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Member FDIC. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint.
It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer.
Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and time. Finally, detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs.
Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com. Hi, I'm Steph, and I work at United Healthcare. When I think about United Healthcare's members, I think of my own family. My niece was diagnosed with an ultra-rare genetic disorder. I know how hard it is for families at United Healthcare.
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The story of April 14th, 1865 often plays out like this. John Wilkes Booth and his accomplices solely planned and then attempted to decapitate the U.S. government. Following the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, in a desperate attempt.
to save the Confederacy. The real story is more complicated than that, though to understand what happened earlier. We need to understand what happened later in American history. Here to tell the story as the best-selling author of The Unvanquished, Patrick K. K.
O'Donnell. Let's get into the story. We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this important bulletin from the United Press. This country is at war with Germany. You're gonna fight your nigga long.
We shall never surrender. In the summer of 1940, The Axis powers are really on a roll, steamrolling the planet. And Their shadow warfare capabilities, specifically with special operations forces, are incredibly effective. The United States doesn't have a large standing army, it's tiny, and it has no special operations forces or intelligence organization. And it's the special operations component that Wild Bill Donovan, in particular, focuses in on.
He knows that having some sort of a commando-type group that can act on intelligence that's gathered from spies is an important part of the shadow warfare. He kind of pioneers a combined arms of shadow warfare where they look at it in its totality: it's intelligence collecting, it's propaganda, but it's also operatives, special forces, as we know today, that were a very big focus. And What we find in American history is we develop things and then we lose them. It's almost like a sign curve. And the United States has a very rich history in special operations, going back all the way to the 1680s, and Benjamin Church and forces that would range and attack Native Americans because they had to fight.
In an irregular manner. But in 1941, there was no Special Operations Forces.
So Donovan had to look back at something, and he looked back at our first modern war, the American Civil War. And he specifically looked back at three groups born in this cauldron where through the compression of war, They had to find unique ways to fight back, and they fought back irregularly through special operations. One was Mosby's Rangers of the 43rd Battalion, which is in Virginia. And these are men that were mounted on horses that attacked Union wagon trains, captured bridges. And most importantly, they tied down through their irregular warfare tens of thousands of Union soldiers because they were constantly harassing the supply lines and causing trouble.
It's John Singleton Mosby who develops much of modern irregular warfare. And there needed to be a force to counteract that, and that is the Jesse Scouts. They are the first counterinsurgency unit in the United States Army. They go after partisans like Mosby. They also lead the federal armies.
They could get out front and they could gather intelligence on the enemy. They'd find the weak points. They'd communicate messages between the lines. They also went after high value targets. They went after the South's most dangerous men.
They wear the uniform of their enemy. They wear Confederate uniforms, which is an incredibly dangerous thing to do because if you're caught, you're considered a spy and you can be executed immediately. And many of these men would die. And that leads to the third group. The Confederate Secret Service.
They were very good at developing spy gadgets, such as time bombs, to developing underwater torpedoes, to developing landmines, but they were also the masters of propaganda, one thing after another that we see in today's modern world. And it's no wonder that Donovan pens a letter to President Roosevelt that says that we need to go back to our older ways, our traditions of the scouts, rangers, and the secret service, which is filled with lessons learned that the OSS eventually in 1942, when it's rebranded from the Coordinator of Information to the OSS. Utilizes these tactics and techniques, and we see them today in the U.S. Army Green Berets and later in the CIA as well. Confederate Secret Service is this very nebulous organization that's opaque.
And it's deliberately so. It consists of men and women that were in different departments. They had an area that was devoted to spies, for instance. And they had a department that was geared towards gadgets. This is the torpedo department.
It was run mainly by the Reigns Brothers. They were called the Bomb Brothers because they specialized in blowing things up. One Rains Brother built the Augusta Arsenal, one of the few public works projects that the Confederacy undertook. It's a massive gunpowder works, and it was really a modern miracle. The Confederate armies were pretty well supplied, even at the end of the war.
And the other brother was involved in the Confederate Secret Service building gadgets, kind of like the Q's laboratory. And he built everything from time bombs that were small. Like, for instance, this is not a time bomb per se, but he built a small lump of coal that was hollowed out. And within the cavity, they placed gunpowder. And this little harmless piece of coal would then be given to operatives, and they'd go up to a steamboat.
And they would just pitch it near the boiler room where the rest of the coal was, and nobody would know any better. And one of the boiler tenders would shovel that lump of coal in with another shovel full of real coal. And before you know it, the boiler and the entire steam blew up and hundreds of lives would be lost. They also had a diplomatic section that worked with foreign powers to influence them to change the course of the war. And in the spring of 1864, Jefferson Davis sent several men on a steamship.
To run the blockade from South Carolina through the Atlantic up to Canada. They were carrying certificates worth several million dollars in gold. and they make their way to the St. Lawrence Hotel in Montreal. And let me sort of set the stage here.
This place is fascinating. The St. Lawrence is one of the best hotels in the area. It's opulent, but It serves mint juleps year-round. To cater to the Confederates that are either expatriates, Confederate prisoners of war that somehow escaped from the North, to men like these guys.
They set up a node or a branch of the Confederate Secret Service in Canada because it's a neutral area, but also as Canada is also somewhat friendly to the Confederacy because it's in their interest. Britain and France loves the idea of a divided United States because it's easier to control and contain. And these guys set up shop there. And their main job is to influence anybody that'll take the side of the Confederacy because they see that the North has a massive superiority in numbers. But if they can change things diplomatically.
Either getting France or England on the side of the Confederacy. or changing things internally through the Democrat Party. Influencing the election of 1864 that would be favorable to the South. That's what they're there for, and they're very effective. Yes.
There's a number of men that are there. One is a guy by the name of Clay, who's a former senator from the South. He's on the dollar bill of Southern Confederacy. And then there's George Sanders, who's kind of my favorite character. They call him piranha, like almost like a pirate.
overweight fat He's always kind of puffing on cigars. He's surrounded by beautiful women. He's got this ability to influence people. but he's also obsessed with something called the theory of the dagger. And that involves executing tyrants or despots.
He spends much of his time in the 1850s in Europe, and it's here that they advocate for tyrannicide or killing leaders that are so-called tyrannical. and he's also a big time operative within the Democratic Party. And at the time, there is a rising movement within the Democrat Party called the Copperhead Movement, and this movement is a peace movement. And it's George Sanders that is the link for the Confederate Secret Service with the Democratic Party. And that involves the governor of New York.
Many others, but the main character is an Ohio congressman who is disgraced named Clement Laird Valandia. And when we return more of the story of the Confederate Secret Service. here on Our American Stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years.
And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semiq.
That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter.
Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness. About advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com. You've watched racing.
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Early pay not guaranteed. APY equals annual percentage yield. Membership eligibility required. And CUA insured. And we return to Our American Stories and the story of the Confederate Secret Service, telling the story as Patrick K.
O'Donnell, author of The Unvanquished. When we last left off, Patrick was telling us about the Confederate Secret Service's attempts to. to disrupt the election of 1864. The man who would facilitate that attempt the most, a disgraced former senator named Clement Laird Valandium. Let's get back to the story.
You'll also be hearing Kate Clifford Larson. Valandium is from Ohio, holds a massive rally that draws over 10,000 people. It's an anti-war rally and says things that are pro-Confederate. And he's eventually exiled by Abraham Lincoln to first the South, and then he leaves voluntarily and goes to Canada. And Clement Laird Valandium is an asset of the Confederate Secret Service in every way.
They do some extraordinary things. They craft the campaign platform for 1864 for the Democratic Party, which is a campaign platform of peace. It's an armistice, and it's couched in the sense that it will be some sort of negotiation. But the Confederacy knows that once you start a ceasefire, the guns aren't firing anytime soon. They never will.
It's a master stroke. It also means preserving slavery, which they have a euphemism for everything, which is like, you know, existing law must be preserved. And it is the campaign platform that's written by the Secret Service, and then it's brought to Chicago. Clement Laird Valandium sneaks back into the United States under an assumed alias, and he's at the convention in Chicago with all these other copperheads. And they pass their campaign platform, and they also elect George McClellan.
As their candidate. But their vice president is a hardcore copperhead and Valandium's right-hand man. And then what's fascinating is the Secretary of War will be Clement Laird Valandium.
So nobody in their right mind could ever imagine them prosecuting the war like Lincoln did. Let me just sort of Go back a little bit in time though, to March 1864. It's in March 1864 where there's a raid that takes place, led by a guy by the name of Dahlgren, who has a You know, in battle, he lost his leg. He has a wooden leg. His father is the name the Dahlgren Gunn comes from him.
And he is a gung-ho character. Cavalry leader that convinces another guy, Judson Kilpatrick, that he wants to be part of a raid. This raid, though, is special. It's a decapitation mission to go after the South. Specifically, their goal is to burn Richmond to the ground and execute the Confederate Cabinet, including Jefferson Davis.
And they make it through multiple areas of the defense of Richmond. But ultimately, they're denied access, you know, they have to cross a river, and there's supposed to be a ford there. But it turned out that their guide, who is African American, just didn't anticipate the tide of the river changing because of the winter, and they're trapped. And it's eventually the Home Guard and a mix of other troops that kill Dogrin and many of the men that are in this specialized raid. Within his wooden leg are orders from the Secretary of War to do this decapitation mission to kill Jefferson Davis and burn Richmond.
This has a They get the orders, and it's like, oh my god, the war is now suddenly. It's the black flag was raised and they're going all out.
Now that the North had done that or tried to, the South felt that they had to respond in kind. And this is where the operations to decapitate the North really originate. The origins of the Color Revolution can be tied to eighteen sixty four. And something called the Northwest Conspiracy. The Confederate Secret Service's plans to launch an insurrection.
The Confederate Secret Service had kind of two plans or two faces of their plan. One was violent, and the other one was more of a use of the current political machinery. The more violent side, though, they planned to have hundreds of thousands of men, part of the Copperhead movement, rise up. Um Color revolution is a modern term that we use for. Many of the insurrections that have occurred.
you know, in the last 20 years. Where a color is involved, like the orange revolution. There was a color revolution in Ukraine, for instance. And what you see on the surface is the population overthrowing whatever the established government is. But There is a hidden hand.
behind it. In every case, that is actually fomenting. the population funding it. Directly influencing or specific key components of the current regime, whatever it is. And that's what was going on.
They were planning a massive insurrection. They also had a decapitation plan where they were going after the friendly union governors of these states. It's supposed to take place in Chicago, 1864, at the time of the convention. In fact, it's the Sons of Liberty, which are the main group under Valendium, this shadowy group within the Copperhead movement, that provides security at the convention, but also is potentially going to work with the Confederate Secret Service. And the Confederate Secret Service was sending them arms.
About 40 operatives come down from Canada, and they also planned for a massive prison break, one of the POW camps, Camp Douglas. Which would have tied down tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands potentially of Union troops, and it succeeded. The plan is neutralized because the Copperheads are absolutely convinced that they will win the election. They back down, it fizzles. And this special operation that we now talk about that's really profound is after the election is lost.
They're looking at a way to somehow kidnap Abraham Lincoln.
Okay. The plan is really hatched. In Montreal at the St. Lawrence Hotel. It's Sanders and Company and others.
And oh, by the way, John Wilkes Booth. Visits the hotel.
Now John Wilkes Booth was one of the most famous actors in America at the time. He was born into an acting family. His father was a famous actor. He grew up in Maryland. He had strong Southern sympathies.
So he hatched this idea, and I don't know where it came from. The excuse is that he's going up there for extra costumes. It's preposterous. I think what makes this so interesting is. The story that we were all told is that Booth had, you know, his kind of gang of guys they get together down in Washington, D.C., and they decide to hatch this plan.
And the reality is, it's hundreds of people. It's well financed and it's financed by the Confederate Secret Service. It is. And Booth is a braggart. I mean, inside of the St.
Lawrence Hotel, in the lower area, there's a billiards room. And you can kind of picture the smoke-filled room and the mint juleps going around. And he's in there in sort of. Makes these references that we're going to change the world, and it's quite fascinating. But it's here that he gets a lot of his planning for this operation.
And he's also given some key operatives that are also coming up to the hotel. John Surratt, for instance, is one of them. John is a youthful 20-something that is one of their best operatives. And he comes and goes from the St. Lawrence and goes on different missions.
And he's often accompanied by a woman. By the name of, they name her the Frenchwoman, because she knows, she speaks French, typically wears a veil. You know, fascinating story. Her husband is a Confederate soldier that's always at war, never comes home, and she's just had enough of it. and volunteers or services to become a spy.
Booth then moves back to New York City by rail, meets other operatives there, which the place is teeming with them, and then comes back to Washington, D.C. Uh And thus was hatched the plot To kidnap Lincoln. By the way, there have been many attempts to assassinate Lincoln, including on his journey from Springfield. To Washington, D.C., way back when he first took office. We told a terrific story about that journey.
On the show. When we come back, more of the story of the Confederate Secret Service here. on Our American Stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years.
And now it takes form in a new way. The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q.
That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q. Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter.
Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs. Learn more and take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com. Yeah. You've watched racing.
Now get behind the wheel. At Kaizen Autosport Racing School at VIR, professional race drivers teach you how to drive faster, safer, and with more confidence on one of America's legendary racetracks. Never driven on track? We'll get you started. Already experienced, we'll take you to the next level.
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And we return to Our American Stories and the final portion of our story on the Confederate Secret Service and the secret plot to kidnap. as you'll hear now, and kill. Abraham Lincoln. Let's return to the story. The Confederate Secret Service has a very elaborate plan to kidnap the president.
They realize the best thing that they can do is to somehow seize him somewhere and, by carriage, bring him across to Maryland and into the eastern portion of Maryland, which is all southern. Thirteen Confederate states in the south separate from the Union. Maryland. STAYS IN THE UNION. Part of it by strong-arming on the part of the Lincoln administration, but there was an appetite in Maryland to not be part of this sectional crisis.
They have an entire line of a rat line, if you will, of messengers and couriers and even doctors that will be utilized to secretly move the team through Maryland. And then to a boat, and then ultimately to the northern neck. And it's here at the northern neck that they needed a security component. The United States Army has posted soldiers throughout southern Maryland because they knew that so many of those southern Marylanders were communicating with and aiding and abetting the Confederacy across the Potomac. They needed a security component to bring the men through not only Maryland, but also through the Northern Neck.
Mosby's Rangers. What we find is in the winter of 1864, Mosby splits his command almost in half, and mysteriously, hundreds of men in multiple companies go down the Northern Neck. Ostensibly, it's to get fodder for their horses because there's none up here. It's a nonsense argument. They're there to provide security.
for the potential kidnapping operation. The next main component is none other than one of the South's most dangerous men, Lewis Powell. Who is a Sort of hulking ranger that's silver-tongued that can get his way out of anything. Great with a gun, has this amazing charisma, and they. to part with other Rangers to Richmond.
And he connects with the Confederate Secret Service. And he then Dessert. Or at least that's a story. But it's preposterous. He deserts to Baltimore and joins the most dangerous special operation of the war.
Which is the plot to kidnap the president? He makes his way to Baltimore. He's handled entirely by the Signal Corps and Confederate Secret Service. I've got all the receipts on this. And then he gets a telegram to arrive at Mary Surratt's house in Washington, D.C.
He shows up, and there's all these other sort of older women. And there's a piano in the main room. He comes in kind of this dashing figure. He's very attractive and handsome. And he claims he's a preacher.
And it doesn't, you know, he gets, he sits down and he starts to play the piano and he's charming the women. And they're like, this is the most handsome preacher I've ever seen. And just has this electric kind of presence. And uh He then sort of fits into the group. And they start to plot to kidnap the president.
The first is a sort of harebrained plot where they find out Lincoln is near a federal building a few miles away from the house, and they attempt to seize his carriage. It doesn't work out. And then they plot and scheme. Lincoln makes an announcement, and he's out in the open air near the White House. Booth actually encourages Powell, who's an expert shot with a pistol, to try to kill the president right then and there.
And Powell demurs. And then another event takes place. One of the stories that I don't think has ever really been told And that is a plan to blow up the White House. Mosby's Rangers are utilized to conduct a. Ostensibly a raid to seize some supplies, but it makes no sense at all near Burke Station.
But their plan was to confuse the Union forces nearby and allow another man or a few men. that had detonators. They were from the Confederate torpedo works. To then infiltrate to Washington, D.C., where they would attempt to blow up the White House. But the plan was foiled by the 8th Illinois Cavalry, and Booth somehow gets word that that operation failed.
And it's at that point. that they believe Many believe that it was the French woman that infiltrated back into Washington, D.C. And gave Booth and his team the orders to execute the president. It's a classic decapitation mission. There's also another man that's.
Assigned to the vice president. Interestingly enough, the Secretary of War, who's one of the most powerful men, isn't targeted. But the plan is kicked off at Ford's Theater. The other elements of the plan also occur. The man that was, the operative that was sent after the vice president drinks heavily and just gets cold feet and doesn't do it.
But Powell goes after Secretary Seward, who's very sick at this point, bedridden, and they have a plan to infiltrate his house. It's quite clever. He poses as a pharmacist that is delivering medicine to him. And one of the other conspirators actually worked as a pharmacist mate. He had all the right packaging and everything to say, gets to the door.
And said, I'm here to deliver the medicine. And they don't believe it at first. And he keeps saying over and over, I have to deliver this medicine. Then he sticks his foot in the door and bursts in and kind of does a, you know, checks one of Seward's bodyguards. and charges up to the room and pulls out his pistol.
And at point blank range, Fires at Sewart, but it misfires. Then he pulls out a dagger and starts to just. You know, hack the Secretary of State practically to death. And he's, you know, somehow able to dodge, even as he's getting knifed. None of his vital organs are hit, but he's just turned into a Swiss cheese, basically.
But then they get Paul somebody takes gets him off him and he flees down the the in the middle of the night and goes on on the run basically. And for several days he tries to escape Washington, DC, and but he's not able to do it. And he goes back to the boarding house. And he goes back at exactly the wrong time because northern investigators are inside the house. And he's immediately questioned, and the story doesn't check out.
He's arrested. And there's a massive and sweeping manhunt to try to find Booth. Coincidentally, several of Mosey's men find him. And he is escorted to another safe house and uh he's hides in a barn. The north is able to put pieces of information together through one thing or another, and one of most men is rounded up.
and it leads back to the barn. The barn is surrounded and they try to get Booth to come out willingly. and they set fire to the barn. And there's orders not to shoot, but a Sort of deranged. Member of the Union Cavalry by the name of Boston Corbett, a man that is a literally a mad hatter, fires into the barn and it hits Booth and he's He's mortally wounded.
What's interesting is they pull out his diary, which is fascinating. It includes maybe 100 or so pages, and in those pages, it talks about how he went up to Montreal to kidnap the president. They eventually round up. The conspirators, all of them. And there's a trial.
And it's, you know, it's a quick trial. I mean, they want justice. Mysteriously, Booth's diary has never entered into evidence, and the northern judges and authorities attempt to convict the other conspirators. and Lewis Powell. And they also try to connect Jefferson Davis and the Secret Service to the entire plot.
But It fails miserably. The prosecution Utilizes witnesses that are tainted. They provide evidence that is false, demonstrably provable false, which destroys the entire case. We find out later is that George Sanders, one of his last actions. was to coach these men on how to perjure themselves.
brilliantly to blow up the entire federal case. And that is exactly what happens. They're convicted, but the Confederate Secret Service is off the hook, so to speak. They don't link it to them. They link it to Booth and as a madman, as a kind of a lone gunman theory, right?
I think it's interesting. I mean, one thing that is out there that we must consider. is what if they were they were convicted? And that the Confederate Secret Service was tied. to them.
It's interesting because it would have meant a continuation of the war, you know, instead of the reconciliation that takes place. That's one possibility. It's unmistakable. The organization and the money that was needed to pull this off is something that only could have been done. By like a state actor, which would be the Confederacy, versus a lone wolf like John Wilkes Booth.
as he's portrayed. The story again of the Confederate Secret Service here on Our American Stories. Liberty has never been just a word to we Americans. It has guided every one of our endeavors for the past 250 years. And now it takes form in a new way.
The 2026 Semi-Quincentennial Coin and Metal Program from the United States Mint. It celebrates the founding ideals that have long shaped our coinage. Available one year only, this historic collection features new coin designs, limited edition releases, and reissues. Shop new official coins at usmint.gov forward slash semi-q. That's usmint.gov/slash S-E-M-I-Q.
Spending time outdoors, then let's talk about skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancers, or NMSCs, including basal cell carcinoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, are the most common cancers in the U.S. and can become harder to treat if left undetected. That's why sun protection and timely detection matter. Our sponsor, Regeneron, is raising awareness about advanced NMSCs.
Learn more. And take the pledge to see a dermatologist annually at Let's Get RealaboutskinCancer.com. You've watched racing.
Now get behind the wheel. At Kaizen Autosport Racing School at VIR, professional race drivers teach you how to drive faster, safer, and with more confidence on one of America's legendary racetracks. Never driven on track? We'll get you started. Already experienced, we'll take you to the next level.
Ready to race? Earn your competition license and learn real wheel-to-wheel racecraft. Stop watching, start driving. Go to racevir.com. That's racevir.com.
Upgrade to elite checking from America's Christian Credit Union and earn up to 3.5% APY. Plus everyday perks and access to your paycheck up to two days early with early pay. Don't settle. Choose checking that rewards you and aligns with your values. Visit America's ChristianCU.com forward slash iHeart.
Minimum balance of one cent required to earn advertised APY. Early pay not guaranteed. APY equals annual percentage yield. Membership eligibility required. And CUA insured.
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