Manhunt (2024) recounts the 12-day hunt for Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. The series is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Manhunt (2024) opens up in the 1860s with an assassination attempt on Secretary of State William H. Seward, who survives the attack.
Five days before the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, on April 9, 1865, the President receives the news of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton passes the message to the press that the Confederacy is dead and the Union is saved. Celebrations are in the air.
However, five days later, John Wilkes Booth, a stage actor who is not a fan of Lincoln’s work, learns that no guard is around Lincoln at Ford’s theatre while Lincoln is enjoying a play.
Making use of the chance, John Wilkes Booth assassinates Lincoln by shooting him in the head in front of the whole crowd and escapes with the help of his associates. President Lincoln is pronounced dead the next morning at 7:22 am.
The Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, takes over the investigation to hunt Booth down, while the political landscape of the country is shaken.
Is Mahunt based on true events?
Manhunt is part non-fiction and part conspiracy thriller and follows the manhunt to track down Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
Near the end of the American Civil War, John Wilkes Booth conspired to revive the Confederate cause.
He aimed to achieve this by assassinating the three most important federal government officials. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was a crucial part of this conspiracy.
Apart from Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson were also targets. However, the plan ultimately failed.
Seward survived with injuries, while Johnson’s assailant got drunk and failed to kill the vice president. Booth manages to kill Lincoln and do his part, but after being on the run for 12 days, he is tracked down and killed.
The series is based on the New York Times-bestselling non-fiction book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson.
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