‘Manhunt,’ about hunt for John Wilkes Booth, may make you wish you paid attention in history class

A new series transforms the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln into a true crime thriller that goes deeper into the story than most textbooks.

Most who studied Lincoln in school learn he was assassinated by a man named John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln was watching a play with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, at Ford’s Theatre when Booth came from behind and shot him.

What isn’t as widely remembered is that Booth killed the president just five days after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee effectively ended the Civil War. It was a pre-planned, coordinated attack on the president, Vice President Andrew Johnson and the Secretary of State. Only Booth was successful.

A Confederate sympathizer, Booth relied on a network of supporters to help him hide. Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War, led the search by the Army to track Lincoln’s killer down. He was found 12 days later hiding in a barn where he was shot and killed.

“ Manhunt,” debuting Friday on Apple TV+, dramatizes the hunt for Booth and the trial that followed. It’s based on the book “Manhunt: The 12-Day Chance for Lincoln’s Killer” by James L. Swanson. Tobias Menzies stars as Stanton, who also helped convict Booth’s conspirators.

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