About this episode:
Eight decades ago, popular historian Bruce Catton, and journalist/author Jim Bishop wrote works that profoundly affected my life and future profession: teaching. Catton's This Hallowed Ground and Bishop's The Day Lincoln Was Shot were both written in such dramatic prose that the events, people - indeed, the very era itself - came alive for me. Even today, both authors and their works reinforce my passionate belief that history is alive, relevant, and should be conveyed as a story. For this episode, it is with great reverence and pleasure that I take my lead from Bishop's book, which was published in 1955, sold over 3 million copies, and was translated into 16 languages. He began his research for the day Lincoln was shot in 1930. Then, after two decades had passed, in 1953, in an effort to expand his research, Bishop began reading seven million words of government documents. The result: an absolutely riveting hour-by-hour account of Abraham Lincoln's last 24 hours. In respectful tribute to the two authors that most influenced my professional coming-of-age, and stoked my drive to recount history as a story, I dedicate this effort. With Bishop's work as my central point of reference, here: hour-by-hour, from seven in the morning of April the 14th to 7:22 and 10 seconds the next morning, is the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
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Some Characters Mentioned In This Episode:
John Wilkes Booth
William H. Seward
George Atzerodt
David Herold
Lewis Paine/Payne
Mary Surratt
Get The Guide:
Want to learn more about the Civil War? A great place to start is Fred's guide, The Civil War: A History of the War between the States from Workman Publishing. The guide is in its 9th printing.
Producer: Dan Irving
054 - ”The River of Death”: The Battle Of Chickamauga
053 - The Hero And The Humorist: The Friendship of U.S. Grant and Mark Twain
052 - ”Let Us Have Peace”: The Post-War Life Of U.S. Grant
051 - ”Beat To Quarters!”: The C.S.S Alabama
050 - Lee’s Finest Hour: Chancellorsville
049 - Concealed Stories: Sex in the American Civil War
048 - The Trent Affair
047 - ”Into the Belly of the Beast” - Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign
046 - Reaping the Whirlwind: Sherman’s March to the Sea - Part 2
045 - Reaping the Whirlwind: Sherman‘s March to the Sea - Part 1
044 - Five Fateful Hours: The Battle of Franklin
043 - The ”Rock”, The ”Sledge”: George Henry Thomas
042 - The Southern Home Front
041 - The Northern Home Front
040 - July 3, 1863 - Climax - The Third Day at Gettysburg
039 - July 2, 1863 - A Rolling Thunder - The Second Day at Gettysburg
038 - July 1, 1863: A Meeting Engagement - The First Day at Gettysburg
037 - The Confederacy's "Greatest" Surrender - The Bennett Place
036 - Avenging Angel - John Brown
035 - Nathan Bedford Forrest - Part 2
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