The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On 4 March 1865, at the United States Capitol, a crowd of 50,000 listened as President Abraham Lincoln delivered his classic second inaugural address, urging charity and forgiveness to a nation in the final throes of war. Less than two months later, the war was over and a far larger crowd gathered to bid an emotional farewell to the late president, martyred by an assassin's bullet. This documentary tells the story of those two tumultuous months, including Lincoln's murder and the subsequent manhunt for his killer, John Wilkes Booth. It concludes with the funeral train that carried Lincoln's body past a tearful nation to rest in Illinois.