Episode 7: To Live and Die in Dixie
By April 25, 1865, John Wilkes Booth should have been long gone—on a train, over the border, maybe even in Mexico. Instead, he lingered at the Garrett farm, unaware that the Union cavalry was closing in. In this episode, the net tightens. A chance conversation on a Virginia porch puts Booth’s pursuers just hours behind him. Inside the Garrett’s tobacco barn, a tense standoff plays out in the dark—demands, refusals, and one final, theatrical challenge from America’s most wanted man.
When the smoke clears, Booth’s life ends much as he lived it: in a burst of drama, self-mythology, and ultimately, futility. We follow the last hours of the assassin’s flight, the men who brought him down, and the legacy that would forever brand him not as a hero of the South, but as America’s Brutus.
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