On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln inside the Presidential Box at Ford’s Theatre, then leapt to the stage and fled through Baptist Alley, triggering a 12-day manhunt that gripped the nation. This two-hour guided walk retraces that night step by step, led by an expert local guide who brings the conspiracy, the chaos, and the cover-up to life.
We begin near the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, steps from where the story starts to unfold. We pass 604 H Street NW – today a Chinese restaurant and karaoke bar, but once Mary Surratt’s boarding house, where Booth plotted with his co-conspirators. We walk through Baptist Alley, where Booth’s horse waited as he made his escape.
Inside Ford’s Theatre, you’ll see the stage, the Presidential Box, and the museum below – home to the actual pistol used in the shooting, Booth’s diary, and Lincoln’s bloodstained coat. Across the street at the Petersen House, we stand in the room where Lincoln died the next morning. We close at the Aftermath Exhibits, tracing the manhunt, the trial, and Lincoln’s legacy.
Woven throughout are details from James Swanson’s bestseller Manhunt and its Apple TV+ adaptation. This is the big picture and the small details – DC seen through Lincoln’s own eyes, on the night everything changed.
