The Plot to Steal Lincoln's Body | The Counterfeiters | 1

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1870s, a gang from Chicago hatched one of the most audacious criminal plots in American history. They planned to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from his tomb in Springfield, Illinois, then hold the president’s corpse for ransom.

The brazen plot began in an unlikely place – the murky world of fake money. In the mid-1800s, counterfeiting was so rampant in the United States that it threatened the financial stability of the entire nation. One especially notorious counterfeiting gang was run by Big Jim Kennally – and when Big Jim’s most talented engraver was arrested, it drove his gang to take the leap from counterfeiting to grave-robbing.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:18.0	Imagine it's June 1876 at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.
0:24.0	You're part of a tour group visiting Abraham Lincoln's tomb.
0:28.0	The guide is a man with a salt and pepper beard, who stands lecturing in front of some glass cases.
0:33.0	You're not really interested in the contents of the cases, except for a blood-stained bandage from the night Lincoln was shot.
0:40.0	But even that's not what you're here to see.
0:42.0	You finally interrupt the droning guide.
0:45.0	Excuse me, I don't see a tomb. Where's the body?
0:48.0	Everyone turns and looks at you. The guide eyes you a bit wearily before he answers.
0:53.0	Well, I was just about to get to that. Come this way, everyone.
0:58.0	He leads your tour group out of the little museum and around to the other side of the building.
1:03.0	You count your steps as you follow him. It's about 50 paces.
1:07.0	This is the mausoleum, where the great emancipator lies and rests.
1:11.0	You push your way through the crowd to look.
1:14.0	The entrance to the tomb is guarded by a padlocked metal gate, and a flimsy wooden door with a glass window.
1:20.0	You peer through the window into the mausoleum itself.
1:23.0	Inside, you see a huge marble sarcophagus surrounded by a few crypts containing Lincoln's dead children.
1:30.0	You're surprised at how shotty it all looks.
1:32.0	The masonry near the ceiling is crumbling, and there's a puddle of rainwater on the floor.
1:38.0	You push your way back and find the guide.
1:40.0	And that's really his body in there.
	...

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