In the chaotic days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, the United States launched what was then the largest manhunt in its history, chasing actor-turned-assassin John Wilkes Booth across Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Booth believed he’d scripted a heroic escape, but his grand plan unraveled as Southern sympathizers abandoned him and the dragnet tightened under the watch of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Over the next four episodes, hack historians James Ottley and Thornton Kennedy will follow the desperate flight that ended not in triumph, but in smoke, fire and a grim reckoning.