Hosted and narrated by Richard Basehart, this dramatization of the events leading up to and following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, takes the form of a documentary as it might have looked and sounded in 1865, had motion pictures existed back then. Utilizing simulated footage and, in some cases, genuine historical photographs, this TV special speculates that assassin John Wilkes Booth was part of a broad conspiracy against the president, and that if such a conspiracy did exist, that Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton may have been involved somehow. Includes recreated excerpts of “Our American Cousin,” the play Lincoln was watching at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., the night that history was forever and irrevocably altered.

Starring:

Richard Basehart, Richard Bauer, Mark D'Angelo

Genre:

Drama, History