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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: A Shot in the Dark- Investigating Lincoln's Assassination and the Chilling Conspiracy · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Buddy Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. I've been to two
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: locations over the course of my life where presidential assassinations
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: took place. I got to say I was. I was
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: left surprised by both. I don't know how this kind
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of figure is into the calculus, if you will, are
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: what my expectation was. I went to Dallas and stood
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: just adjacent to what they term as the sniper's nest
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: on Dealey Plause in Texas school Book Depository. There looked
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: out that window and I could see the road stretching
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: on before me. And what really kind of stood out
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to me. Having watch newsreels for years and years relative
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to the Kennedy assassination, I always imagined that area was
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: going to be really, really big massive. It wasn't. It
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: was kind of condensed, if you will. I actually went down,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and when traffic wasn't approaching me, I went out and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: stood on the X where they claimed that the fatal
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: shot was sustained. But it seemed small. However, I went
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to Ford's Theater as well. Other than the building being
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: very very old and probably having one of the best
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: museums I've ever been in period. Down in the basement.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: The space of Ford's Theater was so much larger than
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I expected. And as I stood there and I looked,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and of course it's not necessarily configured like it was
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: at that time. They had to do a lot of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: restorate of work and repairs and all those sorts of things.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: But the approximations of where everything is, you can only
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: imagine that as a single shot rings out and the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: sound of maybe ripping bunting as a spur is caught
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in it and John Wilkes booth falls to the stage below,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: it would echo in that space, everybody frozen in tom
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It's hard to take the measure when great men fall.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But today we're going to talk about the assassination and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: autopsy of our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln. I'm Josep Scotten Morgan,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and this is Bodybags. Dave Mack, my friend, senior crime
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: reporter with Crime Online. When I proposed this to you,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you thought that I was out
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: of my mind or if you thought that, Wow, this
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: is going to be really intriguing. I was fascinated by
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the prospect. That's why I wanted to do this. I've
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: always been interested in exactly what was found relative to
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Abe Lincoln and his mortal remains, how did they go
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: about assessing what had happened? And so much has been
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: written about Lincoln. I think that probably out of every president,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: there's been more books written than any other president we've
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: ever had, and they still continue to be written today.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: But you know, when you get down to it, he
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: was a man. He was a man that died at
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the hand of another man, and he was felt, like
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: so many other people have died in our country, at
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the end of the muzzle of a weapon. I just
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: wanted to explore that. Were you kind of surprised when
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I pitched this to you?
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: My first thought when you suggested doing it, I thought, Okay,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I know nothing. I mean, other than the shot from
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: John Wilkes Booth. I am totally ignorant of his death
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: and what took place in those hours between the time
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: he was shot in the time he died. I know
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: plenty of rumors, I guess are theories of things happened,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Because no matter what happens, when you talk about Abraham
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Lincoln and the assassination, there are so many rabbit holes
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: to take a tour of, from conspiracy theories to know
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: what really happened, which, by the way, was a conspiracy.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I remember mentioning this one day on my radio show, saying,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: you know, we'll talk about the conspiracy surrounding the assassination
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: of President Lincoln. And I had people that were mad.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: They thought I was just muddying the water that you know.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: I was shocked that people don't know what really happened. Okay,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: So when you mentioned covering it, I thought, Okay, this
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: is one big part of the story that most of
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: us don't know and cannot understand what really happened when
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: President Lincoln was shot in a public place at night
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: with an audience by an actor. I mean, there's a
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: lot going on in that moment. You're a scholar, you're
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: a forensic genius, you are all of these things. And
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest, I'm waiting to hear what really happened,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the truth of what took place medically speaking with President Lincoln.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: What's shocking to me. I guess I'm taking this in
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: measure compared to the way we see things now. I've
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: been to presidential inaugurations, I've been in the presence of presidents.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I almost got te bonbed one day in downtown Atlanta
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: many years ago, by al Gore's detail that were blowing
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: red lights going to CNN and I was actually returning
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: from a death scene. I just worked and I was
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: down by CNN Center and I could hear sirens, But
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I wasn't expected because in downtown Atlanta, you don't expect
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: to see people driving like, really really fast on the streets.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: First off, the streets are horrible. They're real bumpy and uneven.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Not in that case. And there before me flew the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: motorcade of al Gore when he was a vice president.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: That's a vice president. I think that the thing that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: many people ask or many people have questions about when
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: it comes to President Lincoln is access and opportunity. Abraham
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Lincoln was known for his kind of folksy way and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: back during those times, just measure this by what happens today, Dave.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: If an individual wanted to come and see the President
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: at the White House, all they merely had to do
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: was it was referred to as presenting your card, and
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: you would knock on the front door of the White House.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: You would show up, the door would be answered by servant,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and you would hand your card like a business card
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: over to the person that greets you at the door,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and they would announce you. Now, you might not get
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: to see the president. It stated that there would people
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: be standing around, milling about and waiting, but there were
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: people that got into see them. There were really no
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: appointments that were needed. You could take a shot, no
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: pun intended, and see him. And of course that night
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: at Ford's Theater, I think one of the lingering questions
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: guarding the president and what happened that night a low
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: these many years. How did Booth get access to the president,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to his box. And it's one thing to stand outside
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of the President's box. Because let me kind of paint
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the picture for you. If you're and having been there,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: if you're in Ford's Theater, and I know I'm going
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to say this wrong to all the people that have
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: theater background, so forgive me in advance. But if you're
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: standing center stage, if you will in the audience, there's
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: an orchestra pit right at the Ford portion in front
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of the stage. They kind of sit you down and
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the stage itself is pitched, which I was struck by.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: The stage itself gradually rises from the front to the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: rear and then it comes to this big crescendo where
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you can see that there is a tremendous elevation change.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: It's not like it is today. The stage is completely
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: different from the way they have it reassembled down there.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I was struck by that. But up to your right
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in Ford's Theater, there is a president what they called
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a box up there. It was the Presidential Box and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: it's still festooned today. They have bunting, the red, white
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: and blue bunting that's up there, and there's a portrait
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of President Washington hanging on the front of it. They
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: had prepped it that way that night, knowing and this
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: is the key, knowing that the president was going to come.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: It was actually announced that he was going to be there.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: You know, Joe, I actually found out. They had flyers
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: printed up announcing that he would be there and what
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: time he would be there.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: This is fascinating because this is only four days after Lee.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: It's surrendered at Appomattox, and people have described those times.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: If you can imagine coming through this tremendous darkness, and
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: it is a darkness that none of us can comprehend.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think of that war. In the movie Lincoln
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Spielberg's Lincoln character of Lincoln is played by Daniel day Lewis,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and he makes the comment describing describing the Civil War
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: is I want to put an end to this pestilential war.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I love that term. It just encompasses everything. Can you imagine,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden you get this news. They didn't
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: all they had telegraph and horseback. Suddenly the clouds began
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: to lift. Everybody's in a celebratory mood, and even reports
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: from the audience that night said that there was a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: sense of levity in the audience that people. It was
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: like it was celebratory and people were very I don't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: even know if happy is an insufficient term relief.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: I think oddly though, even at that time, Lee had
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: surrendered to Grant four days earlier, but Tennessee was still fighting.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there were still battles going on. I don't know
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that the surrender in North Carolina, which followed the surrender
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: at Appomatos had taken place even to this point, and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: still out west you had skirmishes going on out in Texas,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: so it hadn't actually come to an end. Things moved
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: a lot slower back then than they do now. Going
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: back even decades prior to this. The Battle of New
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Orleans in the War of eighteen twelve was actually fought
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: after the end of hostilities. So that's kind of an
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: interesting It gives you an idea of how slow things moved,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and they didn't have telegraph then, but it was a
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: different pace, and with that different pace, you didn't have
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the rigor that you have now when it comes to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: presidential security.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned somebody being able to walk up to
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: the White House, knock on the door and present your
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: card and have access to the White House and possibly
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: the President. So at Ford's Theater where he's in the
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: presidential box where everybody's been told he's going to be,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: it was not necessarily guarded. It has been said that
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: it was essentially unguarded.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Probably one of the most infamous characters in this whole
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: tragedy was this fellow John Parker, who was actually one
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of the original members of the first established police force
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: for DC what we now know is DC Police. He
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: was actually one of the first members that were hired.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And I mean, we'll break it down. He was a drunk.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: He had been reprimanded multiple times, had been brought before
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: board over and over and over again, and had never
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: been terminated from employment. Out of all of the people
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in the world, he was actually assigned to protect the president. Now,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: this is before the days where you had a Secret
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Service presence taking care of everything. These guys that work
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: with Secret Service now they do advance planning so far
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: out that I think a lot of people would be
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: shocked to know everything that goes into that protection detail.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And back then, you know, when the Secret Service was
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: initially established, it had nothing to do with presidential security.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: That's something that they inherited years later. There would be
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: two more presidents assassinated after Lincoln before it kind of
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: clicked with them that hey, you probably need a full
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: time detail. And back then they were known to do
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: counterfeit investigation. This John Parker character was assigned to Lincoln
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and he would be found sleeping on duty many times.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: He liked to as the older generation used to say,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: he liked to pull the cork. And even that night,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: after everyone got settled in the box up to the
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: right aspect or to the right of the stage, there
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: was a chair for him out there that he would
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: be seated in, and you got kind of two doors
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that you have to walk through in order to get
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: access to the actual box. He would not have seen
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: inside of the box once he was stationed there. It
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: was at some point in time he was seen going
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: down leaving, chatting with the carriage driver for the President
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: and Missus Lincoln. Then adjourneying over to a bar that
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: was called the Star, and I've seen it. It's immediately
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: adjacent as you're facing forts theater. It's to the right,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and he began pulling a cork over there during this
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: period of time when the play was going on. Re
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: enters the theater, they believe, and finds himself a choice
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: seat down in the audience so that he can enjoy
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the play, so the president is completely unguarded. Then enters
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: John Wilkes Booth his day, he would have been I
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: guess from a movie star perspective, he's Ben Affleck or
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a Matt Damon, or he's bad brother.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Because of his brother Edwin being an act.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hey, you know, you're absolutely right. And their dad, Julius,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you know, had immigrated from Great Britain very well known.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, this was a theater family. They were known,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: and he was known. He was regarded as very handsome,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time at Fort's Theater, but he
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: was just full of vitriol when it came to the president.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: He blamed the president for everything. He supported quote unquote
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the Southern cause, but never quite found the guts to
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: go and sign up and stand a post and shoulder
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a weapon. Never could find that within himself to do.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: But yet he planned several attempts. I think at one
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: point time he's going to try to kidnap the President
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and ransoming.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: That plan had to be changed, obviously for all kinds
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: of reasons. But you mentioned he didn't have the guts
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: to shoulder a weapon. He didn't have the guts to
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: man up and actually fight for what he claims he believes.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: But he did think by doing this he would become
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: a hero in the South, which plays into what really
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: happened after the fact.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: As a Southerner, I have to admit I think that
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Lincoln was out bringing the country back together, healing. I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: think that this was the worst possible thing that could
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: have ever have happened. He did damage to the South
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that would probably rival the damage that had actually occurred
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: during the war. When the North had an opportunity to
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: visit vengeance upon the South. Boy, they did it, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: they did it in spades. Man. I mean, they just
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: wrecked the South for years and years. And it was
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: because of this act, this act of this person. People
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: were sick of war. They didn't want anything else to
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: do with it. That night, back in eighteen sixty five,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: in that old theater, when John Wilkes Booth pulled that
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia derringer from his pocket, he pulled that hammer back
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and he let fly that round. He changed history. You
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: think about things in minute detail, particularly when it comes
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to the assassination or president. The mere action of placing
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the pad of your right index finger onto that smooth,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: metallic surface of what otherwise would be known as a
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: beautiful and elegant weapon and engaging that trigger mechanism, That
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: one motion, that one initiation, that one action set in
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: motion things that I don't know that we have ever
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: recovered from Dave.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I think that what took place in the months leading
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: up to the assassination, from the summer of eighteen sixty four,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: when John Willis Booth was gathering amongst some people who
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: felt the same way he did, or at least leaned
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: that way, up until the point the assassination, I think
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: that whole planning stage and the execution that took place
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: damaged our country and there are places still felt to
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: this day. I think Winston County, Alabama comes to mind
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: if you ever have a chance. And as long as
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: we're talking history, there's a place called Loony's Tavern in
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Winston County, and at Looney's Tavern, the county decided to
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: not be involved in the Civil War, and they decided
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: they were going to be neutral Switzerland right here in
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Winston County, Alabama, and to this day, because they remain neutral,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: if you go into Winston County, you can tell how
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the road changes from the minute you go into Winston
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: County because they don't get support from the state of
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Alabama the way other counties do because they refused to
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: be involved. That's how far out I mean. It is
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three and we're talking about something that happened
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty one, two, three, four, and five. But anyway,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: I had a question for you, because I'm not a
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: gun expert, Joe, I don't know that much about what
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: they do. I'm looking at everything surrounding the assassination and
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: what John Willikes Booth was going to use. He couldn't
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: walk into the theater carrying a rifle. It had to
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: be a small gun. He knew as an actor he
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: would have access to areas within the theater that the
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: regular patron might not, So he knows he can get
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: up there. But he still has to have a weapon
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: that will do what he needs it to do. But
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: it has to be small enough that he can get
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: in there with it. So what are we talking about
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: with the gun that he used. Was that it didn't
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: have a magazine. It only had one shot, right.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it did. It's quite a beautiful weapon when
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: you see it. And I've seen this weapon, the weapon.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: You remember I had mentioned the theater Museum Forts Theater.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: It's in the basement and look, I recommend anybody if
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you're in DC, go to Fort Theater. It's one of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: those places that you got to pay to get into.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of stuff that's free in DC.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: That's the beauty of it if you're a history person.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: But fortunately you got to pay. It's worth every dime
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you're going to spend. Trust me, this weapon, it looks
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: like it's floating in the air and when you see it,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: but it's pegged up there with a couple of really
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: tiny little nails and hanging suspended in the air, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you can see it. And what's really kind of fascinating
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: about it is that you can move around this thing
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and you can actually stare right down the muzzle of it.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I mean when I say steer down the muzzle, you
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: can stare down the muzzle so effectively that you can
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: actually see the lands and grooves which are the twists
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: that are built into this barrel. I think many folks
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: believe that this is almost like an old fashioned smooth
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: or musket. It's not. It was back then. It was
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: cutting edge technology. It's referred to as a Philadelphia darringer.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: It had a walnut stock, has a walnut stock, and
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it's beautifully embossed. This style of weapon is something that
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: people will refer to as a poker pistol, which is
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: interesting also as a pocket pistol, a palm pistol, a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: belly gun. And it was meant, as you had stated,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: for concealment purposes. And the effective range on it is
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: very limited, very very limited. Once you get outside of
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: probably about ten feet, you might as well be throwing
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: rocks at that point. In time. But the reason the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: scene is referred to as a poker pistol is that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the distance across a poker table that the scene would
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: have been deployed in would be sufficient to the task
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: if you were firing at somebody across the table. I
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: don't know if they're cheating at cards or whatever the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: case might be. But here's what's interesting. When you look
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: down the muzzle of this weapon. You remember I talked
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: about lands and grooves for its time, this particular weapon
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: had a left hand twist, which when you think about
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: lands and grooves, which are or those kind of spiraling
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: marks that run down the length of the barrel to
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: add stability to the round. It's kind of like throwing
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a football. The reason really good football players are great,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: or quarterbacks that is, is if they can get a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: tight spiral on a ball, it maintains energy. Okay, the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: bullet is spinning, the football is spinning, and it maintains
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it holds onto what energy that it can, and it
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: stays on target. Whereas if you fire something down a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: smooth bore, that projectile is kind of rattling down the barrel,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: if you will, and it has no kind of predictability
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to it. Now, there are parameters for this thing. First off,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: you have to consider the size of the round. You
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: have to consider the amount of powder or propellant that
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: would have been used.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: What would it have looked like. Would it have been
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: like a bullet like we know today or would it
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: be a round ball? And where would the powder be.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: It's been known under several different calibers. And remember when
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: we caliber, we're talking about the diameter in inches around
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the circumference of the round itself. So this is some
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: people call it a forty four caliber. Some people call
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: it a forty five caliber. That is the Philadelphia Derringer.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: It was a forty four caliber. That means point four
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: to four inches in diameter. Okay, the muzzle of the weapon.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Booth loaded this thing with a point four to one,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: So he didn't get the maximum power because as it's
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: packed in there, as it's packed in there, and you
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: have to use If people have seen what a ramrod is,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: it's the attachment. It looks like a rod that's generally
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: held beneath the length of the barrel on a weapon.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: That is what was referred to as a muzzle loader.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: So you have to put the round down the barrel
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: from the open end of the barrel and pack it
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: down in there. In order to get this thing to
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: initiate well, he used al of bullet which was a
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: forty one caliber. The bullet is actually smaller. What you
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: want is primarily you want a round that it's going
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: to be tightly fitted in there, because that is going
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: to take advantage of this muzzle, of this blast of
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the propellant. As a firing sequence is initiated, You're going
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to transfer more energy that's kinetic energy to this round
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: as it travels out of the end of this muzzle
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and gets to target. You have to preload this thing
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and have it loaded in your pocket. Generally, the hammer
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: is forward and hammer is the big mechanism. If you'll
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: take a look at this thing online, it's again it's
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: elegant when you see it. The hammer mechanism is that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: thing that has to be driven forward by the trigger.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: When you pull the trigger, the hammer slams forward and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: initiates the firing sequence. And there's a couple of components here.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: There is what's referred to as there's actually what's referred
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to as a nipple in the hammer housing which has
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: a little firing port on the top. So you have
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: to take a percussion cap which has got an explosive
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in it, it's brass. You set it on the nipple, okay,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And so when the hammer, when the trigger is pulled
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and the hammer slams forward, it sends this little spark
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: down this little portal inside of the nipple, and it
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: travels down until it strikes. That spark strikes the actual
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: propellant or powder inside of the muzzle that you've already preloaded.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: That explosion goes off, and so the bullet then travels
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: out of the end of the barrel and heads toward
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the target. So pull a trigger now, for instance, on
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a semi automatic weapon, you don't really get the sense
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of any kind of delay, even though there is in
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a millisecond when the firing pin strikes that primer cap
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that we have on that's built into a bullet now
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: or live ammo, and that firing sequence all initiates inside
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the barrel. Not with this, what would have happened is,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: as Booth took this weapon out of his pocket, he
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: would have had to have cocked the hammer externally. And
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: it's really high. It looks like it sits about one
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to two inches above the top level of the barrel.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: The back side of the barrel. He would have pulled
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it back and it would have clicked twice. You have
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a half cock and then you have a full cock.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: In order to fire it, you got to pull it
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: all the way back so it'd go click click. Okay.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: He probably would have done this before he entered the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: area where where Lincoln and Mary Todd, Lincoln and Major
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Rathbone and his date were seated. He would have walked
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: up to the back of Lincoln and pointed the thing
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: at his head. And we can get into that in
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a moment. But when he initiated this firing sequence, Dave,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: you would have heard a click as the thing is fired,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: and then you would have heard a small all explosion.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: It would have been like that and then boom. So
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: it's like boom like this. What happens is that externally,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that hammer slams forward on that primer cap, initiates a
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: tiny explosion, and that tiny explosion initiates a bigger explosion,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: which is the propellant, and it drives that round out
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of the end of that barrel. Now, today, if you
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: were try to get an idea of the energy of
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: this weapon, Okay, in today's standards, it would be probably
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of our highest powered air gun that we have. Wow.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And the further away you are from target, the more
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: diminished the power is. So you have to be up close.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: And of course Wilkes was close. He was probably within
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: inches of Lincoln's head when he pulled that trigger, and
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: this whole firing seam was initiated.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: When that firing equin's initiated. The click, Okay, he squeezes
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the trigger and the beginning it starts. Would there have
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: been enough time for President Lincoln to react to hearing
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: that click the figure is pulled, for him to react
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: and try and begin to turn before before the bullet
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: came out.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: That's the thing about this. I'm so glad you brought
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: this up. As we've stated, and everybody knows John Wills
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Booth was an actor, and he had been present for
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: this play so many times. He knew some of the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: people that were in the play. And not only did
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: he know that, he knew because it's a comedy, all right,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: he knew when laughter was going to rise and fall,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: and he timed it as a line is delivered that
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: during the period of this play that elicits the loudest
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: roar of laughter that can be experienced. According to what
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: we know about the nature of the injury that President
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Lincoln sustained, he apparently was leaning forward, perhaps okay, with
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: his head kind of pitched downward, all right, And some
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: people believe he wasn't looking at the stage, but he
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: was probably looking in the orchestra pit, which is in
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: front of the stage. There may be some instrument caught
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: his attention when you're around an orchestra, and Lincoln would
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: have been around a lot of music, because every time
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: he walks in a room, somebody's gonna play Hell to
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the Chief. There's still this fascination about a group of
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: people getting together and playing instruments, and they're playing the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: soundtrack essentially for this play. Some people believe that he's
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: looking down at the orchestra pit, and this kind of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: dictates the orientation of his head relative to the firing line.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: But Booth knew enough about the play so that when
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: laughter began to rise, he knew that his movements, the
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: cop that weapon, and any comment he would make would
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: be drowned out. He knew that anybody else that might
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: be occupying that area up there, their attention would be
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: drawn to the stage, and the idea is to get
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the eyes away from you if you're the assassin. And
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: to a great degree, he had planned this perfectly in
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that sense, didn't plan his escape very well, but he
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: planned this to this point. He knew that this was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the best time. So when he fired that round into
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the back of the president's head, he had one attempt
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to do it. Here's a fascinating thing about these Philadelphia
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and Derringers as they referred to. You could buy them
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: in pairs, and as a matter of fact, you could
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: buy I think I think this is correct. You could
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: actually buy a pair of these things for twenty four dollars,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: which was a tremendous amount of money, but Booth is
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: very successful, would have been considered in that day wealthy.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Probably you could actually buy in pairs, and it stands
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the reason that you would want it because if one
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: round was not effective, you've got a second fallback weapon
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: to fire as well. Because these are not semi automatic,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: it's a pains taking practice to have to go through
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and load it. And the way the loading actually took
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: place is that you would measure out the number of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: grains that it would take grains of propellant, which this
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: is a black powder weapon, so it's very messy, very
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: very messy. It's not like smokeless powder like we have today.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: You put the powder down into the barrel, so you
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: have to lift the muzzle so it's pointed skyward. You
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: pour the powder down in there. Okay, Then you put
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a cloth patch down on top of the powder. Then
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the ball, which is a ball. It's a ball of lead,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: all right. It's not the kind of conical shape bullet
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: that we have now that have points on them. Okay,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you'd ask that earlier. This is actually a ball that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: is now rammed down in there with this tiny little
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: ramrod that's attached on the base of this Philadelphia derringer,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and the bullet is what's referred to as seated at
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: that time. You get it tightly packed in there so
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that when you're walking up and you're walking up down
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the streets, or you're riding on horseback or whatever it is,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: bullet's not going to fall out. You have to have
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: it tightly seated in there so that when you do
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: use this thing and you cock it and you set
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: that action in motion, you're guaranteed, first off, you're going
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: to still have a round in there. It's not going
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to fall off in your pocket. And then secondly that
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: it's tightly secured enough so that you were going to
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: get maximum pressure when that explosion takes place.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: As we look at what has taken place, this is
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: the part that, like millions of other people, I can't
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: understand what happened. Next, we've got John Willikes booth in
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: the theater where he obviously had access because people knew
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: who he was. Now Booth standing there the trigger. He
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: shoots the president in the head and then proceeds to
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: slash major wrathbone and then leaps from the presidential booth
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: to the stage. That's the story, and that Wrathbone tried
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: to grab his jacket, causing Booth to land awkwardly, possibly
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: breaking his leg as he landed. And then the hunt
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: was on everybody else. As you mentioned, is there a
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: surgeon in the house. The president has been shot in
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the head, They have to immediately get him out of
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: where he is and get him into the care of doctors.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they just don't grab him up like a
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: child and run out of there.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Now when he was initially when the first assessment was
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: made by a surgeon that rolled into the box. He
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: noted that the president was still seated in his chair,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: in the presidential chair there in the booth, and he
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: was leaning to his right. So the defect or where
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the injury is is going to be on the left,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: rear or posterior aspect of the president's skull. And Mary
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Todd Lincoln was kind of cradling. He was leaning over
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: on top of her. He's a big man too, I mean,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Tala's president we've ever had. He's leaning over onto the
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: first lady, and she's kind of diminutive, so you can
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: see this giant of a man. She's cradling, she's I'm
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: sure she's weeping. She's hysterical at this point. And the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: surgeon arrives and they know that he's I don't know
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: that they know he's been mortally wounded. As a matter
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: of fact, people saw people report hearing the report of
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: a weapon. Many people pause because they thought that it
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: was part of the play. Can you imagine that? And
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I think that it's much the same kind of response
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: that we would have today. We're not automatically going to
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: think that somebody has just been the victim of homicide
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: right in front of us. We think if you're at
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: an entertainment venue like this, you're going to think, oh,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: this is just part of the play. And somebody's down
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the stage leapt from a box very dramatically, and I
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: think even Booth shouted out. Some people debate over what
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: he said. Six sempra tyrannus I think, which is the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: state model Virginia Death to Tyrants? I think?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: But you mentioned earlier that he knew the play. Yeah,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: he picked an actual part of the play where people
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: might think it was part of the show, So he
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: knew what he was doing in terms of the potential getaway.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So there's kind of this delay that occurs. It's reported
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: that Mary Todd Lincoln screamed, and it's at that point
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: it kind of jolted everybody. They realized that something truly
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: horrible has happened, and you have people that are in attendance.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: A young surgeon had made his way up to the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: box and when he was taking a look at at
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: President Lincoln, he's trying to assess, which is what surgeons do,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: that's what physicians do. They're trying to assess a patient
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: to try to understand. First off, if it's trauma related,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: where is this these insults to the body that we're
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: looking for. At first, he saw blood on the sho
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: people did see the knife. You know, this Philadelphia pocket
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: pistol is easily concealed. They heard what sounded like gunfire,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: but there was nothing to validate. But Boots got this
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: knife that actually looks like a big Bowie knife, gigantic hilt,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: lengthy blade. He's brandishing this thing. Rathbone has been cut
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: at this point from his shoulder down to his elbow.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: I think he's been slashed. So the surgeon, his first
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: inclination is to think, well, maybe this is a cut,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: maybe the president has been slashed in some way. But
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: then as he begins to kind of work his hand
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: up to the president's hairline, he pulls it away and
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: he notes that there's blood on the back of the skull,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: on the back of his head, and then he knows
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: what he's dealing with. He's dealing with a gunshot one,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: which is something he would not have been unfamiliar with. Remember,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: we're still in the midst of a war.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Back then, and they didn't have extra they didn't have MRIs.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: They didn't have any means of figuring out what kind
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: of damage has been done. We just at this point
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: know that the president has been shot in the head.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: What do they do? Start poking? How do they know?
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Well, what they know. The first thing they do is
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: they're using their bare hands, which look, you can't fault
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: these people for doing that. And I'm going to tell you,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got somebody there and you don't
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: have surgical gloves only, you're going to use your hands
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: as well. But you there's a higher there's the bar
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: is a bit higher for surgeons, certainly today there are.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: But you know, the only way that you can kind
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: of assess what's going on is that you're going to
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: feel for a defect, and it would have been a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: circular defect that he would have sustained. And if folks
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: that are listening, if you will find that bony protuberance
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: on the back of your skull. It's kind of this
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: bump on the back of it. Okay, that's the excipital area.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Some people call it the occiput. This injury is going
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to be three inches behind what they called the external
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: auditory meatus, which is essentially your ear hole, so it's
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: going to be to the rear of the left ear
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and slightly to the left of the midline. So if
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: you find the back of your skull, f on the
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: middle of it, below the occiput, that bony protuberance, and
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: go right there below that area on the back of
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: your head, that's where the president's gunshot wound is. So
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: when it entered, it actually pushed through the cerebellum, which
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: is that portion of the brain that sits at the
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: base of the brain. It was tough to assess the
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: track of the wound, and even today you don't have
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: immediate access to X ray or be able to make
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: some kind of diagnostic assessment. But the President, for a
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: time at least, had stopped breathing and his pupils were dilated.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: He had either shallow respirations or no respirations at all.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: But guess what, When this initial responding surgeon places his
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: hand adjacent finds the defect, he pulls out a clot
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: of blood which had been creating pressure at that point
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: in time. And when he pulled out that clot of blood,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Lincoln starts breathing again. So with that spark, with that moment,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: there's probably hope. Certainly everybody else is not really going
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: to know what's going on. But the surgeon says, Okay,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I've done this assessment. I've removed this clot of blood.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: You know what, maybe there's a chance the president is breathing. Now,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: what do you do with him? Because we know, we
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: know that they had made the assessment even up in
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: that box that they could not take him very far.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: He sustained a gunshot wound to the head. They know
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: that he's probably not going to be long for this world.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: That we didn't have. You didn't have escalades that drive
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: smoothly down the road on paved roads. At best, roads
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: were cobblestone and in DC at that particular time, it
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: was nothing to have dirt streets, and those would have
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: wagon wheel ruts in them. So you take somebody that
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: has got, let's face it, probably one of the most
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: serious head wounds that you can sustain, and you put
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: them in the back of a buggy or the back
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of a wagon and try to convey them all the
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: way back to the White House, which is some distance
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: away down these bumpy roads. It probably wouldn't last one block.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: So they've got to get him somewhere in the closest
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: place is is boarding house. It's immediately across the street
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: from Ford's Theater. And people have heard this tale before,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: but you have to be able to assess the president
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: in his current status. The bed that they found. Lincoln's
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: a tall guy that had to place him kind of,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: they'd say obliquely they use that term, but it's kind
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: of diagonally across bed so that he would he could
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: fit on it. And soon you've got all of these
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: surgeons gathering at the house. Not to mention any kind
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: of other officials, but here's the thing. When you've got
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: more than one physician in the room, everybody's going to
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: have a different opinion. And just think about the added
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: pressure of having the president there. What they did know
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: is that they were going to try to have to
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: assess the location as they refer to the location of
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the ball. We refer to them as projectiles now most
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: of the time, but they refer to these as balls.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: And this goes all the way back to muzzle loading
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: days of the Revolutionary War and up to that day
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: in particular, because it was a ball shape. It was
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: a spherical lead ball that had been fired into the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: president's head. They had to try to determine the track
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: of the wound, where did it go, where did it
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: wind up, And they had this interesting kind of probe,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: which is fascinating. They didn't have X ray, so what
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: they would do is that they would insert this probe
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: that had this kind of fin like shape to it,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and as you go into the track of the wound,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: there was a certain feel that this probe would generate
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: as it may contact with the metallic body in there.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: And this was disrupted a few times because as they're
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: doing this assessment with this probe, they're encountering not the
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: lead ball, but they're encountering fractured bits of skull because
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: the ball itself cavitated through the area. But as it's
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: passing through the external table of the skull, it's creating
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: other little satellite projectiles that are pointy, they're jagged, so
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: they're tearing apart any of the little vessels and there
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: are many in the brain, and you're creating this cavitated
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: area that's filling up with blood. They're trying to keep
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: it drained because they do know even at that primitive
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: state that they were in and understanding of how the
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: brain functions. The more pressure you have entercranial pressure, you
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: have the higher probability that you're going to lose a patient.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: So they were trying their best to keep this clotted
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: blood out, essentially draining that area's best they could in
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: that boarding house. He survived. He survived remarkably, I think
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: roughly in the neighborhood of about eight hours. They didn't
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: call it until seven thirty am. This had happened, I believe,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: shortly after ten pm that night when he was shot.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: So the fact that they were able to help him
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: survive that long is quite the feat. He couldn't. As
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the night went by, his breathing became progressively more labor
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: There was another moment in time where they were able
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: to remove a clotted area of blood. Again his breathing
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: picked back up. But at that point time you can't
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: get in to this area. They don't have the ability,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: they don't have the technology and the tools to be
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: able to perform surgery on the president. This is in
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: fact a mortal wound.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Backing up for just a second, do they at that
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: time take into account the muzzle velocity and this fact
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: that it is just a ball as to how far
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: it could traverse into his brain, and are they thinking, hey,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: we need to figure out a way to get that
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: out of there.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Probably this is the trouble. This is what the attendings
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: were faced with at this moment tom when they're attempting
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: to do this assessment day, They're sitting there and they're thinking,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: how in the world are we going to retrieve this round?
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: And even if we retrieved around, what does this mean
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: for the president. What does this mean for his ability
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: to survive? What does it mean for if he does survive,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: what his quality of life is going to be like?
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I think that they probably know the further that they
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: try to go down this wound track, there's a higher
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: probability they're going to compromise the brain's function. I think
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: that they know that. So these initial attempts to probe
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I think were hopeful attempts.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Was he ever conscious, he was.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Down, he was out the entirety, He never gain consciousness.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I think that there are a couple of reports that
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: he had begun to snore heavily at one point in time,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: which is something that is associated with a diminishment many
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: times with patients that have sustained these fatal head traumas
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: that are kind of lingering, and all the while you've
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: got this other action that's going on. You know, I
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: talked about the clotting that was taking place, but when
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: they're assessing this wound on the back of his head,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: they noted that there was they referred to as echymosis
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: that was developing around the entry wound. Well, akymosis means
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: that there's swelling. It has the appearance of a bruise,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and they would have been able to appreciate this while
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: trying to assess him through kind of the fog of
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the gunpowder residue, because there's going to be a tremendous
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: amount of deposition just from imagine something that is as
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: black as asphalt. When you're talking about black powder deposition
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: on an area like this, it would have just been
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: surrounding the wound. They can see that there is there
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: is developing hemorrhage back there. They know that, and this
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: is just externally. They know that the capiliar beds have
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: been burst in this area. He's still breathing, he's still
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: his heart still pumping, so he's bleeding out into this area.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Swelling is occurring. Not only do you have swelling occurring
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: externally that they can appreciate vias via the echuamosis, but
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: there's also entracranial pressure is building up because of the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: swelling the trauma that the brain has gone through, and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: the more it it swells, the more it swells, the
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: more diminished the capacity of the brain to function, and
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: more compromised it has become. Interestingly enough, I'd mentioned the
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: wound track. It clipped the top of the left aspect
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: of the cerebellum, and then kind of there's been questions
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: over the years as to the exact track of the
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: of the wound, and we'll get to that in just
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: a second relative to the autopsy, But there is one
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: thought that the that the track of the round went
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: straight ahead toward the back of the left eye, okay,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: and that would have left it in the left hemisphere
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: of the brain. Then there's another school of thought that
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: it traversed from left to right. So if you put
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: your hand back where I told you initially, your finger
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: back there where the entrance wound would have been, you
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: start there and then you go to the right orbit
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of your eye, that the projectile would have lodged immediately
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: behind the right eye and it kind of travers diagonally
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: across the mid line, so you've got it crossing from
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the left hemisphere of the brain into the right hemisphere
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: of the brain. We do know that the brain was
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: greatly damaged in this event, to the point where even
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: at autopsy they were having trouble assessing that the president's
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: body was removed from the boarding house. It was placed
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: into a carriage, the body was given a cavalry escort.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: There's a bit of I hate to use the word
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: irony in this because that can be misunderstood. But it's
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: fascinating to me that John Parker, the security guard, was
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: absent that night, but as soon as the president was
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: shot they talked about the streets were filled filled with
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: mental horseback carrying sabers. You had tremendous security that showed
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: up after the fact. That's quite the tragedy. They actually
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: had to use soldiers to keep people back from the
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: boarding house. And it's easy to Monday morning quarterback, but
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: why not beforehand? A lot of this could have been spared.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: That was just not their way of thinking. And Lincoln
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: was notorious for slipping away. He was not a pretentious person.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: They referred to him as rough hewn, that he grew
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: up in the wilderness, and he truly did you know
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: those areas that he occupied as a small boy, starting
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky, going to Indiana, and then winding up in Illinois.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: That was a frontier man. It was hard living and
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't lace curtains and crystal chandeliers and all that sort
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: of stuff in his world. He didn't like pretense, I
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: don't think, and so he would dismiss security periodically. He
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: would he would not want to be surrend He wanted
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: to be with people. That was his nature. And so
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: that night his body was conveyed back to the White House,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: which is where the autopsy actually took place. And one
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: description they talked about how the room in which his
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: body was examined was sparsely decorated, which is kind of
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: interesting given Mary Todd Lincoln's preoccupation with spending lots of
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: money on redecorating the White House. There was even a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: congressional investigation into her expenditures. But they placed him on
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: a slatted surface, wooden boards covered with sheets and cloths essentially,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and to do the examination there were multiple physicians there and.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: Who would actually do it Joe. Would it be the
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: surgeon that was on duty with him.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: You've got a couple of surgeons that were participating. There
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: was really you had doctors that studied disease, but you
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: didn't actually have what would be called a pathologist, okay,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: like we have nowadays. You had a guy that was
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: a surgeon. For a long time, the term surgeon and
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: physician were kind of interchangeable. You had one surgeon, doctor Curtis,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: that was present for the autopsy and was actually conducting
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: the autopsy. He's the person that removed the President's brain.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: How do you go about opening a head in this
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: environment doing an autopsy, Well, you use it with a
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: hand saw. You did it with a handsaw, and they
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: had a very specific type of saw that they would
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: have used. It had a small wooden handle on it.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: The teeth of the blade were more robust than say,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: for instance, a hacksaw. But it is a saw nonetheless,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: that would have had to have been used to do this.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: I've actually used a handsaw to open a skull at autopsy,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and it is laborious. We usually use a striker saw,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: which is I've talked about before, which is this agitating
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: saw where the blade moves back rapidly back and forth,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and within just a couple of minutes, you'd have what's
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: referred to as the calvarium, which the calviarium is actually created.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: It's created, and some people call it the skull cap.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: You remove it after the incision in the bone is
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: made with the saw, and once it's detached, it's referred
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: to as the calvarium, which is essentially the roof of skull,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: so that you can get access to the brain. That
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: the trick is when you're opening a skull at autopsy,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: you have to make sure that the opening is sufficient
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: to the size of the brain because if you're trying
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: to take it out, the brain can be described when
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: you're touching it as having kind of a gelatinous texture
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: to it. It's very fragile, and most brains are not
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: immediately dissected. Many times when you dissect a brain, what
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: will happen is you will set it aside and place
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: it into a bucket of formuline, which formulane is a
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: type of formal the hide that's used in a medical context.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: The ideal thing is to let a brain set up
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: for about two weeks before you dissect it because you
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: want it to be firm, and it takes that long
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: a time to get it to that consistency. You have
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: to make sure that the incision in the bone is
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: sufficient to the task, so that calvarium when you take
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: it off, is that defect that it's created by its
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: absence is large enough so that you can get your
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: fingers around the base of the brain into the floor
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: of the skull when they finally did get their hands
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: inside of the skull. And these doctors would have been
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: doing this bare handed, by the way, in case, there
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: was no such thing as a rubber glove at this
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: point on. So everything is done since a touch. They're
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: kind of feeling their way around. I would imagine that
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the room they would have been very respectful. I've always
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: wondered what kind of light source did they use. There
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: is no electricity, so are they doing everything with some
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: type of lantern? Perhaps is there another person standing there
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: with a lantern that's illuminating the area. Maybe the lantern
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: has a mirror on it to take advantage of the
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: reflected light, and you're shining it onto this area. But
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff is having to be done by touch.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: We look at it from the standpoint of what we
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: have now and how we work and how we go
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: about things. But for them, President of the United States
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: of America would get the best care and post warning,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: he would get the best of the best at that time.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: So even when we talk about them using their bare hands,
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: these are experienced individuals.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these guys would have seen, Dave, I cannot emphasize
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: to our listeners how much experience these people would have had,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: even if you had not been on the battlefield. There
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: was so much trauma. I don't know if any point
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: in time in our history as a country, the medical
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: sciences have been around this level of trauma that they
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: had witnessed low these four to five years prior to
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: this event, where you had people's lives that just blasted.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Their bodies are just blasted apart, and they're trying to
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: do everything that you can to save them. These guys
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: would have been highly skilled for that day, and highly
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: skilled in the sense that there was a lot of
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: stuff they were having to do blind, and of course
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: it was you know, in our eyes, it was very barbaric.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of amputations back then and this
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: sort of thing, and the person that was using the
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: saw Dave, this would not have been the first time
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: that they had when the saws in their hands. Goes
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: back to the old adage that I think I've stated before.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: See when do one teach one that gaining this experience
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: through all of these cases being thrown at you. But
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: when the attendings and there were two got their hands
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: inside the skull, one thing that they were able to
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: appreciate was the floor of the skull. If you think
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: about the area that's immediately adjacent up and above, behind, up,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: up and above and behind your eyes. When the doctor's
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: got their their hands into you know what, I guess
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: what you refer to. Some people use the term the
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: cranial vault. You still you're probing, trying to remove the
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: brain carefully, because the brain is greatly traumatized. Some people
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: might use a term called macerated. It's really really chewed
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: up at this point as a result of this cavitating
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: injury that's generated by this rather ample projectile. When you're
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: trying to remove the brain, you're being very very delicate,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: and even to this day, we try to be very delicate.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: When we take a brain out of the skull. You're
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: having to trim away all of the connected vessels that
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: are coming up into the base of the brain and
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: also the optic nerves to try to cut them loose.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: But as they're running their hand on the underside of
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Lincoln's brain, they notice something, they feel something, They know
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: that the floor of the skull, which directly above the eyes,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: is uneven. I have actually cut my finger on the
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: floor of a skull before. When I'm running my hand
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: trying to remove the brain. You can clip the latex
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: on glove. The bones very sharp. So if you have
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: these fractured areas, which Lincoln did, those bony prominences in
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: there are very thin, I mean they are eggshell thin,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: and the edges of those bones become very very sharp.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: So as this bullet is traveling through there, you not
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: only have the force of the projectile the mass of
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: that bullet traveling through this very delicate tissue creating this cavity.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: You've also got this kinetic energy that's being pressed through there,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: and it comes out in like a wave and you
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: get these I've turned them as kind of concussive fractures,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: if you will, where this energy is being transferred this
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: huge amount of pressure, because just imagine this, you're creating
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: this hole that if you look at the tip of
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: your little finger right now, just look down the length
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: of it. Think about your little finger that's about at
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: the tip of it. That's going to be about the
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: size of the hole that this thing would have created.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: So you're injecting this energy, this blast, this force through
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: this tiny little hole and an otherwise perfectly sealed environment.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: So where's this energy going to go? Where it's going
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: to go, It's going to seek out the weakest points
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: and it's going to fracture. But this is significant for
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: them because this explained something else that they're seeing manifested
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: on Lincoln's body, which had been manifested before they actually
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: pronounced him dead, and that was his eyes were swelling,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the right eye in particular, and that gave them an
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: indication that that might be where the projectile arrested. The
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: right eyes swelling. The pupil is completely blown. Now, it's
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: dilated all the way out, there's no longer any kind
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: of nervous control over it. It's open. The eye is
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: progressively swelling and swelling, swelling, and this is confirming everything
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: that they're believing, but it's still it's still a confusing
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: mass that they're holding in their hand. They're wanting to
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: get to this projectile. They're wanting to find it. And
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: one of the doctors, when you're reading over the notes
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: of these physicians that are involved in this examination, you
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: can actually sense that they knew what they were doing.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: And when I let me rephrase that, to this extent,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: they knew what they were involved in. They were involved
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: in the post warm examination of a man who had
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: led the country through this horrible time which they had
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: borne witness to. They had borne witness to it in
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: a way that no one else had, not even soldiers.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: They had seen kind of the cost in the field hospitals,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: and the decisions that he had made along the way.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: They knew that the man's brain that they were holding
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: in their hands had been making decisions directing the country
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: over all of these years. And they described kind of
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: the solemnity in that room, the quietness of it. And
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: the only thing that actually shattered those quiet moments was
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: when they finally removed that brain. There's blood and tissue
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: that's fallen away from it. There's a basin down below
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: that's made out of porcelain. You've got this cavernous room.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: It's very quiet. Earlier you heard the sound of that
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: sobbing drug across the surface of the bone, and all
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: of a sudden there was this metal clank sound. It
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: shattered the silence, absolutely shattered the silence. And what was it?
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: It was a mushroomed projectile. They never could pinpoint the
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: exact location of it, but almost like, I don't know,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: some kind of metaphysical event. The bullet presents itself through
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: this announcement that shatters the silence, and you knew. I
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: think that they knew from as scientists that they had
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: found what they were looking for, any kind of gunshot
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: wound that we have nowaday we do X rays prior
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: to doing the examination. First off, the configuration of the
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: bullet has changed, because a bullet was a sphere when
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: it entered or when it exited that round, But when
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: it slammed into the back of the skull and it
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: met that bone, the makeup of that bullet changed at
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: that moment time it reconfigured itself. It's impacting bones, so
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: it's creating these little bits of bony shrapnel that are
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: being driven out into the brain and also little elements
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: of that lead ball are being left behind. And an
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: X ray when we put an X ray up on
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: a board on a lightboard, after we've taken this this
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: X ray of the head, you can actually see a
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: little lead storm and it gives you an idea of
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: the track of the round. So you can actually if
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: you do if you do a lateral X ray, which
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: means on the side X ray the side of the head.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: You know, kind of like when you go to get
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: your X rays done at the doctor and then you
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: take an X ray face on, laying the face up,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: you get an idea of directionality. Does it cross the midline?
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Those sorts of things. We have that advantage nowadays. They didn't.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: So at best, it's a guess at this point in
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: tom as to where it actually wind up.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Did the actual autopsy provide closure relieving the doctors and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: attendant surgeons of any responsibility in saving the president? I mean,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: was there a thought had they done something different, he
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: would not have died, But the autopsy can there was
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: nothing that could have been done.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: It was actually assessed to be a mortal wound. Look,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: anything that's been said about these physicians and how they
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: kind of ran their hands over this wound and they're
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: trying to save his life. It's all people being very
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: speculative about what was done wrong and what was done right.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: You have to measure it by those times how they
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: were limited their ability to make an assessment on a
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: patient back then. But look, I got to tell you something.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: These guys that were doing this assessment on the President,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: I would tell you that. Okay, I'll put it to
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: you this way. Let's take a modern day surgeon, a
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: trauma surgeon, and put them into a field hospital in
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three in Gettysburg and have them do physical
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: assessment on a patient first off, in a less than
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: sterile environment and without the aid of any kind of
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: radiographic assessment. It's tough. It's tough. I think that they
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: did the very best that they possibly could. And even
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: if he had survived, because it would appear that his
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: brain stem was left intact. You know, that's why he
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: lived is for the link that he did. You know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: his chest to still rising and fall in the autonomic
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: nervous system is still intact to a certain degree, breathing,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: heart beating, all those sorts of things. Did he have
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Was he conscious? No? No, would he have remained in
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: a vegetative state. Well, yeah, if they could have released
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: the pressure on the skull, on the brain, because the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: brain is going to continue to swell. Well, they didn't
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: have the tools. They didn't have the medicines that we use,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: those anti inflammatory things that we apply nowadays to try
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: to keep swelling down. That stuff didn't exist back then.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: And so they did the best they could with what
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: they had.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: And when everything was said and done, sixteenth President of
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: the United States of America dead, assassinating and a new
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: president is worn in, President Johnson.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and with him came came the wrath of what
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: was to be known as reconstruction. I think that probably,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: and again I know historian reconstruction, I think took on
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: a different, a different tenor than it would have otherwise.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, you know, was within a month or so
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: after this that John Wilkes Booth is being autopsied. He's
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: been autopsied on the deck of the USS Montac Up
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: in Washington. They had shot him in a barn. The
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: round that he took went between the C four and
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: the C five cervical vertebra, which they retained. They actually
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: kept that they at his autopsy the physicians actually trimmed
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: that out and kept it. You can see it in
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: a museum in DC to this day. He was immobile
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: for about two hours. They say that he lingered for
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: that period of time. Some people have said that he
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: had vocalized things. Other people say that he remained silent
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: through it. One of the famous things was he asked
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: to see his hands right before he died and made
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: some kind of comment like useless or something like that.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: But when he died, they sewed his body up in
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: an army blanket and hauled him down down, put him
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: on a tugboat and took him almost eighty miles away
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: to the USS Montalk. And here's the big question with Booth,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: because he had tried to change his appearance. He was
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: known for this mustache they had. Well, he was absent
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: that mustache. When they got him, they took him onto
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: the deck of that boat, laid him out on a
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: carpenter's table, as they put it, and began to autopsy
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: his body there. If you want to get an idea
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: of the attitude of what happened. The physician that directed
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Lincoln's autopsy was also there for the autopsy of John
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth. He showed up to the Navy yard and
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: he's a military officer, but he's an army officer, and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: when he entered onto the deck of that ship, he
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: didn't make his presence known. And that's what you're supposed
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: to do. You're supposed to salute the flag and all
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: those sort of things that the Navy does. He went immediately,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: I mean immediately to the body and started just kind
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: of he just immediately went in and started doing this
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: autopsy on John Wilkes Booth at this moment time without
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of fanfare. I mean, they're going at it. Man,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: They're going to do the autopsy, and that gives you
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: an idea that you know, they were very angry, and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: that's kind of I think demonstrated to a certain degree
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: in the way they treated Boot's body. And of course
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Boot's body after they had done the autopsy and assessed it,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: he was eventually buried, but his body was moved around
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: and disinturned several times before it finally wound back up
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: with the Booth family. So you've got these two men
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: that literally changed history with Lincoln and Booths both ending
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: ending violently, their lives ending very very violently. Boot's name
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: is still in our lexicon, but maybe it's there for
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: a good reason, to remember the horror that he, through
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: the single action, wrought upon arguably the life of perhaps
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: the best president we've ever known, Abraham Lincoln. I'm Josephcott
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Morgan and this is bodybags.