Killing Lincoln: Prologue

He furls his brow, as he does countless times each day, and walks out of the Capitol Building, which is nearing completion.

His new vice president, Andrew Johnson, has just delivered a red-faced, drunken, twenty-minute ramble vilifying the South that has left the crowd squirming, embarrassed by Johnson’s inebriation.

His new vice president, Andrew Johnson, has just delivered a red-faced, drunken, twenty-minute ramble vilifying the South that has left the crowd squirming, embarrassed by Johnson’s inebriation.

So when Lincoln steps up to the podium and delivers an eloquent appeal for reunification, the spiritual message of his second inaugural address is all the more uplifting.

So when Lincoln steps up to the podium and delivers an eloquent appeal for reunification, the spiritual message of his second inaugural address is all the more uplifting.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations,” the president intones humbly.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations,” the president intones humbly.

Despite his exhaustion, Lincoln is charismatic.

Lincoln’s inaugural speech is a performance worthy of a great dramatic actor. And indeed, one of America’s most famous thespians stands just a few feet away as Lincoln raises his right hand.

John Wilkes Booth is galvanized by the president’s words—though not in the way Lincoln intends.

Blessed with a rakish smile and a debonair gaze, he is handsome, brilliant, witty, charismatic, tender...

Blessed with a rakish smile and a debonair gaze, he is handsome, brilliant, witty, charismatic, tender...

Yet not even she knows that Booth is a Confederate sympathizer, one who nurses a pathological hatred for Lincoln and the North.

Lucy has no idea that her lover has assembled a crack team of conspirators to help him bring down the president.

The actor is impulsive and prone to the melodramatic.

Just before Lincoln's speech, as the president stepped out onto the East Portico, Booth’s carefully crafted conspiracy was instantly forgotten.

An officer from Washington’s Metropolitan Police, a force known to be heavily infiltrated by Confederate sympathizers, grabbed him hard by the arm and pulled him back.

An officer from Washington’s Metropolitan Police, a force known to be heavily infiltrated by Confederate sympathizers, grabbed him hard by the arm and pulled him back.

He seethes as he listens to Lincoln’s speech.

Healing is Lincoln’s one overriding ambition, and he will use every last bit of his trademark determination to see it realized. Nothing must stand in his way.