Richie's Picks: CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER by James Swanson, Scholastic Press,
February 2009, 196p., ISBN: 978-0-439-90354-7
"Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people
But it seems the good they die young
You know, I just looked around and he's gone." -- Dion
"The crowd gasped when they saw Lincoln being carried out of the theater.
They swarmed and surrounded the president. Leale, the doctors, and soldiers
cradling the dying president halted. Where should they take Lincoln? Leale
scanned the street for a refuge. Straining his voice to be heard by a
sword-bearing officer, he shouted a command. Take the president straight across
the
street and into the nearest house. A soldier crossed ahead, pounding on the
door, demanding entry.
"In view of the horrified mob in the street, Dr. Leale pulled another blood
clot from the hole in Lincoln's head to relieve the pressure on the brain and
tossed the gooey mass into the street. Fresh blood and brain matter oozed
through Leale's fingers.
"When Leale was halfway across the street, soldiers on the other side yelled
that the house was locked and no one answered the door. The scene was
incredible, impossible! Stranded in the middle of the muddy street with no place
to go, the president of the United States was dying in the presence of a mob
of hundreds, perhaps a thousand, witnesses."
It was no small feat to bring together a thousand witnesses in those days.
It was such a relatively small US population. Imagine if nine out of every
ten people around you instantly disappeared. That would give you a good idea
of how many people lived in the US at the end of the Civil War.
Nevertheless, I still cannot get my mind around how in those days "almost anyone
could
walk into the Executive Mansion without being searched and request a brief
meeting with the president." This, at a time when countless citizens of the
defeated Confederacy were actively plotting revenge against Lincoln, horrified
by his push for equality for African Americans, and blaming him for the loss
of their former way of life.
Given such circumstances, was there any way that Abraham Lincoln was not
going to get himself killed by someone like John Wilkes Booth?
"Their secret still safe from Mudd and his family, and their location a
mystery to the manhunters, Herold and Booth collapsed into their beds. As Booth
drifted off to sleep, he did not know whether his master plan had succeeded
or failed. Had George Atzeridt and Lewis Powell carried out their missions
and murdered Vice President Johnson and Secretary Seward? And what of the
president -- had Booth killed Abraham Lincoln, or did the tyrant still live?
Booth did not know he would be damned in the morning newspapers as the most
wanted man in America."
While Booth was carrying out his part of the plot at Ford's Theater, his
co-conspirators were having a less successful time completing their respective
assignments. (If they had succeeded then we would have all grown up learning
about President Schuyler Colfax and would have been told that Richard Nixon
was the first president impeached.) It is a scene worthy of a Marx Brothers
movie when William Seward's assailant Lewis Powell, pretending to be a
delivery boy, demands to convey a medication directly to the ailing Secretary of
State.
And then there are the bizarre tales of escape:
"Herold dipped the blades of the oars deep and pulled hard. After spending
so much time in the pine thicket -- a lost week -- it felt good to be on the
move again. Booth checked the compass bearings, They were supposed to be
rowing from Maryland west across the Potomac to Virginia, then south. But the
needle on the compass indicated they were headed north. Was the compass
broken? No, the compass was true. Herold was a good enough navigator during the
daylight, but not under cloak of darkness, and not haunted by the fear of
capture. He had been rowing for far too long: They should be in Virginia by
now. His palms and fingers were sore, and his burning arm and leg muscles
made it clear that they had already traveled too far. They had to land soon.
Herold spotted a familiar-looking landmark: Blossom Point, at the mouth of a
creek that ran north. The good news was that he knew the area and had friends
there who would help them. The bad news was that they were back in
Maryland! And they were further north than they had been the night before!"
As promised by the title, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER delivers a true history
thriller of a tale about how those involved in the scheme to simultaneously
kill Lincoln, Vice President Johnson, and Secretary of State Seward took off
that infamous night and were relentlessly tracked down. We learn about the
many accomplices -- some unwittingly so and others very consciously involved --
who, in some cases forever escaped punishment and, in others, came to know
the noose.
"Within a few minutes of the assassination, the news began spreading. First
by word of mouth from Ford's, then by messenger. It traveled no faster than
a man could run on foot or ride on horseback."
In the process of reading about the flight and pursuit of Booth and his
co-conspirators, we get a great feel for how people lived 140+ years ago: the
author fills the fast-moving story with enlightening details about technology,
medicine, communications, transportation, politics, and administration of
justice.
Imagine if Abraham Lincoln had, somehow, survived the hatred, the lack of
security, and the various schemes of kidnapping and assassination. Would he
have retired after two terms to return to life as a country lawyer, as he'd
recently told Mary he intended to do? Or would he have, instead, become the
first three- or four-term president? How might the long-term path of American
history veered differently if Lincoln had been in charge for years longer?
In the year that we commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER will have readers asking, "Why can't all
history books be this exciting?"
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
Moderator, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks
**************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy
steps!
(http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100000075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De
cemailfooterNO62)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation.
* LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
* LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
* EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/
* LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
* LM_NET Wiki: http://lmnet.wikispaces.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home