Murdering Mr. Lincoln: A New Detection of the 19th Century's Most Famous Crime

by Charles Higham Narrated by Dan Cashman

Overview

In this startling and original work, best-selling author Charles Higham (Howard Hughes: The Secret Life) addresses one of the greatest historical mysteries: Did John Wilkes Booth act alone on the night of Good Friday, 1865, or was he part of a wide conspiracy? Drawing from letters, diaries, previously unstudied records of official hearings, railway timetables, and obscure shipping manifests, Higham weaves a spellbinding account of intrigue. He proves that Lincoln unwittingly sealed his own doom by enriching a circle of powerful people who marked him for assassination-high-level figures, including those in government and trade who were involved in the murder plot- and not John Wilkes Booth alone. Most of all, Murdering Mr. Lincoln resolves the disputed participation of accused co-conspirator John Surratt, whose mother was hanged for the crime.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

It's the nature of conspiracy theories to drag in ever more suspects, and this study of Lincoln's assassination casts a wide net indeed. Higham (American Swastika) implicates not only John Wilkes Booth's band of conspirators, but Confederate secret agents in Canada and Northern Democratic and Copperhead politicians and businessmen, including Union general George McClellan. Connecting them, Higham contends, was a network of semilicit wartime trade between North and South, facilitated by Lincoln and encompassing both his supporters and his enemies. Higham ties together a variety of Civil War figures and goings-on to suggest the hand of treacherous moneyed interests in Lincoln's murder, but he insinuates far more than he demonstrates. Much space is devoted to Confederate subversion operations and raids that had nothing to do with Lincoln's murder. Major claims-that Confederate agent George N. Sanders played a leading role in the assassination plot, or that assassination conspirators were motivated by considerations of Lincoln's "usefulness" to their own trading activities-are tantalizing, but not sufficiently substantiated. The McClellan-Booth link rests precariously on an anonymous report of a New York supper the famous general and the famous actor supposedly both attended. Scholars will be puzzled at Higham's interpretations-Copperhead congressman Clement L. Vallandigham is described as an "anarchist"-and stymied by his inadequate and sometimes garbled source notes. General readers will note that the text feels disorganized, a tangle of factoids. Conspiracy theorists and Civil War buffs may want to take a gander, but overall this book adds little to our understanding of the assassination. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

JUN/JUL 04 - AudioFile

In this brief examination, the author asserts that John Wilkes Booth and his small band acted on behalf of a cabal of powerful characters who wanted our sixteenth president dead. His evidence by no means convinces, but he at least keeps us interested with fascinating character profiles and a lively writing style. Dan Cashman sounds as if he were reading one phrase at a time, leaving inexplicable pauses between punctuation marks. He frequently mispronounces unfamiliar names and terms. Though he reads the sense of his lines with comprehension, he fails to give them much animation. Y.R. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175681421
Publisher:	Phoenix Books, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2004
Edition description:	Unabridged

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