This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is our American stories, and we've told the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. We're now going to look at the

aftermath of Lincoln's assassination. Our storyteller is James Swanson, the author of Manhunt,

The Twelve Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. Swanson begins by showing with us how he came to write his New York Times bestseller.

I really came to this story by chance. I was born in Chicago on Lincoln's birthday, February

12th. And when I was a small boy, my parents began giving me Lincoln comic books, those old

classics illustrated and crayon books about Lincoln and the Civil War,

and trinkets from the Lincoln sites, and when I got a little older books that I could actually read,

my real interest, and I guess I'd say my obsession with this story, began when I was 10 years old.

And that's when my grandmother, Elizabeth, who was a veteran of the old Chicago tabloid newspaper

scene, sadly now long, long gone, gave me a framed engraving, which you might think is an unusual gift for a child.

It was an engraving of John Wilkes Booth Derringer Pistol, the one he had used to kill Abraham Lincoln.

And framed with that engraving was part of a clipping from the Chicago Tribune from the morning of April 15, 1865, the morning that Lincoln died.

He was shot Good Friday the night before and lingered on until the morning. And I remember reading that vividly.

And in those days the headlines were not the broad, horizontal headline across the page,

but rather the left column was devoted to headlines.

And then there was a series of descending headlines in that left column.

So it would begin with the breaking news.

The President shot. And as each edition came out later in the day, more headlines would be added.

The President shot is dying, not expected to live.

Secretary of Seward stabbed to death in his bed. Of course, that was wrong.

It was an early false report that Seward had died, that his sons had been murdered along with him.

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