EP294: There's A Museum For Umbrella Covers? and The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

Susan Williams will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and United healthcare can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. If you're working past age 65.

You might be able to delay Medicare enrollment. Depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be this@uhcmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more United healthcare helping people live healthier lives, dramatic pause, a dramatic pause says something without saying anything at all dramatic pause is a go to for podcast is presidents and radio voiceovers. It makes you look really smart. Even if you're not feet deserve a go to like that like hey dude to live comfy good to go to see her in the garage working on your car and you need the valves about last week. You look in the cabinets and on the shelves, but the parts are never in the right place eBay motor says the car parts you need over 122 million of them all in one place and all at the right prices find parts for everything from your classic coupe to your brand-new truck@ebay.com. Let's ride and this is Lee Habib and this is our American stories we tell stories about everything here on the show including your story. Send them our American stories.com. Some of our favorites. The now story about a lady who curates a very specific kind of museum Nancy three Hoffman yes middle name is the 3 word three she lives in Maine and is the founder and curator of the world's only umbrella cover museum here is Nancy story on how she came to open such a unique place. Nancy three Hoffman I am the founder director and curator of the world's only umbrella cover museum was just talking about the sleep that she come on umbrellas when you buy a new umbrella because so what happens to most umbrella covers when there first person. That's the big question. The answer I have found over many years of doing the umbrella is that most people don't know what they put them in the closet and drop them in the car pocket lose them and its particular phenomenon that they are underappreciated and enigmatic that someone was cleaning my house.

I found a few umbrella covers.

I looked at them and said why did I keep and what do other people do. So I sent people right away.

They gave me their umbrella covers not only that they would tell me the story.

Like the first one I collected was from the umbrella.

My friend Becky had she used to have a duck handled umbrella because she's in Audubon Bird so she said well I took this umbrella with me. I left the cover at home and then I forgot… And the cover was still in so here is you can have it so that was the first when I actually collected my family gave me their umbrella covers. I asked him for a story so I would put them up on my kitchen wall with a sticky note telling me the history, the anecdote quickly say the provisionals of the umbrella cover itself and then one day year later I walked into a department store in Portland side display of umbrellas was a really really pretty one with flowers on it.

I slipped the cover off the umbrella put it in my pocket and walked out was really the catalyst for the umbrella cover museum because I am a very truthful honest person and I don't normally steal things that I did that day. I can't make crime of passion and I didn't want to keep doing that cover museum is my penance.

I didn't think of it as a museum. At first I just thought oh I'm collecting umbrella covers their kinda cute. That's kind of a funny thing so I put them in my kitchen while people came to my house. They would look they would say, what are you doing and it was just I guess I'm collecting umbrella cover that I had enough. I was amusing people. I like to use people. They were curious about the whole idea of collecting them, I decided to open it up as museum and in the following year I got interviewed by NPR and BBC radio so I was pretty chuffed about that and I thought well I must really have something here so the collection, meanwhile, kept growing and growing and I had to put in my living room.

My porch, outgrowing the space in my house and eventually I was able to rent space on the main street of peaks Island so I give tours of the umbrella cover museum there are exhibits that are all organized. I play the theme song on my accordion. So it's always been a really fun and okay quirky place to visit but I have a really great international exhibit. There are now covers from 74 different country so someone comes in from Romania. I can point to the Romanian umbrella cover also sing a song in Romanian which not everybody could get in the game after flat is also on the wall this year where you have to guess which to covers are really from Scotland and unifies. If you do guess the prizes are drink parasols. The arson umbrella covers exhibit which has famous paintings like the girl with a Pearl earring or the kiss by Gustav clicked on umbrella. There are a lot of really good umbrella stories. One of my favorites is that young woman from peaks Island. Eleanor was living in Germany and she found lack umbrella cover on the side of the road next to the Berlin wall and she run great story about how it was a gray day by this symbol of communism, depression. There were two people kissing by the side of the wall were ignoring the whole history and this umbrella cover that she had just found the other thing that I realized that the umbrella cover museum after having it open for a few years was that it has a deeper purpose of the mission of the umbrella cover museum is the appreciation of the mundane in everyday life is also about finding wonder and beauty. In the simplest of things and about knowing that there is always a story behind the cover and if you keep that in mind, it's hard to get word. It's hard to not find some joy and beauty just about any activity or anything in the world and that's really why going and that's really I hope what grabs people when they come the umbrella and a great job by Chrissy and a special thanks to Nancy. Three. Hoffman, you will learn more about the umbrella cover museum or want to donate your umbrella coverage through Nancy's collection, go to www.umbrella cover museum.org museum is only open in the summer remain sure to visit the story of the umbrella cover museum on our American store interview will be great American stories we tell them love America like we do asking you to become a part of the American stories from.

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State Farm is in your corner and on like that neighbor there. Call your local State Farm agent for quote today doing household chores can Artie be time-consuming and tedious. And there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done can be overwhelming for anyone.

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We've told the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassination were now going to look at the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination or storage of this June Swanson, the author of manhunt 12. The choice would Swanson begins by showing with us.

We came to write his New York Times bestseller.

I really came to the story by chance I was born in Chicago on Lincoln's birthday February 12 was a small boy. My parents began giving me we can comic book social Classics illustrated in crayon books about Lincoln and the Civil War and trinkets from the Wiccan sites and when I got a little older books that I could actually read my real interest in but I guess it's a my obsession with the story began when I was 10 years old and that's when my grandmother Elizabeth was a section of the old Chicago tabloid newspaper seen family now.

Not long, long gone gave me a framed engraving which you might think is an unusual gift for child was in engraving of John Wilkes Booth's derringer pistol the one you used to kill Abraham Lincoln and friend with that engraving was part of a clipping from the Chicago Tribune Sunday morning of April 16, 1865, the morning Lincoln died. He was shot Good Friday, the night before and lingered on until the morning. I remember reading thatthe headlines were not the broad horizontal headline across the page, but rather the left column was devoted to headlines and then there is a series of dissenting headlines and that left column. This would begin with the breaking news the president shot as each addition came out later in the day.

More headlines would be added. The president shot is dying not expected to live.

Sec. of Seward stabbed to death in his bed.

Of course, that was wrong. It was an early false report that sort of died that his sons had been murdered along with them and I got to a midpoint in the story and someone had taken the scissors and clicked it just when I was reading the line and ran out the back door and and I must read that cooking 100 times now supports. I remember saying to myself I want to read the rest of the story and that's how it began. I really wrote the book that I always wanted to read, but no one else had written, which might sound because there are over 15,000 books about Abraham Lincoln, probably even more. No one is ever done a complete bibliography and of those 15,000 or so books at least 2000 are related somehow to his End of Days. One would think with all the Lincoln studies out there, there'd be 100 books like the circular 10 but there wasn't one. So that really give me incentive to do it so I guess this question who was Abraham Lincoln on the morning of April 14, 1865 and who was John Wilkes Booth. It was probably the happiest day of Lincoln's life. It was certainly the happiest week. One the war we had surrendered Richmond fell on April 3 we surrendered on April 9. Lincoln gave his last speech from the White House grounds the evening of April 11 and on April 13, Washington celebrated with the grand illumination of the city of probably the most beautiful light in the history of Washington fireworks slayers lamps illuminations of all kind bonfires. One of the paper said that the capitol dome was so beautiful that it look like a second moon had descended upon the earth is a sign of God's favor for the union for the victory of Lincoln met with the song that morning back from the war had been on the staff that he met with his cabinet and Gen. Grant was a rare visitor for that meeting and Lincoln told is a simple cabinet. I had that strange dream again last night, and Gideon Welles as Sec. of the Navy said what was that in Lincoln said that he was the head of a mysterious vessel moving towards a distant shore and he was alone in Lincoln said, whenever I've had that dream I've had it many times during this war something of the utmost importance has happened. I'm convinced that something of major significance is about to happen.

The meeting broke up in Lincoln took his wife Mary in a carriage ride to the streets of Washington. He wanted to be alone with her and talk during that ride gets older they'd been very unhappy. Ever since the death of their son William the White House in 1862, 600,000 dead Union and Confederate was a crushing burden on Lincoln Lincoln's have grown apart during the war for many reasons and he told Mary we must be happy again. He told her that they might go back to Illinois need to practice law in the second term ended in 1969. You want to go to the Pacific Ocean. He told her he wanted to go to California, but he reminded her again. We must be happy again.

She wrote shortly after this ride that I've never seen him so happy. In fact, I told him you alarm me because you've not been this happy since just before the death of our son Willie that night they decided to play our American cousin to seek release from the exhilaration of victory. So, that's who. Lincoln was on that day it was his week in his day of triumph. You had a rough start in office, but he learned how to command generals how to build armies, how to articulate his goals to the American people get done what he promised he would do the one that war and he destroyed slavery was Booth that morning. 26 years old. One of the most popular actors in America exceedingly handsome, athletic women and men would stop in the street to watch him as he passed generous saying funny, maniacal, politically motivated to be a lover of the South secession supporter of slavery.

He wants that slavery is the best thing that ever happened to the black man.

He was standing below the White House window on April 11 when Lincoln gave his last speech and when we can talk about giving Blacks the right to vote.

Booth turned to Confederate and said that's the last speech however gives now will put them through. He didn't even need same to gain access to Lincoln's office in the White House anyone of us could go on to the Lincoln White House walked to the front door approach to the office suites until one of his two or three male secretaries.

I want to see the president often you'd be told well. He's busy now sit on a bench over there might take couple hours you would be admitted to the presence of the sitting president without being searched without being identified the methods of identifying people that there were no drivers license, no photo IDs and Lincoln would regularly place himself in the presence of strangers.

Unknown to him, could've walked in blinking his team Booth perform.

Lincoln would've been happy to receive Booth Lincoln loved reading Shakespeare to friends he corresponded with other actors. Booth could have gained easy access to the White House and slaughtered Lincoln at his desk will never know why.

Certainly Booth was building himself up to a climax to strike against Lincoln. He was fantasizing about it, began drinking more heavily. Maybe he wasn't ready site psychologically to kill until later. I don't know why Bruce didn't do it. Part of it, perhaps maybe you want to kill Lincoln before an audience and we stage the performance of the theater was actually a great way to do it in escape because the theater audience was trapped in front of the orchestra, and when Booth got on stage, he was closer to the back escape route and the audience was in effect, only one man out of 1500 people in the theater even stood up to pursue Booth, so it was counterintuitively smart to kill them in the theater and it was horse waiting in the back will never know why but it was a shocking lack of security.

Lincoln eschewed security. The Secretary of War truck have them have more hundred death threats were found in Lincoln's desk after he was assassinated. He was almost assassinated in Baltimore on his way to Washington on inaugural Germany in 1861. It's almost as though even in a civil war that killed 600,000 people. It was unimaginable that the president could be assassinated. No sitting president had ever before been attacked and it was just beyond. Strangely, beyond people's imagination. I think of the time stock link at the second inaugural. He was within 50 feet of the president looking down on him while he read that said with malice toward none, with charity for all speech getting drunk at a bar shortly after that he counted his fist on the table and said to her son.

What an excellent chance I had to kill the president on Inauguration Day.

He was almost as close to me as you are now listening to James Swanson offer of manhunt 12 a change from Lincoln's killer, my goodness, what insight you're thinking about that day in Lincoln's life. On April 15 that day in John Welch's life and on the stage of no doubt after having read this book and I love this book. By the way, go to Amazon and pick it up and is well worth reading down. He wanted that's great actor what he wanted to stage his final performance when we come back for this remarkable story story Lincoln's assassination and its aftermath.

You, on our American stories to millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and United healthcare can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7.

If you're working past age 65. You might be able to delay Medicare enrollment. Depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be UHC Medicare health plans.com to learn more United healthcare helping people live healthier lives.

I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop for small business insurance.

I need my State Farm agent make sure my business days typing and confident business owners to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on my neighbor. There call your local State Farm agent for quote today doing household chores can Artie be time-consuming and tedious.

There's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done can be overwhelming for anyone. If you want to get those larger laundry loads down right and get back to your life. Try all three clear mega packs all three clear mega packs are bigger packs two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry all three clear mega packs are also 100% free perfumes and dyes and gentle on skin, which is great for any family sensitive skin needs my family. We definitely have sensitive skin. The next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation as that's cause this big pile of dirty clothes and all three clear mega packs have your back purchase all three clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. We returned to our American stories into James Swanson, author of man will chase through Lincoln's killer. Let's pick up where we last left off the stove and came when he visited Fort theater midday to pick up his mail and someone said Lincoln is coming tonight and that's the trigger that set off the imaginary clock counting down in Booth's mind.

He knew we would have eight or nine hours to reassemble his conspirators to gather them earlier several months before to kidnap Abraham Lincoln during the war and hold it hostage. It is a masterstroke to end the war. That plan didn't work out both want to do this because he hated Lincoln Lincoln was really American Caesar, the John looks Booth.

He wanted to punish Lincoln the tyrant he hoped to change history and of course he wanted eternal fame, he handed in his lifetime, but he wanted to be immortalized as a southern and ultimately American patriot, so he had just enough time to assemble his co-conspirators get his guns or supplies his horses send certain messages to people whose help he needed. Just as a Lincoln for writing Ford's theater in her carriage with her theater guests John Wilkes Booth called the final meeting of his conspirators at 8 PM at hotel two blocks from Ford's theater and that's the first moment he told them we strike tonight I shall kill Lincoln alone.

He turned to another conspirator, Lewis Powell, ex-Confederate soldier said you will go to the home of the Secretary of State guided by David Harold one of her other conspirators. You murder him in his bed is been a terrible carriage accident. He's helpless. He can't move, go in and kill them. He told Georgette Surratt, a German immigrant you will go to the hotel of the VP for his unguarded you will lock on his door, and you will kill him when he answers the door with a knife attack or pistol fire. They broke up the meeting and that was the last time that the group of conspirators ever met together again in full, you will know the rest of the story of what Melville called that Letty also night and I won't rehearse the facts of the assassination, except to say Booth performed it to the hilt. He really created a new kind of art form which I called in the book performance assassination. He wanted to escape wasn't a suicide mission but he wanted to be seen and celebrated when he crept to the president's box and shot Lincoln and jumped to the stage of Ford's theater.

He wasn't wearing a disguise he had shaved his mustache, she did nothing to conceal himself. He turned to the audience and face them up right at the state motto.

Virginia, six separate Puranas stories to tyrants.

Then he cried out, the South is avenged. Then, just as he left the stage, he really exalted himself. Only a few people heard it but just before he vanished from sight. He said I have done it and went out the back and down the source of the next 12 days is really a wonderful story of missed chances of luck and of irony. Booth was running ahead of the news he made his way out of Washington and he was able to survive because he had planned the route in advance. He knew many of the people he would visit along the way including the notorious Dr. Samuel Mudd, who certainly should have been executed for his involvement with the Booth plotters he encountered Confederate women secret agents in their teenage daughters young Confederate soldiers, 19 and 20 years old who swore they would help them. Former slave owners. Even some ex-slaves who helped him guide him a wonderful man named Thomas Jones who was a Confederate reparation to it.

Hundreds of people across the Potomac River and help Booth and David Harold Cross after hiding them in a pine thicket for several days. Booth went the wrong way on the river. He lost two days of time he injured his leg when he jumped from Ford's theater and he had a wasted day at Dr. Monts. The pursuers and there were several thousand of them didn't know where Booth was.

Then they could only travel on horseback or by steamboat, so it's really an incredible story of the socially one man on a horse order wagon order Robo with one companion can out run several thousand pursuers, who had access to trains, steamboats, horses, and the telegraph. I do point out that if Booth had not been injured had a few pieces of bad luck. I think he could've escaped he could've made it into the deep South were some counties that receiving soldier.

He could've made it into Mexico, which was his plan and he might've even escaped to Europe. Ultimately, I think he would've been caught there like John Surratt, one of his conspirators who did flee to Canada select Italy joined the Pope's army was recognized two years later and brought back to America for trial. One thing that I enjoyed most about doing the book was meeting a number of incredible characters that I knew very little about at the beginning just to name a few of them and then tell you how I think Bruce to get away with this. There's Fanny Seward wonderful daughter of Secretary of State Seward who valiantly help battle against the powerful assassin Lewis Powell who stabbed her brothers who stabbed the US Army nurse who almost stabbed her to death in her first-hand recollections which he recorded in her diary are David wonderful moving horrifying shocking account of the Seward attack. Sadly she died shortly after the assassination she would've been a wonderful writer. Another character, Laura came, the actress who was on stage and ran up to the box and cradle Lincoln's head and her lap. In his blood standard dress. I have quite a different take on Laura King she's she's portrayed quite heroically in all the other books on the Lincoln assassination, but I reveal some interesting things about her. And I invite you to reconsider her actions and what she did and said in one of my other favorite character cemented great insights into booth psychology is state of mind.

His early years is his sister Asia booth. She wrote a secret book about her brother, which is not publishing. Two years later, but she began running in the 1870s and she did something which I'm going to read brief passage from now. That leads really to my final point about how Booth got away with this. She saw that her brother was to become famous.

She tried to influence it in the way remember him answer her Lincoln and her brother were paired tragic figures together mysteriously by history and this is what she said her brother according now save this country from the king but he created for her martyr set the stamp of greatness on the part of history and gave all he had to build this enduring monument to his fellow the South avenged the wrongs inflicted by the North life inexpressibly dear was sacrificed widely for what its possessor deemed best the life best, beloved by the North was dashed madly out when those triumphant let the blood of both cement the indissoluble union of our country to see what she's done. She's almost saying her brothers is like a historically necessary figure like Judas, there can be no Good Friday without Judas's betrayal. Somehow there can become no reunion of the country without the murder committed by your brother's body was returned to the family for years later I'd been buried secretly in parts removed as souvenirs.

But VP Johnson succeeded to the presidency and he pardoned the surviving conspirators and released from the grave. Those that had been executed and you been listening to James Swanson, the author of manhunt. The 12 day chase for Lincoln's killer and I would urge you to go to Amazon and pick up the book. I promise you will not put it down. It's a heck of a story and in this man's eyes and jumbled size. He's the euro and he thinks in the end that he did something great and good and virtuous. That's what's so interesting about this story that's what's so interesting about the nature of man. The nature of sin. And this is why the book is so compelling when we come backwards and continue with this remarkable story and again the man who watch Lincoln's assassination is something we did to go to our American stories.com you will get Lincoln's assassination through the eyes of the superintendent of DC's police department at the time, played by one of the great reenactors in all of America. The Ford theater's reenactor. He did that for us, especially here on our American stories when we come back more with James Swanson, the author of manhunt on our American story millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and United healthcare can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. If you're working past age 65. You might be able to delay Medicare enrollment.

Depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be this UHC Medicare health plan's.com to learn more United healthcare helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop for small business insurance.

I need my State Farm agent make sure my business days equal and confident business owners to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on my neighbor. There call your local State Farm agent for quote today doing household chores can Artie be time-consuming and tedious.

There's nothing more daunting and facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done can be overwhelming for anyone. If you want to get those larger laundry loads down right and get back to your life. Try all three clear maggot packs all three clear mega packs are bigger packs two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry all three clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and gentle on skin, which is great for any family sensitive skin needs my family.

We definitely have sentence again the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation as that's cause this big pile of dirty clothes and all three clear maggot packs have your back purchase all three clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types continue here with stories and author James Swanson. The book manhunt. The 12 day chase for Lincoln's killer and now we return to James Swanson in the story of John Wilkes Booth and today the biggest manhunt in American history things I found researching this book was what Asia booth said about his grace, and it really made me aware of the memory of both sent and how we need to challenge it. I think this is what you said note, no epitaph marks his grave, and there's no stone is buried in the booth family plot in her book closes with this graveside elegy, but granting that he died in vain.

He gave his all honors use beauty manhood a great human love, the certainty of excellence in his profession. A powerful brain.

The strength of an athlete health and great wealth for his cause.

This man was noble in life. He paralleled his immortal soul and he was brave and death already has hidden remains are given Christian burial and strangers have piled his graves with flowers so runs the world away. That was one of the most shocking things I'd read tens of thousands of pages that I read researching this book in a way she's right and here's how I think booth is has gotten away with it in American memory. We don't think of John Wilkes Booth the way we think of her other assassins. Lee Harvey Oswald James Earl Ray cipher man of no conscious accomplishment that that we were vile for what they've done. Booth has his own monument.

It's called Ford's theater in Washington DC.

All his artifacts in the basement museum there is diary, as if awaiting the final entry is open for us to see the pistol he used to kill Lincoln which children over million of them visit a year and marvel at the photos of his girlfriends in his pockets near Ford's theater. There are street banners with his photograph going up to massive size, directing tourists to Ford's theater, I would would pose this question would you go to Dallas Texas to find Lee Harvey Oswald banners to the book depository. Would you go to Memphis and find James Earl Ray banners somehow Booth has been drained by modern culture of his dangerousness of his evil nature. The fact that he was a killer racist who murdered our greatest president and yet we think of him and almost antiquarian way we think of him as the tragic young actor who threw away his life and his talent for a cause that was wrong and I don't think we condemn him the way most Americans did in 1865.

I think this is partly because Booth performed this so well that he's almost tricked us into believing this is quite real.

It's it's a play to perform the assassination. He performed this escape he performed wonderfully in impromptu play on the 12th night in the middle of the night when the soldier surrounded him with the Garrett barn and engagement dialogue and repartee and set the barn and fire.

Those were the lights of the stage and he knew that was his last performance for the American theater. Some other examples of how I think this is gotten away with this. If you go to the new Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield. The theaters dressed to appear just as it did on the night of April 14, 1865 state boxes festooned with flags in the framed engraving of George Washington that hangs from the front of the box is the actual one that witnessed booth sleep to the stage. You can follow the steps up the curving staircase retraces pastor the box enter the vestibule and re-create his view of Lincoln's rocking chair. You can sit in the audience while listening to a National Park Service historian lecture on the assassination. You can stare up at the box and imagine booth suspended momentarily in midair at the apex of the sleep John Wilkes Booth would have loved it an entire museum. One of the most popular in America devoted to his crime.

I must have same. Once you learn himself. Same in the main rotunda figures is the great Frederick Douglass Grant and Sherman of tableau the entire Lincoln family and who was looking at them with hate filled eyes, a life-size wax figure of John Wilkes Booth in the gift shop I found for sale to children toy derringer pistols.

It was unbelievable and I would say again, would you find wax figures of of Oswalt at the Kennedy library in Boston. Wax figures of James Earl Ray at the King Center in Atlanta were standing outside the Lorraine Motel are a replicas of Oswald's mammoth purple, rifle for sale to her children.

I think that booth was so avid before he killed Lincoln the night of the 14th. He wrote his own op-ed to be published in the papers the next day so that the American people could read why he killed Lincoln if he worked hard on it. He sealed in an envelope.

He handed it to an active sentence that I may have to leave town rather quickly, and I might not be coming back and if I don't come back when you deliver this to the national intelligence and editor of the next day. That man was so terrified that he had possession of that letter that he destroyed it and was never published later he purported to reconstruct the letter but I note in my book that I don't believe his reconstruction of the letter because his attempt to reconstruct the letter is based on a memo that Booth route that was discovered in his sister's safe after the assassination. So I think this actor John Matthews made up the letter and didn't really remember. It just sort of paraphrased unknown Booth document. One thing he did the only thing he remembered about that letter, which I do believe that it was signed by Booth and that he signed his co-conspirator's name is Matthew was at a Matthews was adamant that the other side but but we don't know what the content was based on the documents we can guess, he was crushed and he records this in his memo book during the escapee was crushed that that op-ed was not published. Then when he was hiding in that time thicket for five days and four nights being cared for by Thomas Jones the Confederation who brought him food booth also implored him bring me the newspapers were not certain what all the issues were based on the distribution of Confederate male.

We know that the Confederates had access to certain northern papers pretty quickly and Booth had read any of them. He would've read how he had been damaged for the slow cement and he was crushed to read his reviews. It really took the wind out of the sails while he was hiding in this time thicket. He couldn't move it one point Union cavalry came within 200 yards of his hiding place and he just had to sit there and wait and read what the North thought of him. It was his lowest point in the escape. When he saw that his own article had not been published and we need when he read the newspaper editorials condemning him with respect to what would've happened if Lincoln survived it.

It's the great unanswered question of the Lincoln assassination. Who knows maybe Lincoln's death made it easier for the Republicans to pass the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.

I don't know maybe radical Republicans would've found Lincoln too lenient. After all, he just wanted them to go home to their farms. Lincoln didn't want to put any of the Confederate leadership on trial not even Jefferson Davis himself.

He didn't want to try any of the generals for treason. He wanted to have a easy piece for the South and bring the country together. That's why he asked the band at the White House to play Dixie. Two days before he died he did that as a symbol but it's our song now. It's not the southern sonnets of the rebel song that's an American song maybe we would've done to him what the people of England did to the man I'm convinced save them from Nazi invasion. When Churchill was no longer needed out course. Lincoln would've retained office.

He could've been ousted from the presidency. I'm convinced that somehow maybe this is just a hope of mine that Lincoln's generosity is magnificent insights into human nature and human psychology is wonderful ability to speak and write and communicate would've somehow made postwar life better for the freed slaves.

So in the end of the book. I want to make sure that you don't sympathize with John Wilkes Booth. There's a temptation to do it because it aside.

There was charismatic that was mesmerizing and you spend 12 days with them in my book really I put you in the saddle with them side-by-side so that you meet everyone he met along the way and experience everything he did, but Booth is not the hero of my book, certainly not the hero of the book and my hero is Abraham Lincoln. And even though Lincoln leaves the scene in the first quarter of the book. I hope that you'll find that you find his memory and his presence and legacy to linger throughout the book, and that by the time you get to the end when I finish with Booth you agree with me that is not a folk hero is not an inter-Korean curiosity.

He was a racist murder, and he killed one of the greatest of all Americans, and you been listening to James Swanson and what a story he tells, by all means pick up manhunt 12 day chase from Lincoln's killer.

There's so much more. There just skims the surface here in this piece of storytelling, great job as always by Greg Hagler finding the story bringing it to the year ending up the piece a great story tragic story. James Swanson manhunt the story of the chase from Lincoln's killer on our American stores. Millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and United healthcare can help you feel confident about your choices for those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. If you're working past age 65.

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