wellRED podcast - Corey Explains John Wilkes Booth and The Conspirators Behind The Lincoln Assassination!

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

The boys couldn’t get together this week to record The WellRED podcast  because of travel schedules, but rather than have no episode or throw up an old episode, I decided to talk about one of my favorite periods in history: The Civil War. More specifically, the plot to kill Lincoln right after the war ended   Enjoy this hour plus stream of consciousness rant with no breaks and no notes detailing the assassination, plot to overthrow the government, the man hunt, and finally the military tribunal of the conspirators.. (Time Stamps Below!)   Also feel free to fact check me and tell me what I got wrong!       Chapters   00:00 Introduction and Context of the Conversation 02:42 Corey's Fascination with Lincoln's Assassination 05:06 Lincoln's Presidency and Public Perception 12:38 The Aftermath of the Civil War 21:30 The Conspiracy to Assassinate Lincoln 26:27 John Wilkes Booth and the Plot Unfolds 33:44 The Plot Unfolds: Booth's Decision 39:55 The Assassination: A Calculated Move 47:00 Aftermath: Lincoln's Last Moments 51:59 The Manhunt: Booth on the Run 56:27 Justice or Revenge: The Trials of the Conspirators

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They're the and this is very different like obviously you still shouldn't kidnap a some bitch. Obviously I get that. You definitely shouldn't kidnap a some bitch but it's definitely better than murder. They're the hero redneck next daylight. bread but sex they care way too much but don't give a fun they're the liberal rednecks that makes some people upset but they got three big old dicks that you can suck. Hey everybody it's your boy Corey Ryan Forster so normally there would be a regular episode of well-read this week but with the Wednesdays and whatnot falling on the holidays this year

We've taken a little break. People are still traveling, yada, yada, yada. A lot of times I throw up an old episode. But I'm going to ramble. So I'm going to ramble. And we're going to talk a little bit about history and I'm going to try to entertain you. And I hope you thoroughly enjoy it. By the way, this is very akin to the park rants that I do at we love Corey.com. We love Corey.com. That gets you all of my bonus stuff for only $5 a month. That's it. I don't have any other tears. It's $5.00. a month for everything. There is bonus videos like this. Audio rants, bonus podcasts. We play games and stuff. We do live streams. I write essays. I do audio dramas.

For instance, we just did a southern retailing of a Christmas carol. I don't think it's too late to listen to that. My stand-up comedy special is over there at we love cori.com. Corey Forster, a long line of stupid. You can watch my comedy special. Like I said, it's $5 a month. Oh, a new thing I've been doing too. In honor of Nosferatu being out, I started a thing called Public Domain Theater

where I'm taking old silent movies, such as Nosphiratu from 1922, and I'm overdubbing them with my voice in creating a new narrative. The first episode, Part 1 of Nosphiratu, just came out. It's a lot of fun. Like I said, $5 a month, we love Corey.com. Hey, go sign up, take a peek around, and if you don't like it, cancel. You ain't going to hurt my feelings. but I think that you enjoy it.

It's a lot of fun stuff, and you'd be supporting your boy. Anyways, that's enough of my business. As y'all know, I love history, right? If you listen to Putting On Airs, Cheap Plug. If you listen to Putting On Airs with me and Trey, you know that we talk about history all the time. On putting on airs, it tends to end up being more European history than anything because we like to talk about the Monarch and fancy people,

and it just seems that that's where they can. kind of all reside. But obviously, I love American history, too. And one part of American history that I have always been fascinated with, and I think now I can say it's moved on past a borderline obsession and is now just an obsession. And that is not only Abraham Lincoln and his presidency, but more particular, more specific, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and the conspiracy surrounding it to kill Secretary of State Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson and all that stuff. Been obsessed with it and read so many books on it. Watched the TV series, Manhunt. I've seen so many movies about it, read articles, essays, all this stuff. And so what I'm

going to talk about today is picked from a lot of those. And also, feel free to fact check me in the comments because some places you'll read and it'll be like this is what happened and that's a reputable source and then you go to another one they're like actually this happened i'm like well i'm just going to choose to believe both of them i guess because that's a lot more fun right and uh because of that i recently just watched a movie uh called the conspirator i don't worry this is not going to be a movie review of robert redford's the conspirator but that movie is the reason that it sort of sparked me wanting to talk about this if you don't know the is a 2010s or something movie starring Robin Wright-Pen as Mary Sorot.

Mary Surrott, by the way, who we'll talk about later, was she ran a boarding house. And in that boarding house is where she housed a lot of people that would go on to be involved in the conspiracy against Abraham Lincoln's death. And also, aside from boarding all the people, they regularly had meetings there. Robin Wright-Pen plays her in her military tribunal. And it's, like I said, I'll get to that towards the end, but I'm not suggesting that you watch this movie, by the way. It's not great.

It's not bad. It's just like, I don't really know who the audience, Robert Redford is making, this is a biopic about a lady who conspired to kill one of the most beloved presidents of all time. and it's painting her pretty sympathetic. So I don't know if Robert Redford's target audience was just libertarians who sleep with the Constitution under their pillow. I don't know. But as a John Wilkes Booth completionist or the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln completionist, I had to watch it. And it did give me a little bit of new perspective on some of the stuff that I'm going to get in here.

So anyways, as we all know, Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents of all time. He's often talked about nowadays as someone who everyone universally can agree, left and right, Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, that he's a hero to both of them, right? And I think because of that, when we look back on Lincoln, we can sort of look at his presidency with sort of rose-colored glasses. Like, yeah, it's like, dog, at the time, absolutely not everyone liked him. I mean, what more evidence do you need than he got shot in ahead during the middle of some play, our American cousin, by the way. But like, Abraham Lincoln

wasn't even on the ballot in the southern states, mind you. Like, the dude's not even on the ballot, but he wins an overwhelming amount of the votes elsewhere and gets voted in no matter what. Obviously, the Civil War was a bit divisive. And one of the reasons that it always makes me laugh, when people nowadays say that this is the most divided we've ever been as a country, because it's like, uh, no, like there's been a myriad of movies, television shows, books, any type of media, uh, sort of documenting the time when we were statistically the most divided, literally divided in half. There was a line, bro, and if you was on one side of it, you were this, and one side of it, you were that, right? Now, because I've always said, like, we're not the most divided

that we've ever been. It just seems that way because we have the internet. Like, dude, if the internet had been around, if Twitter had existed during a civil war, it would have been some wild shit. You know what I'm saying? Like everybody talks about now, like, oh, people are, you know, they're so offended nowadays. It's like, bro, people have always been offended. These people were so offended that they had to give up their slaves that they sent their 14-year-old son to go melt down a goddamn spoon and shoot it at his cousin from Pennsylvania. that's butt hurt over something. You know what I mean? So obviously, Lincoln is very divisive. Now, he does get a lot more popular as the years go with his base, at least, because he led valiantly through the war and obviously saw the union to a victory.

Him, and obviously credit must be given to not only Ulysses S. Grant, but also one of my favorite characters from history, one of my favorite real characters from history, the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. Now, before anybody starts, you know, Googling up on Edwin Stanton and being like, wait, why is this your guy your favorite? I know he did some fucked up shit. I'm aware of that.

Everybody back then did. And by the way, I'm not saying that that justifies any of that stuff, right? But it's just like to me, when you are, it's just like Jimmy Carter just died, right? and like, dude, Jimmy Carter, I said, you know, he was a, he was about as good of a man as a president can be. And of course, people were like, he armed the sheiks, he did this, blah, and I was like, hold on, you're not understanding what I'm saying. I said, he's about as good a man as a president can be.

When I'm judging these people, people in positions of power, especially during war, I'm coming to it from a place of they probably did some fucked up things. That meaning, everybody in those positions are equal. and now we're judging them based on from there, right? Like, that's the curve that we've set, right? And I think that for his time, Edwin Stanton was a pretty good man and a pretty good leader, right? So they win the war. General Lee surrenders to General Grant. And what's interesting, you know, a lot of people, when you read about that through history, like as a child, you just assume you're like, well, Lee was the

main guy, right? He's the main dude for the Confederates, and obviously Ulysses S. Grant is the main guy for the union, so when they conceded to each other or whatever, that means the war is over. Technically, yes, like on paper, sure,

that means that. But here's the deal. Remember earlier how I mentioned that there wasn't the internet back then? There wasn't. The only forms of communication these sons of bitches had was either D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Morse code shit, which was in its early advent,

or messengers on horses or whatever. So them Lee surrendering to Grant doesn't get broadcast as soon as it happens. Therefore, a lot of these Confederate armies that are in different places across the country, they just keep fighting because they don't know any different to them the war still on, right? Why wouldn't they think that? And then even after it's publicized in the paper that Lee surrendered to Grant, a lot of these people were engaging in like guerrilla tactics and they were just in the woods. So like they weren't seeing the paper. You know what I mean?

Like when you're in the middle of battle, you're not running into town to Hardee's to get a cup of coffee and the Sunday times to see what's what. You know what's what. What's what is we got guns. They got guns. And one of us is going to have to take out the other some bitch. You know what I mean? So the fighting actually continued for a long time, but it was very much understood that the North had won the war. The Confederacy was dead. Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, immediately. Actually, I think he was already in hiding. I'm pretty sure. I'm not 100% sure he's in hiding. Somewhere in South Georgia, I think, I'm not sure he may have been in Canada before because a lot of people don't know this, but Montreal, Canada, was a huge base of operations for Confederate spies.

And the Montreal banks and whatnot were a huge part of helping the Confederates out with loans, getting them money and stuff, considering their money wasn't worth a goddamn. Because the union wouldn't back the Confederate dollars, right? So Montreal is a huge place for the, I guess, George Washington's culpros spying of the day, which was the Confederate Secret Service. So a lot of times they would jump the border and go up to Canada and they felt really safe there. A lot of the places that they would hide out in Canada

were churches, Catholic churches. They would seek refuge in, which I guess like, you know, not a bad place to hide if you're going to, because men back then at least pretended to have honor and probably wouldn't open fire right in the middle of a vestibule. You know what I'm saying? So again, war is all but over.

Technically it is. and Lincoln is super pumped. You know what I mean? Lincoln's super pumped. Like, if you see pictures from Lincoln from right before the war to right after the war, and we're talking to four and a half year span from 1861 to 1865, this son of a bitch aged about 35 to 40 years, it is remarkable. I mean, most presidents, if you look at their pictures before they took office and right

after they took office, they show noticeable age, but Lincoln's is almost like a different person. truly goes in a young man and by the end of the war is an elderly person. And I mean, you know, I get it. Even during peacetime, like even during peacetime, a president is always on call. Sometimes you have to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning because we live in a global world. And that's what time your allies in such and such country are up and they need to holler at you about some bullshit you said about Istanbul a couple weeks back and blah, blah, blah. And then it's Like, fuck, man, I could go back to bed, but I got to be up at seven to do this press briefing because BP spilled oil on some ducks again. They don't sleep a lot.

Sleep, obviously, you need that to not look haggard. But Lincoln is super pumped, man. I mean, this was his whole goal was to win the war, right? As a lot of people go, oh, his whole goal was to free the slaves. It wasn't. And that's not me shitting on Abraham Lincoln. He absolutely wanted to free the slaves. He 100% wanted to free the slaves, but only.

as a condition of the war being won. He said many times if I could win the war and free all the slaves, I would do it. If I could win the war and free some of the slaves, I would do it. If I could win the war and free none of the slaves, I would do it. His entire goal was to save the union, get the country back together and end the Confederacy. And he, along with Edwin Stanton, and General Ulysses S. Grant had pulled this off. So now there is a time for celebration, right? Lincoln gets tickets to a play. The play is our American cousin. And we will get more into it later.

But it's interesting because our American cousin, well, like I said, I'll get into it later. It's a very interesting play. And you can go listen to it on Spotify and Audible. You can listen to the play. And I'm not going to sit here and say that it holds up, but it is cool to listen to that play in the context. of like this is the last thing that Abraham Lincoln listened to. And by the way, at the time when

when this play came out, it was at the time when Lincoln watched this play, it was already a tired, like hacky, like we've seen this play too many times, right? But he gets tickets to our American cousin. Nobody in the White House wants Lincoln to go anywhere, right? Because obviously there have been threats on his life before. And now that they have decisively won the war, it stands to reason, there are many Confederates or those with sympathies to the Confederacy that would like to see Lincoln dead. And they didn't have a secret service back then. Like the president didn't just have dudes around him all the time to make sure that he didn't get his ass shot. And matter of fact, they didn't even, the presidents back then acted like it would be insane for that to happen.

Even though back then is when you figured the most assassinations would happen because it'd be so goddamn easy. Like, bro, Andrew Jackson, who was, will not be talked about any other time. But here, that some bitch used to have just a big old block of cheese in the White House because they had an open door policy and they had this big old block of cheese so that people had something to do while they were waiting to talk to him. Because you could just walk in there and knock on the door any goddamn time. Now, Andrew Jackson, it seems, did not need secret service because that some bitch

would just beat your goddamn ass. And I'm not about to start talking good about Andrew Jackson because he was a colossal, one of the greatest of all time pieces of shit. But, old Hickory would whoop your ass. And if not whoop your ass, he would duel you, shoot you, kill you. Right. But Lincoln, don't give a shit. Lincoln's pretty much got this whole like, listen, man, if they were going to get me,

they would have done, got me. I don't give a damn. I'm taking my girl out. We're going to the theater, right? Well, he wants General Grant to go with him. Or rather, I think Edwin Stanton probably wants General Grant to go with him as a form of protection. But General Grant, having just won the war and been on the battlefield for five goddamn years or whatever, was like, hey, I'm going to be on a train back to Pennsylvania

because I am going to wake up in bed with my wife and kids. Now, obviously, had he not done this, history might look a little bit different. However, you cannot blame the man. You know what I'm saying? So Grant can't go. And Lincoln's like, all right, who's next in the bullpen? It's my boy, Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, who he called Mars, I believe, because Mars is the God of War, maybe. Fact-checked me on that. I could be wrong. But him and Stanton are super close. Now, they weren't always super close. They sort of butted heads at the beginning of Lincoln's presidency. Stanton was a very no-nonsense dude. I mean, he's strictly business. Like, He's exactly what you would think and what you would want someone to be that's the Secretary of War.

Okay. Now, obviously, in a perfect world, if we're going by our wants and our desires, there would be no need for a Secretary of War because we would live in peace times all the time, right? That would be wonderful. But we don't live in those times. So if you're going to have somebody who's the Secretary of War, you want someone who's cold, calculating, got a steady hand and don't put up with no bullshit. and that is our boy, Edwin Stanton. Well, Lincoln was a very different person. Now, obviously, the war changed him,

but it never really took away the true nature of him, which was to be, I won't say a complete cut-up, but Lincoln liked to tell stories. Lincoln was a very funny guy. Lincoln liked to take his time. Lincoln liked to really think about things, and that's great a lot of the times to really make sure that you have considered all your options

before making a decision, but as we know when you're the president, sometimes it's just, boom, here we go. So they sort of butted heads over things like that, but they grew to have a really good respect for each other. And Stanton sort of becomes Lincoln's right-hand man who is able to do all the things that Lincoln has some weaknesses for. And Lincoln is able to do some of the things that Edwin Stanton has weaknesses for, such as Edwin Stanton was not the greatest people person, right? So when Stanton is needing others to do stuff, Lincoln could sort of, you know, what's the opposite of kill the mood? Lift the spirits of everybody. They yend and yanked really well, and they had one mission, and that was to save the union.

Right. So Lincoln's like, I'm going to take my boy, Edwin Stanton. And Stanton, like I said, being the cold calculated some bitch that he is, was like, I ain't going to know goddamn theater? Who the fuck do you think I am? I'm the secretary of war, not the secretary of the intent. design, you know what I'm saying? I ain't going to no goddamn play. He's like, man, me and my wife, we've done me going through some fucking shit. You know, I don't know if you know, but I've been in charge of the war and this was a doozy. I'm going to have to go home and save my goddamn marriage.

So anyways, no, I can't go. And also, Mr. President, this is Edwin's still talking. Also, Mr. President, I don't think you should go. I really don't think you should go. I mean, the war just ended. This is you putting yourself in a public place. Like you're going out in the streets of Washington, like, there's people that do not like you. And I don't know if it was that Lincoln just couldn't get that through his head, didn't want to believe it, or truly did think, like a lot of people do when something very finite, like winning a war happens, that everything's okay now. It's like, ah, the war's over. Nothing back can happen. Like, it's over.

Everybody just wants to move on with their life. Not at all. Because like I said earlier, not only, like, listen, man, it shouldn't have been. because the you know i'm not going to get into any type of the lost calls of the south and all that shit it was wrong they or not it was about goddamn slavery it was about the rights to have slaves all that shit now i'm certain that the south had some grievances with the union that had nothing to do with slavery sure it's just that when your main grievance is slavery you sort of poison the dirt for any other argument that you want to make right so i'm not so i'm not

not saying that these people's opinions or have been their opinions, but they were, and they were fucking real passionate about it. I mean, willing to die for this shitty thing that they believe. And when you're willing to die for something, it's not over just because someone you've never met surrenders to another some bitch you've never met. You know what I mean? Tensions are still high. They might even be higher because now you've got a lot of people, and this is getting into the to kill Lincoln, you've got a lot of people who were like, oh my God, we got to throw a hell Mary. Like, they've surrendered, but we got to do something to get us back at war, and we got to do it quick before the dust settles and all that shit, right? Stanton knows this, Lincoln don't

give a shit. Lincoln's like, bro, I think, personally, it would do this country good if they saw me in public enjoying myself. I need to explain by my actions and show, by my exam, by my example that it is time to move on. We're all happy and we're going to get back to our normal life. Stanton's like, well, you're the fucking boss. Do whatever you want. But he's like, immediately goes in there. He's like, I send somebody with this some bitch. Like somebody, please go. Some high-ranking military dude, act as his bodyguard, please take care of this dude. I can't have nothing happened to him. Because you got to understand, yes, the war was over, but they still had some. I mean, he'd just gotten reelected, right? So like, leave.

can only really serve one full term. He gets elected and he's at the height of his power. He is a very popular president with the people he was already popular. Obviously people in the south, they don't, he don't hit for them. But the people that were already his base are now even more infatuated with this dude. There's people across Congress who are like, this is our guy. I think he had the majority in Congress. So like in his second term as presidency, he really could, all of the things that he believed in, all the policies that he believed in, no one has ever really been in a more dominant position to get all the shit he wants done than he was.

And Stanton knows this because I believe they still got to ratify the 13th. You know what I mean? Like Lincoln had signed it or whatever, but it's still got to be ratified, the 13th being the amendment to free the slaves or whatever. And it's like Lincoln can get all this shit done, right? He can get all this stuff done. There were several other things too.

And also, like, you got to understand that Lincoln was a super fair man. I think Lincoln respected a lot of people from the South. He was friends with a lot of people from the South. And while he disagreed with the Confederacy, I think he was very aware that like, hey, that doesn't mean that's everyone. And I think Lincoln probably had a really good plan for reconstruction in place because all he wanted for this war was to be over. and he famously, I mean, if you talk to any of the historians and you get quoted from Edwin Stanton and Seward and all these guys, he didn't want to punish the South any further after the war. He wanted it to be done and for us to start healing as a nation. That is truly what he wanted. He wanted to pardon several Confederate officers, which like, I disagree with. I say, fuck them. You should, you know, they should hang or whatever. But in Lincoln's mind, he was like, look, we already won. Like, we won the thing. There's no sense. in pissing these people off anymore. Let's just show them mercy

and let's let them realize that like they should have been on our goddamn team the whole time and we're not out here to cause some fucking tyranny. We just want the country united and for things to get back to how they was. And frankly, I respect that and that probably is a really good way

to go about it, right? And all of this is what Edwin Stanton's super worried about. He's not worried that someone might kill Lincoln and therefore the war. We've already won the war. He's worried about all the things that are to come because their journey is it's going to be a great second second act you

what I mean anyway sorry I got in the weeds a little bit uh oh anyways so Stanton uh sends a homeboy with Lincoln can't remember his name Lincoln and Mary getting their stage coach and they are off to the play now I've read accounts where it didn't mention what they chatted about. And I've read accounts where the driver was interviewed afterwards and he said that number one, they were in extremely good spirits. I believe there was an apology from Lincoln to Mary Todd Lincoln of like, I know it's been rough these past couple years. I'm very sorry, but it's all over. And he was also talking about their future together and a future beyond the presidency. Because Lincoln was, you know, a relatively young man, right? I mean, he wasn't a grasshopper or nothing, but like,

He still had plenty of life after the presidency, and he had talked about going back and practicing law and them living in Chicago because that's something that they had always wanted to do. And Lincoln truly liked practicing law, and he felt that especially at this point in his career, he could truly do some work to help people because it's not like he would need the money. You know what I mean? Although, I mean, he could obviously charge whatever he wants. you're going to be represented by the president, a former president of the United States who won the goddamn war and freed the slaves. Like, yeah, you're going to be able to charge whatever you want. But, like, dude, he could also, like, the speaking engagements this some bitch could have gone on.

Like, he was never going to want for anything else. He wanted to go back to a more quiet life actually practicing the law that he had learned, which was his passion, right? As we know, that would never happen. Would have been super interesting. But that's what him and Mary's vibes are on the way to the theater, right? So they get to the theater. Now we've got to talk about all the other stuff that is going on.

The plot, the conspiracy to kill Lincoln. Now, this wasn't something that sprung up just because the war ended. Like this actually, there was a lot of planning that went into this. But originally the plan was not to kill Lincoln. Originally, the plan was to kidnap Lincoln. Now, all the same players are still involved. and those players are, and I'm going to get some of these names, I might leave some people out. But obviously, the Numero, Uno, you got John Wilkes Booth, right?

Then you've got David Harold and you've got David Surrott, and then you've got Mary Sorot, right? All of these people, aside from John Wilkes Booth, are former Confederate soldiers. Actually, except for David Serrat, I believe David Serot was too young. His mom, Mary wouldn't let him serve. but that's why he really wanted to be a part of this, because he had felt like he hadn't done his duty, and this is something that he could do to prove his loyalty to the South, to his friends,

make himself look cool. You know what I mean? Now, all of this took place, all of the planning and stuff took place at the Surrott Boarding House, which was owned by Mary Sorat, who Robin Wright-Pin played in the movie I was telling you about earlier. And she absolutely 100% knew what was going,

on. You know what I mean? I'm not saying she was in there drawing up X's and O's, but like, this is happening on her watch. She used to hide guns for all these motherfuckers all the time. But originally, though, and this is very different. Like, obviously, you still shouldn't kidnap a some bitch. Obviously, I get that. You definitely shouldn't kidnap a some bitch, but it's definitely better than murder. Now, granted, I kind of don't see a scenario in which they kidnap Lincoln and probably don't kill him. You know what I mean? Because their whole, Their whole reasoning, they're like, we're going to kidnap Lincoln. And then for his ransom, our demands will be that the South has given independence

and that we all get slaves again. Like, bro, Lincoln would have been like, y'all just kill me. Like, that ain't going to happen. You know what I mean? And I don't know how far back our country's creed of we don't negotiate with terrorist goes. But like, they wouldn't have given them that shit. Or they would have been like, fine, okay, give us the president.

then and then they'd hose them some bitches down with however quick shot of a goddamn musket load or rifle you had back then. I don't think these old boys, like I said, they thought they're playing all the way through, but I don't really think they thought through like how it was actually going to work out once they did it, right? But they did set off to do this. I can't remember the name of the road on the outsides of Washington where they had heard, like Lincoln's going to be coming through here in a carriage or whatever, and we're going to hide,

y'all are going to flank them on this side. Well, anyways, They had a dude on the lookout and right as they're about to like ambush this car, some bitch comes up on a horse and is like, yo, president ain't in there. You're just about to get in trouble for nothing. President's not even in there. So that ended up not happening. Right.

But they still were like, all right, well, one day, it'll be perfect. We'll catch him when he's driving, whatever. Well, on this day that I've just been talking about where Lincoln is going to go to the theater earlier that morning, John Wilkes Booth just happens to be going down to Ford's Theater. Ford's Theater, where John Wilkes Booth has been an actor for a great long time, right? And one of their services that they allowed at the theater was actors of the theater, anyone that was in the company, was allowed to get their mail at the theater. You could have all your mail sent to the theater, you just go into town, you pick it up.

So Booth is there to get some of his mail. Some rumor and myth has it that the mail that he received that day was some some naked pictures of some of his admirers, women that he had, women that he had been with or that wanted to be with him. Now, regardless of whether he actually got any of those cheesecake photos that day, it is true that he had many. I mean, people were, you know, sending nudes to John Wilkes Booth all the time.

But back then sending nudes was a way bigger deal, bro. Like, you had to really, I mean, it was expensive because a camera was expensive. And also, there was no such thing as a selfie because back then, like, Norman Donald had a great joke talking about how cameras work back then. He was like, you click a button and the thing explodes. And it does, like, explodes. Like, you have to have somebody else do it, right? But he had all sorts of lady admirers because let's get something correct right now.

John Wilkes Booth was a very, very famous actor. and also a very, very good actor. Now, please understand that I am not in any way trying to insinuate that John Wilkes both hit and that he was a great guy and he was misunderstood. I'm not saying that. I'm talking purely on his acting level and his celebrity status because I feel like, and it does service to nobody, I feel like throughout history, his actual talent has always been sort of pushed down because people just,

hate the guy because he did a horrible thing and like he did and fuck him and i'm not saying that we should name a film festival the john wilkes booth film festival all i'm saying is a lot of people are like oh he wasn't even a good actor and that's probably why he did it's like no no he was actually a really good actor back then the colloquial term uh was a tragedian uh it's the opposite of comedian you do a lot of tragedies his father was junius booth he comes from a huge acting family uh he's got junius booth as a father edwin booth is his brother now yes it's true that edwin butth is his brother now yes it's true that Edwin was more popular, but I believe really it's Edwin had been doing it longer. He was sort of the first booth to pop, and then John decides he wants to get in it,

and immediately everyone takes to him. He played the swashbuckling roles. You know, he did all the stunts. He did all the jumps and the dives with the sword and shit. And there were many people, a lot of critics that said, you know, actually John Wilkes is better than even his legendary brother, Edwin. But regardless of his talent, these are, I mean, I remember a joke one time Tim Wilson was talking about they were like the Baldwin brothers,

but like actually, no, dude, they were, they were like the top of the, not that the Baldwin brothers at one time didn't super crush, but like, I'm telling you, dude, this is like the Booth brothers would be like, I don't know if it's like, if Brad Pitt had a younger brother or something, like that status. Like, they were the fucking dudes, man. Like, they were the dudes. And now, you got to understand that as much as we think now that people revive Hollywood and think that it's ran by a bunch of pimps and whores and stuff, you think that they

think that now. Back then, that was very much the way also. Not a lot of respect in the acting community, especially amongst the women that did it, but Booth was certainly probably seen by a lot of the upper crust. I'd say the old, old money as like, this is what pimps and thieves do. But in terms of like the president and maybe higher society that wasn't completely old money or less puritanical. It was, I guess, seen as, hey, this is high art, it's the theater, you know, whatever.

It sort of, you know, it depended on who you were. But Booth certainly did hang out with some shady people, but he also, like I said, very, very famous, very, very good-looking guy who had any woman that he wanted and there's documentation of him doing just that.

So he's sitting there at the theater. He's looking at his titty photos or whatever. And again, Again, I don't know if this is exactly how it went down, but this is one account that I read or watched, I can't remember. He notices that the stage hands are bringing in this huge American flag, right? And he's like, what's going on? And he realizes like, oh, they do this. They redecorate and reset the balcony whenever the president's coming.

What they did was they took, there was balcony boxes seven and eight. And when the president came, they would take the partition between seven and eight out. And it would be a big booth for the president. And they would drape the American flag in front. So he's like, well, what's going on? They're like, the president is coming to see our American cousin and I. And Booth immediately is like, holy fuck, fate has intervened. This is it.

But we can't kidnap him. I'm going to kill the son of a bitch, right? But Booth is also, I mean, he's on, the clock is ticking right now. Because this is that morning, right? the morning of April 16th, 1865, he realizes Lincoln's going to be here and decides he's going to kill him. Now, he also, and a lot of people don't know, this was not, this was an attempted coup of the government. In order to pull off a coup of the government, you can't really just kill the president. You've got to kill a lot of people around him.

So their whole idea before was to kidnap Lincoln and, I believe, Secretary Seward and President Johnson. Now their plan is to kill all three of them. Well, obviously, John Will's booth can't be in three places at once. And as soon as he kills Lincoln, he's going to have to get the fuck out of there. He knows that in order to kill Lincoln, kill Secretary Seward, and kill Andrew Johnson, it's going to have to all happen at the exact same time. Because if they are 30 minutes to an hour apart, word about one killing is going to get to everyone. And these top priority people, these high-issue targets, they're going to be taken in

to protective custody. You know what I mean? So they've got a plan. They send David Harold and something Axelrod. I kind of want to say his name is David. There's a lot of David's. They send two of them to Secretary Seward's house, which, by the way, back up a couple weeks before Secretary Seward had been in a carriage accident. A couple weeks before that, he was in a full neck brace and was on bed rest, could not get up, just lay in there smoking opium, whatever the fuck it is you did back then. I'm sure it was great. So they sent a couple people to his house. Now, Andrew Johnson, they didn't have a wing of the White House for the vice president to live in. Matter of fact, now I'm saying this. I don't even know if I know where the vice president

lives now. I just assume there's a wing. Anyways, back then, Johnson was like, I'm just going to stay at the goddamn hotel. So he's just living at a hotel. And I think he lived there pretty much the whole time he was vice president. He was just at this hotel. They sent another son bitch to the hotel, which Booth had gone to the hotel earlier and been like, yo, bro, it's going down. You stay here. I'm a pop Lincoln. Homeboy is going to take care of sewer, which that one should be the easiest one. He's an old fucking man in a bed with a neck brace.

He's going to take care of him, and you run up, kick Johnson's door down, plop, plop, do this at 10 o'clock or whatever. It's all gravy. We're going to hit the fields. Meet me out on the other side of Virginia. We'll go to the Confederates and let him know what we did, and then they can invade. because the government will be in a complete tailspin, not knowing what the fuck is going on, right?

Well, as it turns out, and if you had to ask me, of all three people, of all three assassins, if I was going to rank which one had the hardest job, I would say it was both killing the president in public during a show, yet he's the end. only one that pulled it off. Now, the dude that was supposed to kill Johnson, it's not that he tried and failed. He sat there in the hotel and got drunk trying to work up his courage and was just like,

I can't fucking do this and left. Now, the dude that was going to kill Seward, it's at Seward's house, right? And the way that he got in is because knowing that Seward was on bed rest, he had a fake, he had a bag with like an empty medicine bottle in it that he was passing off. He's like, hey, I've been sent by Seward's doctor to bring this so that the, they say servant, but it's, I guess it wouldn't, maybe because he was sued, it wouldn't have been a slave, but he had a black dude downstairs that was either his servant or a slave who let him in because he was like,

yeah, he is sick, he would need this medicine. Well, homie goes upstairs, Seward's son is sitting there. Guys like, oh, fuck, so he takes his gun out and he's going to shoot the son bitch and his gun jammed. I ain't he always jamming at the worst time. So his gun jams, he's like, fuck, you know, hiss the dude over the head with it. goes in there to Seward, he pulls his knife out, there's a girl in there, I believe he slashes her, then he jumps on to bed. Again, this is an old-ass man with a neck brace, right? And he's stabbing,

but he's actually just stabbing on the other side of the pillow and stuff. Like he only really gets him in the neck just a little bit, but because he's wearing a neck brace, it completely protects him from any of the major arteries. And while he does need to be stitched up and looked after he's totally fine. But Booth is able to, especially because I don't think that in one account it shows that Booth is in the bar of the theater waiting for his right moment to go do this. And he sees the guy who's supposed to be watching Lincoln and realizes the guy's not watching Lincoln because the guy's basically like, he doesn't need me once I've sat him down.

You know what I mean? And Booth, but I don't know if that actually happened. But earlier in the day when Booth, was planning all this, like after he leaves the theater and goes, explains to the dude, like, again, clock is ticking. He's got hours, and it's not like you can just get a sum bitch on the cell phone. And he can't write them letters. He's got to find all these dudes and explain to them what to do, then get back and do it himself. He had planted this plank of wood at the theater close to where Lincoln would be so that when he went in there, he could seal the door shut so nobody could come back in

after him, right? So a lot of planning had gone into this. And he knew the exact moment he was going to shoot Lincoln, and it was based on what he'd seen this play a million gazillion times, and he knew what the biggest laugh would be, right? Now, let me go back to explaining to you what our American cousin is, because I think that it really fits with what well-read is all about, right? It's sort of kind of liberal redneck. So our American cousin is all about this guy from America, right, who is cousins with all these British people. And by the way, I'm pulling most of this summary out of my ass. I hadn't researched the plane a very long time, but I think I'm right on most of this, at least the highlights. It's about, again, a dude from

America who goes to visit all his cousins in England, right? But because he's got an American accent, they just assume that this dude is a dip shit. right so you know kind of like us from the south when we go anywhere else and this dude sort of realizes what's going on and just plays along with it and it's like i don't give a shit matter of fact it might be to my advantage if they think i'm stupid because then i can be really cunning and they will be none the wiser right well that's why that whole premise is why the joke that booth was waiting on landed so hard because it was the release of tension that had been building up for the entire play. They're calling this guy stupid. They're calling this guy stupid. And the line is something to the

effect of the girl, one of these girls is talking to him like, you would never fit in with polite society or blah, blah, blah, you're just a redneck paraphrasing or whatever. And he's like, and he goes, oh, well, I think I know enough to turn you around old gal, you sock dologizing old man trap and the reason if you just say that line on its own that's not really that funny especially because we don't know what that means but we can understand that that's not the words of a dumb person like that is that those are fancy words and so that's the moment that he reveals basically to all them by the way i'm not a fucking idiot right so the audience bursts in laughter and at that moment booth takes out what i believe was a derringer so it's not going to make a lot of noise anyway

ways, boom, points it right to Lincoln's head, which he had to do in order for it to work. Because guns back then, not only could they not aim very well, but this is not the most powerful of gun. I mean, he's choosing it for its stealth, the fact that he can put it up real quick and he's not going to be seen. Shoot Lincoln in the head. Nobody really notices around it at the time, because like I said, the audience is going crazy and like, you've sort of got to be expected. Like if you're not expecting someone to get shot in the head, you might just be like, all this is part of the play. Well, in some account, at that moment, he says the South is avenged, but in some accounts, he doesn't say anything right there. There's some people that say, like,

actually, you know, the people who were there said he didn't say anything, but in his letters back, that's what he said. And of course, like, anybody retelling their moment of glory is going to add some stuff. But what is undeniable that happened was one of the majors that he was watching the show with, realized kind of, I don't know if he knew that Lincoln had been shot, but he knew, hey, this guy shouldn't be in here. He stands up. Booth, like, sort of slashes him. Dude ends up being okay, but he cut him pretty fucking good. And then Booth jumps off the balcony, right, slips. His foot gets, like, wrapped up in the American flag. Sort of ironic. A sort of a, sort of a movie moment that really happened. And he falls to the ground, breaks his ankle.

His adrenaline's going so hard. He stands up, and this is uneniable that he says, and you all know it, say it with me, sick semper, tyrannis, which means also unto tyrants, right? Death unto tyrants or whatever. Lincoln's a tyrant. That's also the state motto of Virginia for the record, I think, at least it was back then. Anyways, he runs off. People are so shocked. Nobody has done a goddamn thing. I don't even think Ms. Lincoln screamed, holy shit, the president's been shot until after Booth had done run off. Now, you've got to figure all the people, They see that it's John Wilkes, but like, I'm sure they're surprised at first. But there's a lot of people there who'd never seen the play.

So, like, they just thought this is the thing that happens in the play, right? Then a lot of people definitely would have recognized him as Booth and would be like, he's an actor. This definitely must have been something that happened in a play. But even if none of that sort of crossed your mind, it's still everything's happening so fast that you're just not sinking, right? It's totally normal that nobody reacted. There was one dude that, like, sort of chased him out.

but it was long after he'd done taking off. And he had a dude waiting in the back with his horse. Now, I don't think the dude knew what he was holding his horse for. I think that he ended up getting let get, like they had him in custody like, hey, were you in on this? He's like, bro, I was just out here and he said to hold my horse. And I was like, whatever, Mr. Booth. So Booth takes off, right? And like I said, Seward, that whole plan has already failed.

Well, now they realize that Booth is. shot in head, right? So they go up, they try to take care of him. The doctor's down there is like, he pretty much realizes like, fuck man, he's going to die. Like there's nothing I can do to save him. The only thing I can possibly do is let him die with dignity, not in the floor at a theater. Now, he's not saying any of this to anybody, especially Mary Todd, because as any woman would be, as any person would be, when their spouse just got shot in front of them, she's in hysterics. and also the doctor's oath is to do no harm, and you don't want to cause any more hysterics.

So he tells everybody's like, okay, you know, he's as stable as he's going to be here. We've got to get him out of here. We've got to take him somewhere. So they go out and they go to a house down the street where they put him on a bed. Famously, Lincoln could not fit on the bed because he was huge. So they had to turn him sideways where Lincoln lays there and through labored breaths and gurgles, still holds on to his life and at some point has a pretty strong breath. But like, again, the doctor's like, he's shot in a fucking head.

Like, I can tell by his eyes, like, he ain't coming back. And like, we can't stop the bleeding. And if I go in there with any tools, I'm going to damage his brain even more. Like, we're just waiting on this motherfucker to die. So they do. They just sort of make him as comfortable as possible. He ends up taking his last breath, I believe, at 722 a.m. Again, fact check me, that's fine, but I ain't looking at no notes.

I've just been going off the top of my dome for almost. an hour in a fucking woods. He dies. Edwin Stanton, normally the cold calculated, unsentimental man reportedly says he is with the angels now, right? Well, as all this is happening, Edwin Stanton has already set up an office in this person's house where the president has died and deemed that it was now the war room. You know what I mean?

Sort of like how whatever plane of president's in is Air Force One, but whatever room Edwin Stanton's working is, that's the goddamn war. war station. That's the war room, baby. So they'd already told him, they'd interviewed, I believe half of the actors were like in custody because they didn't know like, hell, they had to be in on it too because it was like unconscionable to think that Booth would have been able to pull all of this off on, off on his own, right? So they're in custody, but they tell him like, that was fucking Booth. One of the dudes actually had had had a letter that Booth had given him early that day, but told him not to open that was basically explaining it. He wanted him to give it to the paper,

and it was Booth telling exactly why he did this shit or whatever. And I think that dude, he ended up just telling everyone that he had that letter because he was scared and he fucking burn it. He was like scared that if he gave it the police, they wouldn't believe that he didn't open it and they would have believed that he knew. But whatever, they know that they're looking for Booth. They're looking, obviously they're looking for Axelrod and Surrott and all these people too, but they're mainly looking for Booth, who I believe that's who David Axelrod He meets, I think it's, I could be wrong, I think he meets David Axelrod at the end over the state line in Virginia or whatever.

Booth has to talk his way over this bridge, by the way, because the bridge was closed, but the people that were running the bridge, which were Union soldiers, realize, oh shit, this is John Wilkes Booth. And of course, they didn't have cell phone, so they didn't know that he just shot the goddamn president. And they were like, yeah, you go ahead, buddy, go get your pussy, whatever you got to do. So Booth gets, crosses Virginia, meets up with David Axelrod. I believe it's him. If it's not, it really kind of don't matter. And he's going to guide him to his freedom and sanctuary, right? They end up going first. Now their plans have changed a little bit because Booth has broke his leg, clearly. He is in a lot of pain. There is no way he can walk. And obviously, you've got to worry about like an infection, sepsis, all this stuff. He's got to get

taken care of. Well, fortunately for them, they knew this Confederate sympathetic. doctor named Dr. Samuel Mudd. That you don't have to fact check me on. I know that's his name. You can't forget Samuel Mudd. So anyways, they go to Mudd's house. Mudd takes care of him. Mudd's a huge piece of shit.

He would end up being in, tried with all the conspirators, right? So Booth goes to see him. Then Booth is on a run. For a while, he goes and stays at this farmhouse. I don't know if these people were ever tried. I think that they sort of were like, oh, we didn't know. We were afraid that if we didn't help him, he might kill us. I don't fucking know.

But basically, like, all they wanted was both. Everything else was ancillary, right? This manhunt goes on for 12 days, right? Now, in this 12 days, Lincoln is dead, right? So they're having to prepare for his funeral, but also the country must go on. So Andrew Johnson, who is a old boy from Tennessee, who definitely was cool with slaves, he's now the president, which would end up biting America in the ass because he sucked dick at Reconstruction. But he's the president, right, and he don't like Edwin Stanton.

He don't like Edwin Stanton at all. Matter of fact, Andrew Johnson's basically like, I'm the president now. Anybody that was on Lincoln's team, I'm going to clean house, get my own people. But Edwin Stanton's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, buddy. Listen, I know that Lee, I know that Lee just surrendered to Grant, but this was an act of war. We're not switching secretaries of war in the middle of an active, active war, goddammit. And Andrew Johnson's like, fuck you, I don't like you. You don't hit, you know, quit or leave or whatever.

And Edwin Stanton, one of the reasons he's one of my favorites from history, he just said, you know what, fuck you and the horse you rode in on. And he just barricaded his ass in the war room and had people loyal to him on guard. He's like, I'm taking care of this shit. And you can send any of the information about the booth, manhunt, through this goddamn door. but until we catch that motherfucker, I ain't going nowhere, nan, I ain't. So we don't. And so this man hunts going on for 12 fucking days.

And Booth is off everywhere. And he is, you know, he's getting on fairies and stuff. And he can't keep his fucking mouth shut, right? Like, he had, first of all, the first thing, this is so funny. I think I posted this on my hero hero, which is we love Corey.com. One of the realizations I had about how fragile the bulls. brain of an actor is was that booth right like he kills lincoln this is the thing that he's wanted more than anything more than anything he has wanted this dude he bank i forgot to mention this earlier

he bankrupted himself basically spent all of his money he stopped acting he's not making any more spent all of his money on this plot to assassinate lincoln wasted all his resources on this this is the one thing he wanted and he pulled it the fuck all of it off. But all he could think about after he did it was he kept telling everybody, y'all got to ride into town and get a paper because I got to see what they're saying about this shit, right? And by the way, knowing that these people riding in town to get him a paper could give him away and he might get caught, but he didn't give a shit because he's a delicate, genius artist, and we must see what the critics think. We must. No matter what we accomplish, we will never,

ever be full. There will always be a spot of emptiness in us that needs more. And he needed to hear what the public, what the writers were saying. He also wanted to know if his letter, his sort of manifesto, had been published because he'd given it to that actor guy. Well, it never was because, like I said, that guy, I think, burnt it, you know. Now, Booth ends up writing another one, I think, and sending it in. And I can't remember, I don't think that's how he got called. I'm pretty sure he just got caught word of mouth. Like he just left some some bitch's barn and they're like, yeah, I'm pretty sure they went down yonder way and they'll be in this barn down heather.

You know what I mean? So anyways, they end up, and I'm sure I've left out a lot of shit here. We're getting close to an hour. And I've just been riddled in the woods like a lunatic. They finally catch up to him and his tracking guide and they are in this barn, right? And oh my God, if y'all have seen this, it's not. this whole time. I'm so sorry. They're in a barn and, uh, you know, basically it's like the scene from my brother where I're out there. Like, we got you boys surrounded. Damn, we're in a tight spot.

You got me in a barn. They're about to smoke them to fuck out. Well, the one dude, which, who I keep calling Axelrod, I don't remember if it is, but we're just putting him in there as a placeholder. He comes running out like, don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot, which they don't. Because dude, everybody wanted Booth to be taken alive. I mean, obviously, uh, Edwin Stanton would have liked to kill Booth himself because, he loved and respected Lincoln and this guy had just fucked everything up but they wanted him alive because they wanted to make an example of him they wanted him to stand trial they wanted to hear what he had to say they wanted to know if this was going to happen again they probably wanted

him to give up the names of anybody else who was a confederate spy any other plots that were going on they needed they wanted this guy alive right well booth had said very early on like fuck y'all nobody will ever take me alive god damn it uh this might be the only badass thing he's ever said. But, so he's in there, he's loading his guns, even though there's a whole fucking army out there. And I guess he's going to run out and start clap clapping. Um, but this dude in the Union army, he's up by the barn and he just sticks his gun in there and just caps booth, took him out himself, uh, which like, he said he was like, no, he had a gun. He was about to shoot or whatever. I think this dude just wanted, uh, credit for killing John Wilkes booth. But hey, you know what?

Who gives a fuck? Some bitch needed to die anyways. Um, um, He didn't die right on a spot. They take him up to the porch of this farmer's house, and they are desperately trying to give him medical attention, because like I said, they don't want him to die because he's worth more to them alive if he can give them information. Per a lot of the reports that you hear, Booth's last word, were him looking at his hands saying, useless, useless, useless.

Which apparently is something his father used to say to him a lot. Not saying those two are related. Not saying that he had horrible issues. and then grew up to need to prove something to himself. But that's just, that's one rumor about that whole thing, right? So Booth dies. Now, the main guy, he's gone, but we've still got all these other conspirators. Axelrod feller, Sarat, David, shit.

I've been talking too long and now I'm forgetting stuff. And Mary Surratt, right, who ran the boarding house where they had all of these meetings and shit, right? Now, Edwin Stanton sort of puts himself firmly in charge of all. this and is like, hey, this was an act of war. And because it's an act of war, they're getting a fucking military tribunal. Now, if you don't know, especially back then, a military tribunal, especially when given to a citizen, is basically just a formality. Like, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, you're putting somebody in a military tribunal, you're just going through the motions, but they're already guilty. Like, there are, it's because it's whatever the fuck, America, the secretary of war,

whatever wants to happen. It's going to happen. Right. You're going, like, we put in all these conspirators through a military tribunal. The reason that they did that is because they wanted swift justice. They thought that they're like, this needs to be fucking over. We don't need to drag the American people through anymore. And now it's easy to say, because like, we know now in hindsight that all of these people were guilty. Like, we know that. They admitted it. We know that they're guilty, so it's easy in hindsight to be like,

well, I don't really give a shit glad they fucking died. Right, but it's a slippery slope because it's unconstitutional. Like, people in this country, regardless of what you did, even if you do something to my mama, you've got the right to a trial by jury of your peers. And these people were not afforded that under a technicality that this was. was an act of war, whether it really is technically or not. I don't know, right? So, Mary Sarat is the only one of them that's a woman, first off, which is a huge deal. But she's also the only one that didn't have any sort of active hand in aiding and abetting booth, which was Samuel Mudd.

He ate it and abetted him. He knew that he'd killed the president. He gave him shelter and he fixed his leg and he didn't report it. Guilty. The Axelot boy who led him out and all these, they were on their way to kill the sewers and the other some bitches who were going to kill Andrew Johnson or kill the sewer or stabbed to somebody or whatever. All of them had like actively done something. Mary Sorat, her only crime was letting all of this be planned at her boarding house. Now, I'm not saying that's not a crime. It is.

I think it's treason. However, hers wasn't as open and shut of a case because, she could have just been like, I didn't know what was going on. You know what I meant? Like, I didn't know what was going on. They's doing their crazy stuff. You know how these boys are. My point is, I believe that she fucking knew.

I believe that she deserved to die. But they, at a military tribune, they never got a chance to figure that out for themselves. They determined it, and thus it was so. They determined it, and thus, there you go. Well, her lawyer can't remember his name, but he files for a, rent of habeas corpus to be like, hey, you know, all these people are going to be hanged, but you can't fucking, don't hang her. Like, she's a woman.

She's old. Like, if you want to put her in jail for life, that's cool, but she has to have an actual trial. And they're telling us, dude, they're like, are you fucking, are you a traitor? He's like, I don't give a fuck if she does get hanged. I just want it to be after she gets a fair trial. He's like, fuck her. But, like, that's, if we don't do it for her, then you're not going to do it for me. Because, like, that's, it's a slippery slope to shitting on the Constitution.

And like, I mean, yeah, for sure. I'm glad that all them people are burning in hell, but they absolutely deserved a fair trial just because everyone does. I mean, everyone does. There's plenty of people that are in jail right now for shit that they didn't do because they either didn't get a fair trial

because of the color of their skin or because of whatever. And like, yeah, these were white southern sympathizing pieces of shit. But according to the constitution that we have, that Abraham Lincoln fought to protect and died protecting like they deserve a fight. fucking trial, right? Well, the writ of habeas corpus to get her this new trial was denied by the president, Andrew Johnson, because Andrew Johnson, there had been a lot of people talking about how, like, what if Andrew Johnson was a part of this conspiracy because he wanted to be president? And it

would totally make sense why, even though it would have been very easy for him to get taken out at that hotel, he never got taken out. And this guy just sort of takes the fall for, I was going to do it, but I didn't feel like doing it. Now, I don't fucking know. Andrew Johnson was a terrible president and a huge piece of shit. Does that mean that he was in on a conspiracy to kill Lincoln? I'm not ready to say that. I don't know.

I wasn't there, obviously. But because of that, Andrew Johnson felt like, hey, if I passed this thing of habeas corpus to marry Surrott and get her a fair trial, it's going to seem like I'm sympathetic to her, and it's going to lend a lot of credence to these rumors that are already out there about me, being a sympathizer to the conspirators that killed Abraham Lincoln. And I get that too. So he quashed that

motherfucker. She hangs with all of them, right? Now, I didn't mention this, which is pretty funny. Her son, David Surrott, the one I'd mentioned earlier, who wanted to join the war, but she wouldn't let him, and he was in on this whole conspiracy or whatever. Well, he got away, right? He had gotten away, and he's kind of really who they wanted. They basically let Mary know. They're like, listen, we don't want to hang a lady, but we'll hang a lady now. We will hang a lady.

But if you give up your son, we'll just give you life in jail and we'll hang him. And like, dude, fuck her. She was a part of a plot to kill our president, but this part I totally understand. She didn't give her son up. I get it. I wouldn't give my son up either,

even if he did something horrible. That's my baby. So she refuses to give her son up. Obviously, her daughter and everybody's like, God damn it, David, please bring your ass down here and testify of what you've done and save your mama's life. Well, he don't. I mean, probably mainly because he was too far away. He'd been in Canada. He went up to Montreal as well where the Confederate Secret Service had gone.

But also he ended up in London, right? I think he got caught finally. After she'd been hung, by the way. After she'd been hung, and this was a couple years later, he finally got caught in Egypt. And I'm very aware that Egypt existed back then. Egypt is a very fucking old place, but I didn't know country boys went to Egypt. That's wild. Nor if a country boy went to Egypt that he would get caught or recognized.

It's wild because people didn't have goddamn hardly pictures of shit back then. Anyways, he gets caught in Egypt. They bring his at, and this is the part that's really funny and ironic to me. They bring his ass back for trial. And again, this is the guy who, if he had just come forward, if they'd have got him, they probably would have never hung his mama, right? He come to the states. But instead of a military tribunal, because of the precedent set by Mary Sorot,

his mother, and her hanging, he was awarded a civilian trial by a jury of his peers, half of which were Confederates, the other half of which were Confederates, the other half of which were union folk it was a hung jury so they had to let him go he was never retried again he immediately so again his mama is hung because she won't give him up then he gets caught and gets let go because the jury couldn't make up their mind right and not only that you'd think oh does he did someone kill him after that was there any day surely there was justice he lived a life of guilt. No, he pretty much immediately went on a lecture circuit talking about how much the Confederacy hit and how much he hit, right? Did that for a while, signed a bunch of autographs, made some

money, ended up becoming a professor somewhere, and died in his 70s, which in the 1860s and 70s and whatnot, that's an old fucking man. So no, he never really got justice and his mama hung for nothing. And ain't that lie, baby. All right. Well, there you go. I'm sure I left a lot of stuff out, but I just wanted to vomit out. What's that? Oh, somebody out here making s'mores. I just wanted to vomit out my little history lesson on the conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln. I hope y'all enjoyed it. I'm sure some of you didn't even listen to it. That's totally fine. I just wanted to do something different this week instead of just a replayed episode. By the way, you're listening to this. If you're a well-read fan,

you're listening to this on Wednesday. But it came. out Tuesday night early and ad free at we love Corey.com and I do rants like this all the time at we love Corey.com for my paid subscribers. It is only $5 a month. I don't do tears. It's a cup of coffee sacrifice a month. Now look man if you want to just subscribe, check it out, and then immediately cancel, I ain't mad at you. Hell go on there and download the videos or screenshot them and get it to fuck. I don't care. I want you. I want you. to have fun and I don't want it to break the bank, which is why it's only ever $5. The way I'm able to keep it a one-tier system is because we work it like PBS.

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It's all about having fun. We Love Corey.com. Bonus content from your boy. Hey, go to traycrowder. com, though, too, and see Trey on the road. I think he's taking this month off, but then he's fucking everywhere. And drew Morgancomedy.com to see Drew, listen to all our other podcasts. Gravy Baby, weekly skews, and putting on airs.

And I love y'all so much. Thank you for listening to my long-winded bullshit. Is that it? Yep, that's it. Thank you all for listening to The Well-Red Show. We love to stick around longer, but we got to go. Tune in next week if you got nothing to do. Thank you, God bless you.

Good night and skew.