Story of the Gun that Assassinated Abraham Lincoln, Derringer

Can you Spot the Pistol?

Hey guys and welcome to another Walk-in Wednesday. I have a very interesting gun to show you today, in fact, take a look. Nothing in my hands, there's a point to this. It shows how easy this is to hide and that's part of the story. This is a cap and ball pistol from the 1800s, about 1850, 1860 made by Derringer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A lot more than I expected - 800 bucks

Now this came in on a Wednesday, Walk-in Wednesday that's why we have that but we're also going to do a little bit of education. You can tell from my props behind me that this turns out, it was a lot more than I expected. So I really don't sell old flintlocks or percussion guns, it's really outside my wheelhouse but from time to time people send them to us and this one in particular, honestly, I really didn't think much of it. It just didn't impress me at all. So I said hey, throw it on gun broker for $1 and see what it brings. I figured it would bring around $200 but in fact, it brought over $800 which surprised me. I couldn't figure out why until the guy who bought it contacted me when the auction was over and said hey, I don't know if you know it but that is very similar to the gun that shot Lincoln. Now, this is a picture of the actual gun that shot Lincoln. 

Let’s compare the two guns!

Let's go over some of the detail on this gun. So first and foremost, let's talk about the size of this gun because mine is about 4 3/4 inches and the gun that shot Lincoln is 5 3/4 inches. If you look at the design, the engraving is very much the same. Mine says Derringer Philadelphia as does the one that shot Lincoln. His is about an inch bigger overall but like the PP versus the PPK, it's not just an extended barrel, the whole gun, the frame and the barrel are just about an inch bigger overall. Mine comes in .41 caliber and the one that shot Lincoln, depending on what you read, it is either .44 or .45 caliber. So imagine a .44 or .45 caliber bullet coming out of a gun this small, made with wood. If you look at mine close up it may have been shot a few times because there are cracks in the wood. My gun has the basic same engraving. It has a P-proof on it, same as the one that shot Lincoln.

It has checkering on the grip and that's similar. You can see for takedown and I guess to take the barrel off and take this gun apart, I would remove the screw but also pull this pin out. Similar to a Colt single action army, you can just pop this through which I did. I decided not to take the gun apart because it really is an antique piece of history again from the 1850s, 1860s. Lincoln of course was shot in 1865. So the gun was used then by John Wilkes Booth. I'll do a little more history that happened at the assassination, just some interesting facts but let's do a little bit more about the gun.

The buyer saw the actual gun that shot Lincoln

For the John Wilkes Booth gun I don't have any close-ups of the underneath of it. The man who did buy this said he actually many years ago went to the Ford Theater. He commented that the security was very lax but he was able to go and see the gun.

Why pineapples?

On the bottom, there is a pineapple design and sure enough, you can see a pineapple on the bottom of mine. Now pineapples, why pineapple? They were actually the fruit of the very wealthy back then. So this would be a sign of wealth to have a pineapple on here, so it was desirable that way.

You could put your initials on the shield

Also you can see the little shield in the back. The John Wilkes Booth gun does have a shield on the back exactly like this and it is blank, this one is blank. I would imagine you would order this from the factory and if you so chose you could put your initials on it but I don't know that for sure. It just seems to make sense.

My Philadelphia Pride

On mine you can barely see it but on the John Wilkes Booth gun on top it also says Derringer of Philadelphia. Now I do have to claim some Philadelphia pride here. Derringer made some beautiful pistols back in the 1800s at the Philadelphia factory and one of my props right here, you will see a Philadelphia oops...we'll try that again. You can see my Philadelphia eagle super bowl ring and this was from 2017. Now, I dropped it on the floor and I know some of you guys get on me about the way I treat the guns and the super bowl ring. This is not real, these are very cheap online and my daughter...I shouldn't say it's very cheap and my daughter got it for me. These are inexpensive and my daughter got it for me. So a little bit of Philadelphia pride here. Now back to the gun and I'll try not to drop this one. That's why they don't let me handle the Lincoln assassination gun.

Assassins usually have three names!

John Wilkes Booth, have you ever noticed that anybody who assassinated somebody they give you three names. Martin Luther King was James Earl Ray, we know that Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald and there are a lot of other examples but certainly Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. I think I understand what that means because I knew I was in huge trouble when my mother yelled out the door Thomas Alan Whiteman, you get home right now! That meant trouble. So if you're an assassin you get all three names.

Correct me if I’m wrong!

So I already admitted that I don't know a lot about these but I know that these are cap and ball. We do have a demonstration of somebody shooting a similar gun but basically this still works. The hammer comes back. The reason I say that I don't know a lot about these because whenever I do something I don't know a lot about I always have people who respectfully correct me. I always appreciate your comments so please do. If I get something wrong please respectfully correct me but then there's also those people who call me an idiot and I don't like that that much. 
Shooting this .41 caliber 

So you put the cap on the nipple and that is to ignite the powder. Powder goes in first and then there's a cloth that goes in and then the ball. I already mentioned this is .41 caliber, I can't imagine this little gun in my hand and I'm going to shoot it. I can't imagine that it doesn't hurt. It reminds me of one of my favorite segments that we did of Ian shooting a Liberator. Let's just take a little clip of that. [Clip 06:46-06:52]. 

I wonder how John Wilkes Booth felt after the shooting?

And that's how John Wilkes Booth must have felt because in fact after he shot Lincoln and he was only about three feet away from his head, shot Lincoln, he immediately dropped it on the floor and then somebody picked it up. The Theater owner actually came back and picked it up later. But again remember his is in .44 caliber or .45.

Why are talking about a Walther?

The other prop I have back here is a Walther model 9. And you might say what does a Walther model 9 have to do with this? Just in comparison for size, I look at the size of the Walther 9 and this is in .25 caliber, this is in .41 caliber. Now this model 9, I have shot them and they're just, you know it's some kick for such a little, lightweight gun. So I can only imagine, I'm not going to shoot one but let's take a look at somebody shooting what is supposed to be a replica. But if you look at the gun you can clearly see that it's much cruder, it's a modern reproduction and it's certainly larger than the John Wilkes Booth gun. [Clip 07:55 -07:59]. So just watching that and again that seems to be a bigger pistol, you can imagine being at the Theater. It's a flash of light, there's a lot of smoke and powder, and a very large bang from a .45 caliber bullet.

Is he holding a Single Action Army Colt?

And speaking of the size of the gun, the other prop I have and I'll give you a close-up of it, this is one of the more famous depictions. Of course, there are no photographs but there's several sketches that people did, eyewitnesses and things like that sketches. And you can see in this one, in particular, it almost looks like he's is holding a Single Action Army Colt commercial model but a single action army.

The curator holds the actual gun

We actually have a little clip of the curator of the museum at Ford's Theater, that's where the gun is kept, and you can see him holding it. Similar to mine it's a very small pistol. You can also see how John Wilkes Booth would just have slipped it in his pocket in a day and age before metal detectors. Of course if the President was at the Theater there would be all kinds of security. In this case there wasn't.

Spare me the conspiracy theories

So let's take a look back. I want to do a little history of the assassination itself and maybe some little-known facts that I found interesting. There are books written about the assassination of Lincoln and just like any Presidential Assassination there's all kinds of conspiracy theories, including people who think that John Wilkes Booth was a vampire and that Lincoln was a vampire killer. So please spare me all the internet trolls, spare me all the conspiracy theories and again respectful comments welcome. But let me go over a few facts that I found really interesting.

The plot to capture Lincoln

So the assassination plot itself. This all happened back in April of 1865. The war had just ended and in fact John Wilkes Booth, the original plot was he was going to save the south. He was of course a southern sympathizer and he and a group of about seven conspirators, along with Mary Surratt who owned the boarding house, they had meetings at her boarding house, where they plotted to kidnap the president, hold him for ransom in exchange for all the confederate prisoners. Now they were low on men and material and so getting back all of the men that had been captured would have been a tremendous boost to the Confederate Army. So that was the original plot.

The war is over, so what now?

However, then the war ended. And it ended before they could carry out their plot. So with the war over, now John Wilkes Booth is really just angry, so he decides to continue the plot but this time to kill Lincoln along with several other people in high office. So among the list was the Vice President Johnson, also General Grant, along with Secretary of State William Seward. So one of the interesting facts that again I just...most of this I'm reminding myself and I'm probably just reminding you but it's cool stuff.

Lincoln saw it coming!

Just days before the actual assassination Lincoln had a dream, premonition of his own assassination. And he dreamt that there were mourners in the white house and he said why is everybody so sad? They said the President has been shot. He told a friend about that and it was recorded; so he did predict his own death just days before the assassination.

A night on the Town

So as most of you know the night of April 14th, 1865 Lincoln had decided to celebrate the victory. He hadn't been out for a night on the town in a long time. It was a very serious time, he didn't get out much and so he decided he wanted to go to the Theater. He wanted to take Grant and his wife but in fact, Mary Lincoln and Mrs Grant, don't know her first name, but Mrs Grant and Mary Lincoln did not get along. Now I have read in other books that Mary Lincoln was a little bit temperamental and not an easy woman but in this case Grant begged out of the invitation. So instead he in invited Major Rathbone and his girlfriend Clara to come along with him to Ford's Theater on that evening. They arrived late and when they came into the booth, the four of them came into the booth, they stopped the play and everyone gave him a standing ovation, of course, as the President who had overseen the victory over the Confederate Army.

John Wilkes Booth – the famous actor

So John Wilkes Booth was an actor of the time and actually quite famous and they said recognizable. When he visited bars and stuff people recognized him and he was loved by the ladies, considered a very handsome man. I personally don't get it but he was well known by the public and at the Theater because he had acted there many times. So he actually picked up his mail there and saw a billet that the President was coming to the Theater that night and that's what pulled the plan together. He thought this is the perfect opportunity, he knows the Theater really well, he has access to the back door and could come in at the appropriate time which he determined was 10:10 pm. He knew the play very well. Our American Cousin was a comedy and he knew the biggest laugh of the night would come right around just a little after 10 pm, after intermission toward the end of the play.

The final meeting

So he met one more time with the other conspirators at Mary Suratt's boarding house. There were seven of them total and they each were given an assignment. Some to help with the getaway, one person was to assassinate Johnson.

The Conspirator’s duties

That man in particular said later, I signed on for a kidnapping not an assassination. So instead, he went to a bar, got pretty drunk and said some really incriminating things that the bartender later remembered and used in testimony against him. Another conspirator was to kill Secretary of State Seward and he, in fact, did enter his home, stabbed about five people - servants and people who were in the home, went upstairs. The Secretary of State was convalescing in his bed, he stabbed him a couple times and actually cut his throat but he was actually in a brace because he had been hurt in a carriage accident and that brace saved his life. The conspirator left and assumed he was dead because he said there was blood all over the bed but he, in fact, did survive the attack. 

We strike at 10:10pm

So let's go back to John Wilkes Booth. The conspiracy was that they would all stage their attacks at about 10:10 pm. And so he went to a bar, I guess if you're going to commit a murder you probably should go to a bar and have a couple of drinks and that's actually what he did. And coincidentally, Lincoln's bodyguard, I don't want to laugh about this but this is so comical, his regular bodyguard had the night off or was indisposed. But they instead got one of the local police detectives off duty, paid him to be Lincoln's bodyguard when in fact he had something like 17 disciplinary actions against him. There was a door to the booth and he was to sit outside and guard the President to keep anybody from coming in. At intermission, he went to the bar and he sat there and had a few drinks and actually completely missed the whole assassination. John Wilkes Booth coincidentally, was in the exact same bar having a drink waiting to go over which he did.

It was time – the one shot!

At about 10:10 pm he headed across the street to Ford's Theater. John Wilkes Booth who was of course known to everybody who worked at the Theater, slipped in the back door. There was a guard there who let him in, thought there was nothing unusual. John Wilkes Booth was a frequent visitor at the Theater. He walked in with his little Derringer, easily fitting in his pocket, he walked right into the booth. It was the time of the comedic line when there's a lot of noise so he was able to walk in the back of the booth without being detected. And just about three feet from Lincoln's head he pulled the trigger. Of course, you get one shot and you're done. He immediately dropped the gun and then he was going to jump out the booth and run across the stage.

The final act

I think as an actor one final act, he wanted the glory of running across the stage. But as he went toward the front of the booth Major Rathbone grabbed him and tried to stop him. He grabbed his dagger and stabbed Rathbone, he was not seriously hurt and then of course, as you know he jumped to the stage and he yelled death to the tyrants and ran off the stage. There were people who helped him with the getaway.

The get-a-way that led to the end

We know he got across the bridge into Maryland and he knew that area very well and probably knew Dr Mudd, Dr Samuel Mudd. They went to his house and had his leg treated and splinted and they moved on from there. Of course, the end of the story or unless you're a conspiracy theorist, end of the story, he was caught by union soldiers at a barn. They burned the barn and shot him.

The Execution

The other conspirators were all rounded up very quickly and almost all of them were hung including Mary Surratt, who was the first woman to ever be executed by the United States government.

The one that got away or not!

One conspirator got away, he escaped to Canada and years later ended up in Egypt where he was apprehended in time. So most of the conspirators were hung. I believe there was about eight of them that were hung and that included people who helped them escape. Others were given life sentences.

Mudd’s Pardon

Dr Mudd was given a life sentence, they actually made a movie about Dr Mudd, and one more thing from my past. I always heard the expression when I was in trouble, your name's going to be Mudd. And I believe, just like remember my sniper video, blowing smoke, your name is going to be Mudd comes from Dr Mudd.  Was tried and sentenced to life in prison for treating John Wilkes Booth. However, many years later he was pardoned by the President of the United States at that time.

Really appreciate the help

Hey I hope you enjoyed this quick overview of this Derringer which I had no idea what it was until we sold it. It'll now go to the person who bought it. Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention and so that we could bring you this video. A little bit of history and a little bit of gun knowledge.

Thanks for watching!
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