A "lively yet thoroughly researched" look at persistent myths and stubborn scams, and how historians try to combat them ( The Courier-Journal).Did a collector with a knack for making sensational discoveries really find the first document ever printed in America? Did Hitler actually pen a revealing set of diaries? Has Jesus' burial cloth survived the ages? Can the shocking true account of Abraham Lincoln's assassination be found in lost pages from his murde...

Diverse perspectives on Lincoln's assassination, its aftermath, and its place in national memory from some of today's leading Lincoln scholars.The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln remains one of the most significant events in US history. It continues to attract the interest of scholars, writers, and armchair historians, ranging from painstaking new research to wild-eyed speculation. Now leading scholars of Lincoln and his murder offer in one volume their ...

"Succinctly and eloquently debunks 14 popular myths about the Great Emancipator's life and death [with] solid documentation." — Publishers WeeklyIn the more than 150 years since his death, Abraham Lincoln has become America's most revered president. The mythmaking about this self-made man began early, some of it starting during his campaign for the presidency in 1860. As an American icon, Lincoln has been the subject of speculation and inquiry as authors a...

Transcripts from the trial of John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators, plus commentary:"Unquestionably the world-class expert on . . . Lincoln's assassination." ― Civil War NewsOn the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in what he envisioned part of a scheme to plunge the federal government into chaos and gain a reprieve for the struggling Confederacy. The plan failed. By April 26, Booth was killed resisti...

The definitive, illustrated A-to-Z reference by "one of the nation's leading researchers on the Lincoln assassination" ( NPR's Morning Edition).The first book of its kind, The Lincoln Assassination Encyclopedia is an indispensable guide to one of the most dramatic and fascinating events in our nation's history: the murder of the sixteenth president of the United States. Written by Edward Steers, Jr., acclaimed author of Blood on the Moon a...

Did Abraham Lincoln hate his father so much that he would not visit him on his deathbed or buy him a tombstone? Is it true that Ann Rutledge, who died tragically young, was the real love of his life? Did he order the murder of thirty-eight Dakota Sioux warriors because of his hatred of Native Americans?Noted historian and Lincoln expert Edward Steers Jr. sets the record straight in this engaging and authoritative book, analyzing the facts and clarifying some of the most prominent m...

On May 1, 1865, two weeks after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, recently inaugurated president Andrew Johnson appointed John Frederick Hartranft to command the military prison at the Washington Arsenal, where the U.S. government had just incarcerated the seven men and one woman accused of complicity in the shooting. From that day through the execution of four of the accomplices, the Pennsylvania-born general held responsibility for the most notorious prisoners in American history. A stric...

In 1865 Americans faced some of the most important issues in the nation’s history: the final battles of the Civil War, the struggle to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, the peace process, reconstruction, the role of freed slaves, the tragedy of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, and the trials of the conspirators. In this illuminating collection, prominent historians of nineteenth-century America offer insightful overviews of the individuals, events, and issues on 1865 that shaped the future of...

Winner of the 2001 The Lincoln Group of New York's Award of Achievement A History Book Club Selection The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is usually told as a tale of a lone deranged actor who struck from a twisted lust for revenge. This is not only too simple an explanation; Blood on the Moon reveals that it is completely wrong. John Wilkes Booth was neither mad nor alone in his act of murder. He received the help of many, not the least of whom was Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the Charles ...

Did Abraham Lincoln hate his father so much that he would not visit him on his deathbed or buy him a tombstone? Is it true that Ann Rutledge, who died tragically young, was the real love of his life? Did he order the murder of thirty-eight Dakota Sioux warriors because of his hatred of Native Americans?Noted historian Edward Steers, Jr., sets the record straight in this engaging and authoritative book, analyzing the facts and clarifying some of the most prominent misconceptions abo...

In The Assassin's Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known participant in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government of the United States. Surratt, a Confederate sympathizer, ran the boarding house in Washington where the conspirators-including her rebel son, John Surratt-met to plan the assassination. When a military tribunal convicted her for her crimes and sentenc...

This innovative blend of biography and history “lets readers browse through a Civil War’s worth of presidential decisions” (Booklist).In this book, journalist Stephen A. Wynalda has constructed a detailed breakdown of president Abraham Lincoln’s decisions in office, in day-by-day chronological order—including his signing of the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862; his signing of the legislation enacting the first federal income tax on August 5, 1861; and more pe...