The ingenuity of the criminal class has rarely been criticised for lacking in imagination. One of the finer examples of this concept was put on full display in America, on the eve of the presidential election in 1876, When a group of shady crooks, who took the American Dream of making money a little too literally, decided they needed to bust one of their own from prison. The affair that unfurled led to one of the strangest stories in criminal history, featuring a small bag of relatively useless tools, an undercover secret service informant and the remains of a dead president.

Stahlman Speer, Bonnie (1997) The Great Abraham Lincoln Hijack. Reliance Press, USA.

Craughwell, Thomas J. (2009) Stealing Lincoln’s Body. Belknap Press, USA.

Rhodes, Karl (2012) The Counterfeiting Weapon. Econ Focus, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 16(1Q), pages 34-37.

Tarnoff, Ben (2011) Moneymakers: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Notorious Counterfeiters. Penguin Press, London, UK.

Power, John Carroll (1875) Abraham Lincoln: His Life, Public Services, Death & Great Funeral Cortege… Edwin A. Wilson & Co. Springfield, USA.

Glaser, Lynn (1960) Counterfeiting In America. Clarkson N. Potter, USA

The Rock Island Argus (1875) The Counterfeit Plates Found. The Rock Island Argus, Wed 3 Nov 1875, p2. Illinois, USA.

Chicago Tribune (1876) Horrible - Dastardly Attempt To Despoil The Lincoln Monument. Chicago Tribune, Wed 8 Nov 1876, p5. Chicago, USA.

Chicago Tribune (1876) Lincoln - The Violators Of His Tomb Arrested In This City. Chicago Tribune, Sat 18 Nov 1876, p1. Chicago, USA.

Chicago Tribune (1876) Lincoln’s Remains. Chicago Tribune, Sun 19 Nov 1876, p8. Chicago, USA.

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories

Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

& Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/

Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf

The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices