A Second Manhunt Trailer

Today, February 12, 2024, is Abraham Lincoln’s 215th birthday. Likely in celebration of this day, the folks over at AppleTV+ have released a second trailer for their upcoming miniseries Manhunt, based on the book by James L. Swanson. Unlike the trailer released last week, this one is in the form of a featurette and contains clips of the actors and producer of the series discussing their work. It’s still on the sort side of around two minutes in length, but this new trailer does show us a bit more of what the show will have to offer. Give the new trailer a watch:

Here are some of my thoughts after watching this new trailer:

• The trailer opens with President Lincoln and United States Colored Troop soldiers walking through a severely damaged city. My guess is that this is referencing the visit Lincoln made to the fallen Confederate capital of Richmond not long before the assassination. However, the special effects of the scene could also lead one to believe this may be a dream-like sequence for the president. We’ll just have to wait and see.
• We get our first glimpses of Lewis Powell’s attack on Secretary Seward and his household here. The clip quickly shows Powell’s entry at the Seward home, his bludgeoning of Frederick Seward with his gun, and his grappling with someone in the Seward house (enough to break a window). This trailer also clears up the question as to where Stanton went first. We see Stanton witnessing the bloodshed at Seward before asking if the President was still at the theater. This is in line with what actually occurred. Stanton had been informed by a messenger that Lincoln and Seward had been attacked and he had traveled to Seward’s house to dispel the rumor. When he witnessed the bloody scene at the Seward house, he then proposed to Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy who had arrived at the Seward home at the same time, that he would go to Ford’s Theatre. As he was getting ready to depart Major Thomas Eckert rode up on horseback, he having just come from the scene outside of Ford’s Theatre. Major Eckert advised Stanton against going to 10th Street for fear there might still be assassins amongst the throng of people. As we know, Stanton decided to go anyway. In the trailer, the man to whom Stanton asks about the President and his whereabouts is Major Eckert.
• Mary Lincoln is shown mournfully climbing the steps to the Lincoln funeral car in her black mourning attire while a steady rain falls. This is an example of understandable dramatic license on the part of the series. In reality, the bereft Mary Lincoln was too overcome with grief to participate in the public funerary events for her husband. She did not escort Lincoln’s coffin on the funeral train and, as far as I know, never set foot on the train where her husband and son’s remains were transported. The scene does make for a touching visual, though.
• There are a few character collages that pop up during this trailer. The first is titled “The Hunters,” and shows the actors playing the figures of Edwin Stanton, Col. Lafayette Baker, Thomas Eckert, and Boston Corbett.
• At the 40-second mark, a voice is heard saying, “It’s a code” and then a cipher cylinder is shown. It will be interesting to see how this is worked into the series. As I’ve written about previously, there’s a lot of confusion and misinformation out there about John Wilkes Booth’s so-called “Confederate” cipher. During the investigation, a paper Vigenère table in Booth’s handwriting was found in his trunk at the National Hotel. It was admitted into evidence during the trial of the conspirators. A Vigenère cipher cylinder like the one shown in the trailer was also entered into evidence. This cylinder had been captured from the Confederate offices in Richmond along with coded letters. However, there is no connection between Booth’s Vigenère table and the seized Confederate cipher aside from the format being the same. A Vigenère table is merely a tool for encoding or decoding information. We know of no coded letters written by Booth or his conspirators. The Vigenère table was likely Booth’s attempt at playing “spy,” as he would like to boast to his sister, Asia. While the Confederacy used their ciphers to send coded messages, there is no evidence that Booth ever participated in this. No coded notes from the Confederacy have ever been found mentioning Booth or his plot. The purpose of admitting the cipher cylinder as evidence at the trial was due to the fact that Confederate officials were also being tried, in absentia, for Lincoln’s murder. The fact that Booth owned a Vigenère table was the government’s weak attempt to connect Booth to the Confederate government. While having a Vigenère table may seem damning, it’s more akin to trying to connect Botoh to Jefferson Davis because they both had crossword puzzles on their desks. The government was desperate to put the blame for Lincoln’s death on Confederate officials, which is why they threw everything they could against the wall, hoping something would stick.
• The second character collage grouping is called “The Conspirators” and shows John Wilkes Booth, David Herold, Mary Surratt, and John Surratt. I look forward to seeing where the miniseries places John Surratt on the night of the assassination. Will they depict him as being in D.C. that night or up in Elmira, New York, as he always stated?
• While the actor playing David Herold is talking, there a brief scene is shown of a man emerging from a brick alleyway near Ford’s Theatre, likely meant to be the alley between Ford’s Theatre and the Star Saloon next door. He catches sight of Edwin Stanton and then attempts to run when he is stopped by Thomas Eckert. It all happens so fast it’s hard to tell who that character is meant to be. My best guess is that it is supposed to be Edman Spangler. I hope I’m mistaken, as that scene would be pretty unfair to ol’ Ned. Spangler never attempted to flee from the authorities who interviewed him multiple times before officially arresting him. As one of the few conspirators that most historians agree was innocent of any involvement in Booth’s plot, it’s hard to see him acting as if he had a reason to flee. But I could be wrong about my identification here.
• Stanton is shown holding a Lincoln mask, complete with strings presumably for attaching to one’s face. I can’t say if masks like these ever existed. This mask is based on a genuine Abraham Lincoln face mold that the President sat for with sculptor Clark Mills in February of 1865. Plaster and bronze copies of this mold can be found in many museums and Lincoln sites around the country. Many folks confuse this mold to be a “death mask” of Lincoln made after his assassination, but it was a life mask made when the President was alive.

Clark Mills’ plaster life mask of Abraham Lincoln. 1865

• The special effects department did a good job of photoshopping their Booth actor into the famous images of Lincoln’s second inauguration. We know that Booth was present on that day, and in 1956, photography historian Frederick Hill Meserve pointed out a somewhat familiar mustachioed face in the crowd to readers of Life Magazine.
•  The collage of “The Informants” shows the characters of Mary Simms, “Wallace,” Joseph “Peanut John” Burroughs, and Louis Weichmann. I don’t know who “Wallace” is, but that is the character name actor Josh Stewart plays, according to IMDB. My guess is that this identification is a mistake. My money is that he is supposed to be Mary Surratt’s tavern renter, John M. Lloyd.
• I’m not trying to harp on it as I’m sure the actress will give a great performance, but I feel it’s important to reiterate that Mary Simms was not at the Mudd farm during John Wilkes Booth’s escape. Mary and her family had been enslaved by Dr. Mudd, but they left the Mudd farm in 1864 when they were freed after the new Maryland state constitution prohibited slavery. Mary Simms did testify at the trial of the conspirators, but her testimony had nothing to do with John Wilkes Booth. She was a prosecution witness against Dr. Mudd, testifying about his Confederate sympathies and disloyalty during the Civil War. Mary Simms did not interact with John Wilkes Booth during the escape. All of the scenes where they appear together or of her at the Mudd house in 1865 are completely fictitious.
• Since the actual layout of the box at Ford’s Theatre has not been replicated, the assassination scene has been understandably altered. In the trailer, we see Major Rathbone apparently jump down to the President’s box after the shot. Booth slashes at him a couple of times, knocking him back. Rathbone does not appear to make a last-second grab at the assassin’s clothing as he testified. Instead, the miniseries appears to show that Booth gets tripped up by the decorative flags, a common enough version of the events. The portrait of Washington that was affixed to the front of the actual box does not appear to be present in this recreation (or if it is, it does not get knocked to the stage when Booth makes his jump).
• I do like how one audience member is seen to climb onto the stage and give chase to Booth after the shot. That’s a nice nod to Major Joseph Stewart, “one of the tallest men in Washington,” who was the only audience member to quickly run after the assailant.
• There’s a scene of a mustache-less Booth riding fast through a village of some sort during the daytime. This is likely another case of dramatic license. After shaving his mustache off at Dr. Mudd’s, Booth made his way under the cover of darkness to Samuel Cox’s home and was then secreted in a nearby pine thicket. Once in the thicket, Booth and Herold’s horses were disposed of. After this, the only times Booth rode on a horse was when sharing it with another person and never at breakneck speed. It certainly helps with the action, though.
• Mary Simms is shown in conversation with Louis Weichmann, apparently motivating him to disclose all that he knows. As far as I know, Mary Simms and Louis Weichmann never interacted with each other. While Weichmann was arrested and pressed to divulge what he knew about the conspirators, Mary Simms was never arrested. She was only brought forward to testify at the trial a month after the assassination.
• As we expect with trailers, the last bit is full of quick edits that build up the action. The scenes fly by so fast that it’s too difficult to break them all down. But I am curious as to what urban-looking building is on fire at the 1:45 mark, the identity of the pretty lady apparently tending to Booth at 1:46, and is Stanton holding a baseball in his hand when he embraces Lincoln at 1:34?
• I enjoyed hearing the cast speak about the series. Patton Oswalt, in particular, seems like he enjoyed his role, which is wonderful to hear.
• The costuming for all the characters is really well done. Everything looks the period as far as I can see, and the details are exceptional.

I’m not sure if they will tease us with another trailer between now and the miniseries’ debut on March 15, but if they do, I’ll be sure to let you all know. I’m really looking forward to seeing the whole thing in about a month’s time.

In the meantime, Happy Birthday, Abe!