Content Warning: This section mentions suicide.

Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer begins with a description of the Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865. President Abraham Lincoln gives a speech that references the coming end of the Civil War. Even though it is a gloomy day, while he speaks, the sun comes out from behind the clouds and shines on him. A month later, on April 3, 1865, the Union Army captures the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. A few days after, the actor John Wilkes Booth tells a friend he regrets not killing President Lincoln on Inauguration Day, because he was standing nearby. On April 9, the Confederate General Lee’s army surrenders to Union General Grant at Appomattox. Booth is devastated about the loss.

On April 11, a crowd marches to the Executive Mansion to Washington, DC, to hear Lincoln give a speech about the retreating Confederacy. In the speech, he says he will give the right to vote to Black Americans. Booth tells a friend, Lewis Powell, “That is the last speech he will ever give” (6).

On April 13, Washington, DC, is lit up to celebrate the fall of the Confederacy.