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A new series transforms the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln into a true crime thriller that delves deeper into the story than most textbooks.
Most who studied Lincoln in school learn that he was assassinated by a man named John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln was watching a play with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, at Ford’s Theater when Booth came from behind and shot him.
What is not as widely remembered is that Booth killed the president just five days after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee it actually ended The civil War. It was a coordinated and pre-planned attack on the president, Vice President Andrew Johnson and the Secretary of State. Only Booth was successful.
A Confederate sympathizer, Booth relied on a network of followers to help him hide. Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, led the army’s search to locate Lincoln’s assassin. They found him 12 days later hiding in a barn where they shot him to death.
“ Hunt” debuting Friday on Apple TV+, dramatizes the search for Booth and the trial that followed. It is based on the book “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer” by James L. Swanson. Stanton is played by Tobias Menzies, who also helped convict Booth’s conspirators.
“Most people don’t know the details of this story unless they’ve done a PhD or it’s a special interest of theirs,” creator and showrunner Monica Beletsky said in a recent interview.
Bringing Stanton to life is exciting, Menzies said, because he had a close and respected relationship with Lincoln.
“Much of Stanton’s journey is both a political loss and also a personal loss. He loses a friend. … I studied very little American history and I certainly didn’t do this period of history,” Menzies said. “As an actor, I’ve done a lot of period stuff and I find it fun to have the opportunity to learn a new part of these stories and this is a very good example of that.
“Truth is stranger than fiction.”
Anthony Boyle plays Booth and his acquaintance with the man began with an episode of “The Simpsons” where Bart played him in a school play. He knew his research needed to delve deeper to understand Booth’s psyche and read the letters he had written between the age of 15 and his death at 26. Boyle describes them as a “descent into madness.”
Beletsky hopes “Manhunt” will underscore how Lincoln’s assassination was especially shocking at the time.
“That kind of murder was very rare,” he said. “Lincoln left the door to the White House open during the Civil War, despite receiving scores of death threats. He didn’t even imagine that type of crime could occur in our culture. “My costume designer told me that Booth, dressed all in black that night, is the origin of the all-black villains in our narrative.”
There was audacity and vanity in the way Booth decided to kill Lincoln so publicly in front of an audience that suited his desire for attention.
“The theater was absolutely packed,” said Menzies, a British actor who starred in “The crown” and “Stranger.” “And then running out and disappearing into the night and then taking 12 days to find this guy, you couldn’t make that up.”
Booth was an actor in a family of actors, but lived in the shadow of his older brother Edwin, who was highly respected for his talent. “I’m going to be the most famous man in the world,” Booth says in the show, before the murder. While on the run, he reads newspaper articles about himself and loves attention.
“It was like Leonardo DiCaprio’s brother killed the president,” said Hamish Linklater, who plays Lincoln. “I mean, (Edwin) was the biggest celebrity of his time,” he said.
“This was before the Internet and before television, it was word of mouth,” Boyle added. “People found out (asked)” Did John Wilkes Booth, the actor, kill the president? Was this some kind of farce?
In addition to telling Stanton’s story, Beletsky introduces viewers to Mary Simms, a slave belonging to a doctor named Dr. Samuel Mudd (played by Matt Walsh), who treated Booth while he was on the run. She was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. The series shows Simms, played by Lovie Simone, interacting with Booth when he shows up at Mudd’s house to hide, but in reality, she never met him.
Simms testified at the trial of Booth’s conspirators, including Mudd, and confirmed their loyalty to the Confederacy. Because there is not much information available about Simms, she was written as a combination of several people who helped convict Booth’s co-conspirators.
“It was a real opportunity to shine a light on some of these heroes, like Stanton and Simms, and also to set the record straight in some ways about what happened in our past and how that still continues to affect us,” Beletsky said. .
“It seems like a good time to tell this story. Know, there’s a big election in november. “Our story is partly a story about the fragility of democracy to some extent,” Menzies said. “I think that’s as true now as it was then. It has a relevance and a resonance that is enriching to tell now.”
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This story has been updated to correct the book’s title “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer.”