On April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head with a single-shot pistol as Lincoln watched the play Our American Cousin with his wife, Mary, at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Booth jumped from the president’s box onto the stage, shouted “Sic semper tyrannis” (Latin for “thus always to tyrants”) to the audience of 1,500 people, and fled the building. Twelve days later, soldiers located Booth and his accomplice, David Herold, in a Virginia tobacco barn; a sergeant shot Booth, who died a few hours later. What happened during those 12 days is the subject of a new seven-episode Apple TV+ miniseries, Manhunt, based on the Kirkus-starred 2006 nonfiction bestseller by James L. Swanson. It premieres on March 15.

Civil War history aficionados are sticklers for detail. There’s a longstanding controversy, for example, about the words of U.S. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, one of several men present, when Lincoln drew his last breath. Did he say, “Now he belongs to the ages,” or the more pedestrian phrase, “Now he belongs to the angels”? Accounts vary, and there are arguments for both sides, but Swanson, in Manhunt, went with “angels” and explained his decision in an endnote. It’s a testament to the massive effort that Swanson put into his engagingly granular and copiously referenced account of the Lincoln assassination and Booth’s time as a fugitive.

At one point, for instance, he relates how Laura Keene, an actor in Our American Cousin and the manager of the acting troupe, cradled the head of the mortally wounded president in her lap. Swanson describes how Keene, “like a Victorian bride who lovingly preserved her wedding dress as a sacred memento of her happiest day, cherished the blood- and brain-speckled frock from this terrible night. In the days ahead, people begged to see the dress, to caress its silken folds, and to marvel at the stains and the scenes of high drama they evoked.” It’s a striking image, but one that doesn’t make it into the miniseries, created and co-written by Monica Beletsky, who previously wrote and produced episodes of Parenthood, The Leftovers, and Fargo. The series is accurate in its broad strokes but not too concerned with details.

This is clear in its casting of Stanton, played by Outlander’s Tobias Menzies, as the primary hero of the story. The war secretary was certainly heavily involved in the investigation into the assassination plot, which involved several people and included plans to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, too. Stanton deployed troops to lock down Washington, D.C.; directed War Department detectives; and jailed many of Booth’s partners in crime—but there’s no indication that he traveled to far-flung locales to question nearly every suspect and witness himself, as he does in the miniseries. As portrayed by Beletsky, the asthmatic Stanton has as much energy as 24’s Jack Bauer and pursues his unproven theories with the fervor of JFK’s Jim Garrison. All of this makes for a fast-paced, lively story, and Menzies does his best, but he never quite transcends his depiction as a 19th-century action hero. (He even lacks the real-life Stanton’s substantial beard; apparently, such luxurious facial hair is not befitting a leading man.)

The miniseries also unnecessarily embellishes the true histories of characters of color for dramatic effect. For example, Mary Simms testified in a military tribunal against her former enslaver, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who knew Booth and gave him medical aid shortly after the assassination. There’s no evidence that the real Simms ever met Booth in person—she doesn’t even appear in Swanson’s book—but the show has Simms, played by Greenleaf’s Lovie Simone, tending to the ailing assassin and even giving him a shave. Another person of color, Oswell Swann, was a skilled guide whom Booth and Herold briefly hired to lead them through the Maryland woods. In the miniseries, Swann shows open contempt for the pair and pushes back hard against Booth’s attempts to dehumanize him; it makes for a compelling performance by actor Roger Payano, but it doesn’t correspond with the Swann of the historical record.

Other portrayals, though, ring truer. Mary Todd Lincoln is very often depicted in films as a pathetic figure constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The real woman did suffer from migraines and depression—in part, due to grief over the loss of multiple children—but she also ably fulfilled her duties as First Lady, sometimes even accompanying her husband on his meetings with Union soldiers. Lili Taylor astutely portrays her as thoughtful and resilient—as one would have to be, with so much tragedy in one’s life.

The miniseries’ portrait of Booth as a repulsively vain, petty, and bigoted man with a monumental ego is also dead-on. The show does take time to address his fraught relationship with his father and brother, who were more famous and celebrated actors than he ever was; fortunately, it never uses Booth’s familial angst as an excuse for his vile behavior and evil acts. The Plot Against America’s Anthony Boyle does a stellar job as Booth, in large part because he never tries to garner the audience’s sympathy. It’s a case study in how to portray real-life monsters of history; if only the miniseries took as much care with the rest of the past.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.