EP8 This Dust Was Once the Man

The Ides of April – Episode 8: This Dust Was Once the Man

In the final episode of The Ides of April, the story closes with the aftermath of John Wilkes Booth’s death and the turbulent legal and political fallout that followed Lincoln’s assassination. Booth’s body, secretly buried to avoid turning it into a shrine, became the centerpiece of a deceptive operation involving a staged burial at sea. Meanwhile, the reward money for capturing the conspirators sparked fierce infighting, with payouts ranging from $15,000 for Everton Conger to just over $1,600 for each soldier of the Sixteenth New York.

The trial of Booth’s co-conspirators was held before a military tribunal—controversial for trying civilians under military law. Of the nine accused, four were sentenced to death: Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Mary Surratt—the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government. Others, including Dr. Samuel Mudd, received life sentences. The Supreme Court’s later ex parte Milligan decision would prohibit such trials for civilians where civil courts remained open, sparing John Surratt when he finally faced justice.

The episode then reflects on the political aftermath: President Andrew Johnson’s contentious presidency, Edwin Stanton’s death just days after being nominated to the Supreme Court, and the long-term constitutional changes of Reconstruction—the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. It also honors the legacies of William Seward, whose foreign policy and Alaska purchase reshaped America’s future, and, of course, Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln’s enduring influence is framed through history, poetry, and perspective—culminating in Walt Whitman’s simple but powerful elegy:

This dust was once the man, gentle, plain, just and resolute… was saved the Union of these States.

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