"Lincoln's Last Days" Vocabulary from Part Three

Robert describes “the stately elegant Lee” and Grant, “the small stooping shabby shy man in the muddy blue uniform, with no
sword and no spurs.”

Robert describes “the stately elegant Lee” and Grant, “the small stooping shabby shy man in the muddy blue uniform, with no
sword and no spurs.”

“Dundrearyisms” (named for the befuddled character Lord Dundreary), have become part of everyday speech, and several spin-off
plays featuring characters from the show have been written and performed.

“At least bring a guard with you,” Stanton pleads, once it becomes obvious that Lincoln will not be dissuaded.

John Wilkes Booth prowls Ford’s Theatre alone, thinking of how he will accomplish the assassination and make his escape.

He lifts it, nervous but elated, knowing how he will make use of it tonight.

However, hedging his bets in case things go bad, Booth says he wants the letter back if he finds Matthews before ten tomorrow morning.

It’s a petty and spiteful trick, designed to implicate Matthews, who will be onstage in the role of Richard Coyle during Our Amer¬ican Cousin.

At last, John Parker ambles down the hallway, patting the bulge in his jacket to show that he is armed.

So far, the only blemish on Parker’s record while serving the president is a penchant for tardiness, as Crook knows all too well.

Thanks to his military training, Powell knows the value of reconnaissance.

Though Johnson is a vigorous man, he is known to be unguarded and alone most of the time.

He moonlights as a smuggler, ferrying mail, contraband, and people across the broad Potomac into Virginia.

After leaping from the balcony Booth will stand tall and, in his best actor’s voice, pronounce the Latin phrase sic semper tyrannis—thus always to tyrants.

Lewis Powell continues to pound on Frederick’s head without mercy, blood spattering the walls...

The secretary wears a splint on his broken jaw, which, luckily, deflects the knife away from the jugular vein, but it does little to protect the rest of his skull.

“Freedom!” he bellows down to the audience.

Instead of a gallant two-footed landing on the stage, Booth topples heavily from the state box and lands awkwardly.

Because he saw that Major Rathbone’s wounds were caused by a knife, and because he hadn’t heard any gunshots during the performance, Leale deduces that Lincoln was stabbed.

Though they are far more experienced, army surgeon Dr. Charles Sabin Taft and Dr. Albert King defer to their younger colleague because Dr. Leale was first on the scene.

Mary is like a child, so forlorn that she lacks the will to protest as others make decisions for her.

Secretary of War Stanton arrives, makes the room next to Lincoln’s his headquarters, and takes charge, acting as interim president of the United States.

A deep, softly sonorous cooing sound at the end of each expiration, audible to bystanders.

As she is carried from the room, she steals one last glimpse of her husband.

“I have given my husband to die,” she laments, wishing that it could have been her instead.