Plot Synopsis

Based on the book by Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard. This docudrama, narrated by Tom Hanks, chronicles the final days of President Lincoln and the treasonous plot by John Wilkes Booth to kill him. With the North all but assured of victory after four years of war, Southern stalwart John Wilkes Booth is plotting vengeance. He views President Lincoln as a tyrant eager to eradicate not just slavery, but the Southern way of life. He launches a clandestine plot to kidnap the president and spirit him away to the South -- an under-the-cover-of-darkness mission that ultimately fails. But out of that failure comes a dastardly new plan: to kill President Lincoln. The assassination time is set for 10:15 p.m. on April 15, 1865. Booth's co-conspirators have their plan: Lewis Powell is to kill Secretary of State Seward in his home on Lafayette Square; David Herold will then guide Powell out of the city via the Navy Yard Bridge; George Atzerodt is to kill Vice President Johnson at the Kirkwood House Hotel; and Booth will kill Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. Booth's ultimate success in murder would shock a nation and spark the largest manhunt in the country's young history.