You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart Radio and Greyman miles from Aaron Minkey. His footsteps echoed as he walked to the White House hallway, as he did, he heard the sound of sobbing from the East Room. Inside, among the lace curtains partially covered by heavy crimson damask, drapery soldiers stood guard. And there, beneath the painted ceilings and massive crystal chandeliers, a crowd of mourners gathered around a body mostly shrouded in cloth. The soldiers had expected, after all, the room had frequently hosted union troops and leaders, Ulysses S.

Grant among them, Grant's reception had been hosted there the year before. No, it was the body he found there that was out of place. The mourners continued to weep and wail. Who died? He asked one of the soldiers. The president, sir? The soldier replied, killed by an assassin. He glanced at the corpse, a man he did not recognize and after determining it was not his own body lying in state. Abraham Lincoln awoke.

It's unclear how much stock Abraham Lincoln took of dreams, he talked about them, sure, but then don't we all his interest seemed more of a curiosity. Well, except when they were dark dreams regarding his family. He had had those dreams before once while traveling, Lincoln wrote a letter to his wife, Mary, asking her to make sure their son, Tagg's Pistole, was safely hidden. It had a terrible dream. He told her one regarding guns, and their son had recalled other dreams to less violent but disturbing in their own way.

On the morning of April 15th of 1865, he told members of his cabinet about a dream from the previous night. It had been a recurring dream, actually. In it, he was crossing a body of water, although he was moving so fast he couldn't tell if it was an ocean or a lake. Abraham Lincoln was an intelligent man, there's no question about that. But there were two things he was unaware of the significance that someone later placed on his dreams and that this new one of a funeral in the White House would be his last.

I'm Lauren Vogelman. Welcome to American Shadows.

It was April 9th and Robert E. Lee had just surrendered, 3000 Washington residents converged on the city in wild celebration parades with bands playing The Star-Spangled Banner marched down the streets. Before long, the party moved to the White House lawn. Soon, they stood beneath one of the balconies and began to chant speech, speech.

Unlike the triumphant crowd outside, Lincoln was Marcellin. War was war. After all, it had taken one to bring about the end of slavery, as well as the increasing tension between the north and south over state's rights and expansion. But all of that had come at a tremendous price. Upon hearing their continued boisterous chants, President Lincoln stepped onto the balcony and addressed the crowd. He had often gone against suggestions before to not make himself so public. It was risky.

His friends and family had warned it was dangerous. Lincoln believed in making himself available, though he'd found value in it during his run for office. When he couldn't stand in front of a crowd, he made sure to sit for photographers so that people could put a face to the man aspiring to become their president during his campaign had even passed out buttons with his picture on them since then had been photographed 130 times. He hoped it might give the public a better look at the presidency and helped put a face to the wartime efforts for those who loved him.

Photos were another form of access, but he also enjoyed the conversation. And so on the night of April 10th, as he looked out into the sea of citizens, he promised them that he would deliver a speech the next evening. We want to hear you now, someone shouted, and Lincoln smiled politely at the request. He wanted to be sure of his words, though, and he told the crowd as much he'd be better prepared. He told them to say all.

He had to say no mistakes. Someone in the crowd called out. You haven't made a mistake yet.

Tomorrow he assured them he'd give them a proper speech.

Then Lincoln remained true to his nickname and true to his word. The next evening, the crowds returned. Despite the misty weather singing and cheering on the White House lawn, he stepped out onto the North Portico second floor balcony to a standing ovation. Though he still felt a bit somber, he began his speech more cheerfully. He promised a day of national Thanksgiving before moving on to the heart of the matter. After a moment of applause, the crowd settled in to listen to what else the Great Emancipator had to say.

The nation had a monumental task before it. He told them the new amendments to the Constitution not only outlawed slavery, but they also granted the right for black and white citizens to access the same public schools and allowed states to enfranchise black men, giving them voting rights. Having heard enough, one man stepped forward, a 26 year old actor named John Wilkes Booth, he might have lived in the north, but his allegiance had always been with the South.

Lincolns talk of granting black men the right to vote had been the final straw. Faced, contorted and fists clenched in fury, he shouted racial slurs, then addressed the crowd.

Now, by God, I'll put him through today. Those words would get you arrested.

And back then, Booth simply stormed off, all the while forming a plan in his head.

He wouldn't take the abolishment of slavery nor black citizenship lying down low. His words of running the president through sounded like a plan unto itself. Booth came up with a different idea, albeit not entirely alone. There were initially six men as part of the plot to friends and fellow sympathizers had been aiding Confederate spies. They knew secret routes in southern Maryland, and one of them figured he was physically strong enough to subdue Lincoln if needed. And the plan, it was admittedly a pretty lofty one.

Abduct the president, take him to Richmond and hold him for ransom. Lincoln was to be exchanged for Confederate soldiers being held in Union prisons. But when his friends backed out, Booth decided on a different approach, the one he infamously carried through with.

On April 14th of 1865, we're all familiar with what happened that night at the Lincoln Center, the Ford Theater Playhouse, and made their way to the presidential box, along with two guests for the evening, with the Lincoln seated in their walnut rocking chairs and with the audience engaged in the performance of our American cousin, Buth snuck in and shot the president in the back of the head while his wife Mary and guests Henry Reed, Rathbone and Clara Harris looked on.

Rathbone attempted to tackle the president's assailant, Booth, who was carrying a knife as well as the pistol cut Rathbone from elbow to shoulder. Mary looked down at her dress. Now covered in her husband's blood, she and Clara screamed, making a bold escape. Booth leapt to the stage below. Shouts went out to stop him. But Booth fled into the night. As a manhunt emerged, an army doctor and other physicians converged on the presidential box. Lincoln was bleeding alive, barely suspecting the wound would be fatal.

The decision was made to move Lincoln to a more comfortable spot. A man with a room for rent across the street from the theater offered it to them, and six men carried Lincoln to the house and laid him onto a bed. Abraham Lincoln died the following morning. Church bells toll and people began to mourn further north. The fireworks in celebration had barely ceased when word of the assassination reached them. While Lincoln's body lay in state, a photographer's flash went off once more.

Afterward, doctors cut away part of his skull and removed his brain. As they held it, the bullet fell out. Undertakers worked skillfully doing what they could to preserve the president's appearance, despite the man's devastating head wound and arranged his features to resemble a man at peace. Then they dressed him in the Brooks Brothers suit, had worn on his second inauguration, along with a pair of white dress gloves. The North thought his death might bring the nation closer, but sadly, it did not.

Some in the South believed his death might reverse their loss and restore life as it had once been. Thankfully, they were just as disappointed, although that didn't stop many Southerners from expressing their sentiment that Lincoln had got what he deserved. Back in Washington, Scavenger's took whatever they could find after Lincoln's body had been moved to a pine casket, scraps of his blood soaked shirt, a lock of hair. Doctors who'd removed his brain had taken their own morbid souvenirs as well.

Around noon on April 19th, four days after his death, over 600 distinguished guests from generals to politicians crammed into the East Room of the White House, where Lincoln's casket sat, soldiers stood guard as mourners paid their respects. It was exactly as Lincoln himself had dreamed not too long before Mary Lincoln and 12 year old had stayed upstairs throughout the four days of mourning. With so many people coming and going and considering how her husband had died, Mary took the safer path of grieving in private.

Finally, a smaller group consisting of Lincoln's cabinet, the Supreme Court and Lincoln's 21 year old son, Robert, paid their last respects. But while we've all heard the story of Lincoln's assassination, what happened next is much less well known. Our story begins 10 days after his murder, when Abraham Lincoln's casket was loaded onto a funeral train headed for its final resting place back in his hometown of Springfield, Illinois, far from a stranger to the public eye.

Lincoln would be in front of them once more. Back in Springfield, President Lincoln's former political friends at the state capitol prepared for his internment, they'd purchased a site close to the train depot downtown where they planned to build him a tomb. There only one problem, they hadn't discussed their plans with Mary Lincoln. Her husband and children had been the center of her life, obviously watching her husband die was devastating, but it hadn't broken her. She argued with Illinois politicians that her husband's last wishes were to be buried in the rural Oak Ridge Cemetery just outside Springfield.

And she intended to make sure that happened. Though they disagreed, they had little choice but to oblige. She was, after all, the legal custodian of her husband's body.

So on April 21st of 1865, Lincoln's funeral train, dubbed the Lincoln special, departed Washington. A large photograph of the president had been secured to the front of the engine just above the cattle guard, but before reaching its final destination in Illinois, the train was scheduled to make a number of stops in major cities so that mourners could pay their respects. Nearly 300 people rode the nine car train on any given segment from national and state officials to military and service personnel, as well as the president's oldest son, Robert.

The ninth car was reserved for two coffins, actually, one for Abraham Lincoln and one for William Wallace. Lincoln, Abraham and Mary's third son, Willie, as had been called, had tragically died just before Christmas in 1862 at the age of 11, the victim of typhoid fever. Abraham had taken his son's death particularly hard, so Mary thought it was best to have Willie reinterred next to his father. Aside from cities slated for public services, the train had to make other scheduled stops as well.

Oil lanterns provided light at night and woodstoves kept the guests cars comfortable. The train needed to make stops for additional oil and wood, as well as water for the trains, boilers and meals for passengers, making the journey even more cumbersome. Over 80 different passenger cars were used to make the 700 mile journey. Back then, train tracks often had different gauges or wits that required passenger cars to be switched out at various stations. Planners coordinated with newspapers notifying them when the train would pull into their town.

Not an easy task as time zones weren't standardized. Back then, major locations where the train was scheduled to stop planned ahead in cities constructed decorative arches over the tracks and adorned them with flowers and flags. Bells tolled, cannons were fired and guns salute it all to mark the train's arrival.

People who lived in those less publicized locations simply gathered along the tracks. They came from everywhere, traveling by foot, horseback, buggy and sometimes even other trains, all for the chance to watch the president's train pass through. Other times, people waited in the dark, holding torches or sitting by bonfires, hoping to be at the right place at the right time. Some drop to their knees in prayer. Others wept. Parents held children high, hoping that catch a glimpse of a historic site that they'd remember for the rest of their lives.

And at each stop, armed guards watched over the bodies. Some stayed on the train to guard Willie's coffin while the president's was loaded on to an extravagant, horse drawn hearse. Long processions followed the hearse from the train station to state capitals for services in Philadelphia. His body lay in state inside Independence Hall's East Wing, where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. Newspapers reported that people waited upwards of five hours just for the chance to quickly walk past his open coffin.

Many of those who got the chance to pay their respects walked away, shocked the corpse before them, bore little resemblance to the pictures of the man they'd seen the thinning chin, the sunken face, the dark pallor that had settled on his skin. That mortician's could no longer disguise the dead president didn't look how they'd expect it. To some, he did not resemble what they'd call a great man. The problem, of course, was Dekay in bombing back then wasn't what it is today, and by the time the train pulled into Springfield on a particularly hot May 4th, he'd been dead and on the move for 19 days, all without refrigeration.

The mortician on board did his best, but no amount of powder could hide the blotches on the president's face. Those public services had been intended as a way to honor him. But now those involved began to see it differently. Where they respecting the president or had they disgraced him by parading his corpse across the coast? It's no wonder that Mary Lincoln stayed behind in Washington, just because we can do something doesn't mean we always should.

The two coffins were removed from the train for the last time that Thursday afternoon. An Illinois regiment made their way along the procession route with gunfire salutes behind them, drummers marched in a choir, sang six horses, drew the hearse, followed by Robert Lincoln and a group of black Americans. The procession marched past Lincoln's home at the corner of 8th and Jackson and then finally toward the Oak Ridge Cemetery there, Abraham Lincoln and his son would be laid to rest next to one another alongside a clear running stream.

The afternoon sun shone down bright and hot, Robert and no less than a thousand mourners solemnly stood by as the two coffins were carried from the hearse to a 15 by 15 foot public vault. Inside, the walls were draped in black velvet and embellished with evergreen branches. After everything had been through his assassination, the embalming, countless days of travel and public viewings, Lincoln's body would finally rest in peace. Souvenir hunters, though, had a different plan within days, an entire company of soldiers had to be stationed at the vault.

The hunters took everything near the tomb that they could carry away. Some weren't satisfied with trifles and mementos, though, no, they wanted something bigger, something more personal. But the thing they wanted was beyond priceless. Some might even call it a sacred national treasure. They wanted the body of Abraham Lincoln. Jim Kennerley had a problem, Big Jim, as he was known to his friends, had been running a profitable counterfeit business until a recent setback shut him down.

His best engraver, a man named Boyd, had been thrown into a prison cell. And to spring him, Kennerley needed some serious leverage. In the spring of 1876, Conley went to the town of Lincoln, which is about 30 miles north of Springfield in Logan County, and yes, the town was named after the 16th president. But before he became president, 12 of Kenley's men called the town their home, including gang leader Thomas Sharp. Other members included Robert Splain, James Fox, James Fox Jr.

, Benjamin Sheridan and Vyn Williams, collectively, they were known as the Logan County gang and were notorious for using counterfeit money. Now, the gang all wanted their engraver, Boyd, out of prison, and Kenly had a plan to make it happen. They were going to steal President Lincoln's body and then hold it for ransom in exchange for Boyd's release. But while that idea probably sounded ridiculous on paper, recent events had suddenly turned it into a very attainable goal.

Oak Ridge Cemetery, where Lincoln's body had been taken at the end of his funeral train journey, dates back to 1860, five years before the president's death. The site had been chosen for the beautiful topography and a large number of oak trees. Not much had been done in the way of care and landscaping after its creation, though, nor had the planned stone entry or iron gates yet been added. The burial of President Lincoln and his son had changed all that.

Three years after their caskets arrived in 1865, construction of the Lincoln Monument began. Then, six years later, on September 19th of 1871, Lincoln and his son were moved from their hillside crypts to a more secure location in the cemetery's catacombs. Three years after that, and with lingering concern about the safety of their remains, the bodies of Lincoln and his son were moved yet again, this time to a marble sarcophagus inside the newly completed monument. It was a historic occasion, and President Ulysses S.

Grant attended the dedication ceremony. At last, Lincoln's remains were safe. And now that the president's body had been moved from its secret, inaccessible hiding place, the gang's outlandish plot was possible. But Kennerley had already made some changes to the plan. Not only would they ask for Boyd's release, that also demand that the governor pardon him of all charges and fork over a hefty sum of cash to sweeten the deal. Little by little, each of the men took a guided tour of the cemetery from tomb custodian John Carroll.

Power and Power liked his job and was happy to answer the guests questions. The men couldn't believe their luck. Not only was Lincoln's coffin inside an above ground sarcophagus, but a single padlocked door between the tomb and the burial chamber was all that stood in their way. No digging required even better. They learned that no one guarded the tomb at night that June, they finalized the plan. On July 3rd. They would break into the tomb, then move the coffin to a bridge about two miles north.

There, they planned to rebury the president until Boyd walked free and they had their cash in hand. The gang leader, Sharp, was the most excited about the plan and decided to treat himself to a pre victory celebration at a local brothel. He drank heavily and spent time with Bell Bruce, who knew many of the other gang members as well. And during their time together, Sharpe couldn't help but share the news with Bell. Soon, he bragged he and the gang would be rich.

Maybe afterward, he said, Bell and the girls would help them celebrate in style. Bell held down a profession viewed increasingly as immoral by much of society, but grave robbery, stealing the president's body. She told another friend of hers, Abner Wilkinson, who just happened to be Springfield's chief of police and wouldn't you know it, Chief Wilkinson met Toome Custodian Power the very next day and informed him of the plot. Of course, Sharpe awoke from his drunken stupor and realized the mistake he'd made.

With their chances diminished and cover blown, he and his gang loaded everything up and skipped town, leaving all their debts unpaid. Keneally was annoyed, but he still believed there was a way to get the job done. So he headed to Chicago for more professional accomplice's, which he found at a shady saloon and pool hall called The Hub.

Before long, Kenly had recruited a man named Jack Hughes, who had a long rap sheet for counterfeiting, as well as Jack's friends Terrence Mullen and Herbert Nelson. This time, Kenley's plan involved stealing Lincoln's coffin and loading it onto a freight wagon headed to the Indiana shores of Lake Michigan. There they would be buried in the sand for safekeeping. Boyd would then contact the governor and make the deal his release plus 20 thousand dollars in exchange for the safe return of Lincoln's body.

Kenly believed the plan was solid, except that the shores of Lake Michigan were 220 miles from the cemetery and the trip would take roughly 10 days. Kenly left the men to sort out those details on their own, but as soon as I had left the saloon, things went downhill and what might be best described as a bumbling comedy of errors. One of them, Herbert Nelson, had second thoughts about stealing the president's body and left the group. Mullen and Hughes knew they needed another hand, so they brought in a wisecracking horse thief named Louis Steggles, who was also a regular of the hub.

Little did the two know that Steggles had been moonlighting as a government informant to the tune of five bucks a day. The entire idea stunned Svigals, but he convinced them he was indeed their man and told the men he'd worked as a body snatcher before the gang decided that November seven election night was perfect, people would be in town and busy with more important matters. All they needed to do was slip into the cemetery and break the padlock. But like Bell, Steggles wasted no time telling the authorities, whom in turn informed custodian power, local law enforcement and even Robert Lincoln.

And with that, the trap was set. On the night of the heist, the hacksaw Mullen and Hughes brought with them snapped while cutting the padlock, so they spent the next 30 minutes using a file. Once the lock was freed, they stepped inside the tomb. After breaking the seal on the sarcophagus, they set to work removing the marble. They ran into another snag when they discovered that the lead coffin inside was too heavy to carry, so Steggles was sent to retrieve their lookout, a man named William Neily, to provide some extra muscle.

Nearly, though, had been recruited by Svigals himself and was also an informant. So when Spigel stepped outside the tomb, he gave the signal. As the officers rushed over, one man's gun misfired, warning the gang inside by the time officers entered the tomb, Mullen and Hughes were gone. But the fiasco didn't stop there. Police ended up in a shootout with one of their own detectives, giving the Would-Be thieves ample time to flee. Each of them, though, were later arrested in Chicago, Mullan Hughes and Kennerley were all eventually charged with various crimes and the gang was broken up for good, then come within a few heartbeats of making their own misguided mark on the pages of history.

But thanks to their own incompetence and a good helping of covert intelligence, Abraham Lincoln was allowed to rest in peace.

And after all, had been through, that's the least he deserved. Fearing future heists, Lincoln's body was moved several times more over the years before coming to its final resting place in 1991, 17 times, to be exact. The first move took place just days after the failed attempt by Kennerley and his gang. No one notified the higher authorities, though. And that new location, a moldy basement right beneath the tomb. From there, it was moved to a shallow, unmarked grave in a different basement where he remained for another decade when Mary Lincoln passed away in 1882.

She was also buried in the basement for a good long while.

Tourists never knew that the sarcophagus they paid tribute to was empty and very few people knew the real location. In 1887, the coffins were hauled from the dingy basement and reburied yet again in a different belowground site within the memorial, Lincoln's three sons would also died, removed there, too, and buried alongside their parents. In 1991, the bodies were moved yet again when the memorial had to be reconstructed. Then, on September 26th of 1941, before interning Lincoln and his wife for the final time, the president's coffin was opened to ensure that the remains inside were indeed his.

It was something that had happened four other times to ensure Lincoln was present and accounted for on December 21st of 1865, September 19th of 1871, October 9th of 1874 and April 24th of 1887. But despite this, theories have evolved over the years that suggest the president's body doesn't lie in the tomb at all with such a weird and twisted journey to the grave. It's easy to see why some people would have their doubts. Some suspected that Robert Lincoln's visit in 1871 was part of an elaborate ruse to throw off further attempts at stealing the president's body.

The rumors state he had made arrangements with the guard of honor to have his father's body hidden elsewhere. Yet by all accounts, 23 people were present when the tomb was last opened in 1981. Witnesses stated that even after 30 years, President Abraham Lincoln was instantly recognizable. His hair and beard had been perfectly preserved. And it's no wonder when you think about it, to keep him presentable. During all those stops on the funeral train, he had been embalmed enough times that he'd become mummified the fabric of his suit and the gloves on his hands and molded and across his chest.

There were still fragments of the American flag that had been buried with him.

When all the moving and rebuttals were done, Lincoln's body was safe beneath 10 feet of concrete. That didn't stop souvenir hunters, though. When the tomb needed reconstruction in nineteen thirty one, they chipped away pieces of the original marble sarcophagus while it sat outside the tomb. They say you are in debt as you are in life. Abraham Lincoln had made himself widely available to the public during his presidency and in odd ways he probably never dreamed of. It seems he continued to do so even in death.

There's more to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. Abraham and Mary Lincoln had four sons together, Robert Edward Willey and that the Lincolns were very fond of children and it was said they weren't overly strict with their sons. Sadly, Robert was the only one to survive into adulthood, his younger brother, Eddie, died of tuberculosis.

Willie died of typhoid.

And although he had survived his father, he passed away when he was just 18.

Reports vary on the cause of his death, tuberculosis, pneumonia, even heart disease. Robert resigned his post in the U.S. Army a month after his father's funeral and moved to Chicago to care for his distraught mother. Eventually, Robert married and had children of his own, following in his father's footsteps, he practiced law and even started his own successful firm. She remained active in politics, too, although he never ran for office, he did take the post of Secretary of War President James Garfield in 1881.

Despite the family's tragedies, it all sounds as though the rest of Robert Lincoln's life was charmed. Robert, however, believed something different to him. It was curse. You see, in July of 1881, Robert was traveling with President Garfield, who'd barely been in office for two months. As they waited at the Washington train station, a lone gunman shot the president, Garfield never fully recovered and died a couple of months later. Then in 1981, Robert Lincoln accepted President William McKinley's invitation to join him in Buffalo, New York, for the Pan American Exposition.

While they were there, a gunman shot McKinley in the abdomen and chest, killing him in front of a group of well-wishers. Many years later, Robert said that there was a certain fatality about the presidential function whenever he was present. Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction, and sometimes it gets even stranger. One day in late 1864, Robert Lincoln stood on a train platform in New Jersey with a crowd of other travelers making their own connections. He'd been away on a trip to New York and he was ready to head back home to Washington, standing at the edge of the busy platform.

He leaned his back against a train car to let other passengers squeeze by. And that's when the train lurched forward, unable to regain his balance, he pitched backward at the last moment, another passenger reached out and grabbed Lincoln's collar, pulling him to safety. The stranger didn't recognize the president's son, but Robert Lincoln recognized him even if he couldn't put a name to the face. The older man had been a devoted union supporter during the war and was a staunch admirer of Robert's father.

Lincoln thanked the man for saving his life and then the two went on their way. It was only later that Robert Lincoln's savior was identified thanks to a mutual friend who worked for the union army. The stranger had been an actor who came from a whole family of famous stage performers, including his brother, John Wilkes. His name was Edwin Edwin Booth. American Chateaux is hosted by Lauren Vogel Bomb. This episode was written by Michelle Muto with researcher Robin Miniter and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young with executive producers Aaron Minkey, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick.

To learn more about the show, visit Greyman, Millicom for more podcast from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.