Manhunt Season 1 Episode 4, “The Secret Line,” opens with Stanton (Tobias Menzies) asking Conover (Josh Stewart) to write an editorial response to the Manhattan Weekly’s cover story accusing Stanton of inspiring Booth with his own failed assassination attempt on Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a controversy known as the Dahlgren Order.
While Stanton and Baker (Patton Oswalt) insist that the Dahlgren Order is Confederate Propaganda, Stanton assiduously avoids directly answering Conover’s question as to whether he ordered the assassination of Davis. Conover resignedly agrees to pitch the story that the Dahlgren Order was forged. Baker directs him to get it into the papers that night.
Once Conover’s left, Stanton tells Baker they need to trap George Sanders (Anthony Marble) as he’s a leader and major funding source for the Confederacy. Sanders is the best way to tie Booth to the Confederacy.
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Mary’s Done
Mary (Lovie Simone) scrubs the hallway floor by hand in the dim light of morning. Dr. Mudd (Matt Walsh) arrives and directs her to make him a coffee as he needs to head out to deliver a baby. He tracks dirt in on his shoes, then scolds her because she hasn’t been cleaning the mirrors daily. He revokes any further holidays because he needed her on Easter when she had a day off.
Mary considers the situation and drops her scrub brush. She announces that she quits. He scoffs at her and asks where she’d live if she quit working for him. She shows him her land grant. He warns her that owning property won’t fix everything. She retorts that he kept her as his property, refusing to let her go even when she’d run to Pennsylvania, so she suspects something binds them together more than he’ll admit.
She tells him to clean his own damn mirrors and runs out the door. He calls after her to come back.
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Manhattan Fire Plot – Five Months Before the Assassination
Sanders addresses a group of Confederate supporters. As he speaks on how abolition will ruin America’s economy, they prepare homemade explosives in glass jars. The plan is to set New York City on fire, overwhelming the fire brigade and thus convincing New Yorkers to secede from the Union as well.
A man in a bowler hat approaches the LaFarge Hotel. He shakes a jar and throws it through a ground-floor window, starting a fire in the front parlor. Then, he shakes another jar and throws it through a second-floor window. As the flames take hold and people start screaming and evacuating, he runs away.
Baker’s men nab him before he gets very far. Baker questions him and searches his bag. They find another explosive jar and a ticket to Montreal.
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Follow the Money
Stanton asks a federal judge for a search warrant to find out whether Sanders deposited the $500 in Booth’s account in Montreal and to raid his properties.
The judge points out that after the Fire Plot, Baker couldn’t get a warrant even with six hotel owners and a conspirator testifying against Sanders. Stanton acknowledges that the local judges are on Sanders’ payroll, so he’s approaching a federal bench judge. The judge advises Stanton to stop Sanders’s financial streams and the men who could stop that income. Stanton nods in understanding.
Baker and his men raid The Gold Room on Wall Street to arrest all the wealthy Confederate-sympathizing men in the room. The 11 a.m. update comes in, and the room cheers to see Gold and Cotton go up while the U.S. Greenback takes a hit. They break into song, singing “Dixie,” just as Baker’s men break down the door and raid the room.
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Baker questions Jonathan Lamson (Bill Kelly), who identifies himself as Stanton’s first father-in-law and demands his release.
Mary’s Dream
Out on her land grant, Mary and a community of people set up to begin building. They’ve also brought in a chalkboard, and Mary plans to teach anyone who wants to learn everything she knows about reading.
Missing in Action
In the West Village, Eddie Stanton Jr. (Brandon Flynn) informs his men that the security team assigned to the First Family has disappeared. He assigns all available War Department officers to the family’s security. Mary Todd Lincoln (Lili Taylor) is still in the house, attending the wake. After the wake, she and her son will travel to Philadelphia with the coffin.
Inside the house, Mary sits talking with Edwin Booth (Nick Westrate) about her husband’s love of the theater. Stanton arrives to find many of the mourners reading Sanders’s piece in the Manhattan Weekly. Eddie tells him that Robert Lincoln (Maxwell Korn) wants to institutionalize Mary.
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Three Months Before the Assassination
Lincoln (Hamish Linklater) and Stanton are working when Mary comes in, upset that Robert wants to enlist and fight. Lincoln supports his son’s decision. They argue with Mary, emphasizing that she cannot endure more grief in her life. Stanton offers to place Robert in Grant’s company, where he stands a better chance of surviving.
Mary takes that as a compromise but demands they both endeavor to win the war as soon as possible. Speaking on behalf of all mothers, she is adamant that their sons are not endangered a second longer than is required to win the war. Lincoln gives his word.
Brothers
At the wake, Stanton speaks to Robert and tells him to support his mother and to stop making excuses. Edwin Booth comes over to discuss how he can salvage his family’s name. Stanton questions him about his relationship with Wilkes (Anthony Boyle).
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On the night of the Fire Plot, the Booth brothers argue over Wilkes’s support of the Confederacy and how it affects the audience’s response to shows they both perform in. Edwin reminds him that most of the Northern audience members have sons in the Union Army. He feels that when Wilkes performs on the same stage, the audience could conflate the brothers and mistake Edwin for a Confederate. He feels it’s a stain upon his reputation.
Wilkes concedes and states that he’ll just play Virginia and to audiences sympathetic to the South. He informs Edwin that even New York is full of Confederates.
Out in the Thicket
John Wilkes Booth and Herold (Will Harrison) discuss Booth’s diary. Herold asks about Booth’s childhood. Booth recalls a game he’d play with his sister where they would give command performances to his father’s young slaves, having dressed them up as royalty.
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He offers one to Herold, who asks for a recitation of Edgar Allen Poe. Instead, he recites Shakespeare’s Richard III speech from Henry VI, Part III, Act V, Scene 6 for him.
Booth sinks into a depressive funk. Herold gives him a pep talk about how he’s become greater than his name and the stage. His diary will be his legacy. Furthermore, Herold states that he’s important to him, an unimportant nobody Booth chose as his guide.
Sanders Strikes Back
Stanton walks into Baker’s office, which is being cleaned up after a burglary. Baker finds the file on Conover emptied but tells Stanton all his files were locked and nothing important was taken. They debrief the Gold Room raid. Stanton asks if his father-in-law was swept up in the raid. Baker confirms he was.
Stanton invites Lamson to a luncheon with Eddie. He tells Lamson he knows Sanders and Johnson have made a deal. Lamson says that Johnson’s given Sanders the summer uniform contract for the Union army, a contract under Stanton’s jurisdiction as War Secretary. They bicker over the memory of Stanton’s first wife, Eddie’s mother. Stanton walks out, leaving money to cover the meal.
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On the Move Again But Slowly
The River Ghost (Keith Brooks) tells Booth and Herold that it’s time. Meanwhile, Conver visits Sanders, asking about the uniform deal. He points out that Stanton has to sign off on the contract. Sanders agrees to make a deal with Stanton, but it has to be face-to-face in Sanders’s office that evening.
At the U.S. Union Army Hospital, Eddie finds the First Family’s security team quarantined for smallpox. The doctor informs him they all received new uniforms from Sanders Clothiers the night before.
Showdown With Sanders
On his way to Sanders’s office, Stanton is attacked in an alley by a man wearing a plaster mask. He survives the attack but suffers another asthma attack.
He recalls talking with Lincoln after Mary’s interruption. Lincoln asks what the fastest path to victory and Stanton states removing Davis would be key. Speaking theoretically, Stanton questions whether the Confederate States are a legitimate nation and, if not, if Davis is a legitimate president. If he isn’t, the rules of engagement regarding removing a sitting president would not apply.
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Lincoln endorses this reasoning and tells Stanton to meet with Admiral Dahlgren’s son and form a plan. When Stanton asks if they are still thinking theoretically, Lincoln orders him to get it done.
Stanton arrives at Sanders’s office. Sanders dismisses his manservant for the evening. Stanton lays his cards on the table and offers the uniform contract in exchange for Booth’s whereabouts. Sanders says that information is impossible to come by. Stanton asks for the map of the Confederate Secret Line agents. Sanders informs him that the contract doesn’t mean anything to him because he is so wealthy that he can live on his interest now.
He states America belongs to the white man, and he won’t sit by and let Stanton give it away without a fight. Stanton checks his pocket watch and tells Sanders he’s losing that fight. Sanders gets ready to leave and picks up a gun, pointing out he’d be a hero if he killed the man who ordered Davis’s death. Stanton stands up and dares him to fire the gun. Sanders replies, “I could fire this on Wall Street in broad daylight, and nothing would happen to me.”
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No Holes
Stanton raises his hands and slowly reaches into his inside jacket pocket. He pulls out a small gun and aims it at Sanders. He cocks the gun and fires it out the window. Police officers and Baker come storming in. Stanton’s gun is stowed, and his hands are in the air. Sanders is arrested.
Outside the building, Eddie watches Sanders get put in a paddy wagon. When Stanton comes out, he checks with Eddie to see if they’ve found the uniforms. Eddie confirms the uniforms were contaminated with smallpox. Stanton wants to know if there was a list of distributors.
They run to the inventory yard, where the shipment is about to be incinerated. They find the manifest, and Stanton realizes the distributors are all part of the Secret Line. Then, in Sanders’s office, Baker finds his stolen files and realizes Conover’s cover has been blown.
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Mary calls her first class to order. The first lesson will be how to write their names. Meanwhile, Herold and Booth stumble behind the River Ghost through a wind storm. Then, Sanders posts his own bond in cash and heads straight to The Gold Room. He is welcomed back to the trading floor with pats on the back.
Under cover of darkness, Booth and Herold get in a rowboat. As they depart, Booth recites Edgar Allen Poe for Herold.
In his office, Stanton looks over a map with the Secret Line agents marked on it. Meanwhile, Booth and Herold continue their journey down the river. In the light of dawn, Stanton and Eddie study the terrain by the Navy Bridge. With a Union Army guide, they ride out, following the map toward Virginia.
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Manhunt drops new episodes every Friday on Apple TV+.
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