"Abraham Lincoln's Execution", by John Chandler Griffin

The central thesis of this book is that Lincoln's execution was planned by Vice-President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. I'm somewhat dubious about the mostly circumstantial evidence of this conspiracy theory, so I'd like to focus on the more interesting parts of this remarkable book.

What is clear is that John Wilkes Booth did not die as the history books allege, but rather he lived under assumed names in various places in the South until January 13, 1903, when he died by suicide in Enid, Oklahoma. Those who knew Booth andf saw the body all said that the red hair of the body killed in 1865 showed that it was not Booth. Those who killed this person were out to claim a substantial reward, so had every reason to claim it was Booth. In 1994 an effort was made to exhume the body so that DNA testing could settle the matter. Booth's next of kin were in favor, but a judge ruled against this effort.

The Mary Surratt debacle is especially tragic. The military commission in charge of the court-martial initially voted against hanging her. Stanton was outraged, and pressured the commission to impose the death penalty. They then reached a compromise wherein they would vote for death, but then present a petition asking President Johnson to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. Johnson never acted on the petition, and there is some question about whether Stanton ever actually presented the petition to Johnson.

The saga of Mary's son, John Surratt, is perhaps the most interesting part of the book. He was in Canada at the time of the execution of Lincoln, and remained there with a series of Confederate sympathizers for several months. On Oct. 25, 1865, the State Dept. was informed that John was planning to go to Rome. Rather than aggressively pursuing him, the State Dept. rescinded the reward offer, and allowed him to remain free for a over a year. Eventually he was captured and brought back to the U.S., where he stood trial in a civilian court, the Supreme Court having prohibited a military court. He received a vigorous defense, and the jury hung 8-4 for acquittal, When he was retried, the government dropped the murder charge, and his counsel pointed out that the statute of limitations had expired on the lesser charges, so the judge had to dismiss the case.