. And third, while serving as U.S. minister to Italy, he was traveling with William McKinley to the Pan American Exposition in 1901, where McKinley was assassinated. The conspirators chose the night of November 7, 1876, election night, as the moment to strike.

The date was deliberately chosen. The entire country would be riveted to the unfolding results of the presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, one of the most contested elections in American history. The city of Springfield would be distracted. The cemetery would be quiet and any unusual activity might go unnoticed amid the general commotion. The Lincoln monument at Oak Ridge Cemetery housed the president remains in a marble sarcophagus located in a ground-level burial chamber. The plan called for Mullen and Hughes to break open the sarcophagus, stuff the coffin into a wagon, and drive north through the night towards the Indiana dunes where Kinnlea would be waiting.

Secret service agents and a contingent of officers from the newly formed Chicago Detective's unit converged on the cemetery that night and hidden the darkness of the monument waiting. Swigles accompanied Mullen and Hughes to the tomb. The two men managed to file through the padlock on the burial chamber door and had actually begun to drag Lincoln's 500-pound lead-lined coffin towards the entrance. when Swigles slipped away to signal the awaiting agents. What followed was a fumbling, almost farcical confrontation. When the agents rushed into the darkened monument,

they collided with each other in the confusion, and one agent accidentally discharged his firearm. In the chaos, Mullen and Hughes simply walked out of the cemetery and disappeared into the night. Despite their initial escape, the conspirators were not free for long. Swigles continued working as an informant, helping agents track Mullen and Hughes back to Chicago. Within two weeks, the men were both arrested at the Hub Saloon. Kinnley, the mastermind, managed to evade capture for longer, but he too was eventually apprehended.

The legal proceedings that followed were underwhelming relative to the enormity of what had almost occurred. But there was a problem. Illinois had no law specifically prohibiting the theft of a court. corpse. Prosecutors were forced to charge the men with the relatively minor offense of conspiracy to commit an unlawful act and attempted larceny of the coffin itself, not the body. Mullen and Hughes were convicted and sentenced to a mere one year each at the Joliet Penitentiary. Kinnelie was never successfully prosecuted and largely faded from history. The near success of the plot terrified the custodians of Lincoln's legacy.

the Lincoln Monument Association, which oversaw the tomb, recognized with horror how vulnerable the president's remains actually were. For years afterwards, Lincoln's coffin was quietly moved around the interior of the monument, hidden in various locations, to prevent another attempt. On several occasions, the coffin was simply buried under rubble in the basement of the monument during renovation periods, with only a tiny circle of trusted individuals knowing its precisely location. Between 1876 and 1901, Lincoln's body was moved at least 17 times. In 1901, during a major reconstruction of the monument, officials made the decision to permanently secure the coffin. It was placed in a steel cage and buried under 10 feet of concrete in a chamber

beneath the monument floor. Before the final internment, a small group of witnesses, including Robert Todd Lincoln, insisted on opening the coffin one last time to confirm the body was indeed that of the president. The witnesses, some of whom had known Lincoln personally, confirmed the identification. The lead-lined coffin was then welded shut and encased in its concrete vault where it remains to this day. People can still visit the Lincoln tomb in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary, and three of their sons are all buried. The tomb is located in Oak Ridge Cemetery and is open to the public daily, generally from about 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with free admission.

Visitors can walk through the monument and see the burial chamber inside the granite structure. Springfield also preserved several other major Lincoln sites. Visitors can tour the restored Lincoln Home National Historic Site, the only home that Abraham Lincoln ever owned. It's operated by the National Park Service. The Ranger-led tours show how the Lincoln family lived, before he became president. Tickets are free, but must be picked up at the visitor center. Nearby is the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, a large museum devoted to his

life and legacy, which is generally open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. If you ever happen to be in Springfield, I highly recommend visiting Lincoln's tomb and his related sites. The story of the plot to steal Lincoln's body was largely suppressed for decades, partly out of concern that publicity might inspire imitators. It was not widely known to the general public until the early 20th century when some of the participants and witnesses finally spoke openly about what had transpired in the Oak Ridge Cemetery. Even then, it retained the quality of an improbable legend,

the tale of a gang of second-rate counterfeiters who came startlingly close to ransoming the president known as the Great Emancipator. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast.

And links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you two can have it read in the show.